He lurched forward, nearly falling. “Always happy to do the honors.” He seemed afraid of her, of her apartment with its settled furniture, lamps and end tables and china cabinet, regarding these things first with a strict, dry, inquiring look. After a few minutes, he resettled in the soft chair with exaggerated respect.

“To your career,” Peter said, raising his glass, appearing not to notice how the word career entered Hazel’s consciousness, waking her up from her haze of painkillers and making her want to laugh.

“To the glory of Kitchen Kult,” she said, suddenly reckless. She watched him, or part of herself watched him, as he twirled the glass and sniffed its contents. She braced herself for what would surely come.

“An excellent vin-” he started to say, but was interrupted by the doorbell.

It was only Marilyn, dropping in as she sometimes did after her self-defense course. “Already I can break a collarbone,” she told Peter after a flustered introduction, “and next week we’re going to learn how to go for the groin.”

She looked surprisingly pretty with her pensive, wet, youthful eyes and dusty lashes. She accepted some wine and listened intently to the story of Hazel’s accident, then said, “Now listen, Mother, don’t sign a release with Kitchen Kult until I have Edna look at it. You remember Edna, she’s the lawyer. She’s sharp as a knife; she’s the one who did our lease for us, and it’s airtight. You could develop blood poisoning or an infection, you can’t tell at this point. You can’t trust these corporate entities when it comes to-”

“Kitchen Kult,” Peter said, twirling his glass in a manner Hazel found silly, “is more like a family.”

“Balls.”

“We’ve decided,” Maxine told Hazel a few weeks later, “against the cottage in Nova Scotia. It’s too risky, and the weather’s only so-so according to Francine. And the cost of air fare and then renting a car, we just figured it’s too expensive. My rent’s going up starting in July and, well, I took a look at my bank balance and said, Maxine kid, you’ve got to tighten the old belt. As a matter of fact, I thought-now this may surprise you-I’m thinking of looking for a job.”

Hazel set up an interview for Maxine through Personnel, and in a week’s time Maxine did her first demonstration. Hazel helped break her in. As a result of a dimly perceived office shuffle, she had been promoted to Assistant Area Manager, freeing Peter Lemmon for what was described as “Creative Sales Outreach.” The promotion worried her slightly and she wondered if she were being compensated for the nerve damage in her hand, which was beginning to look more or less permanent. “Thank God you didn’t sign the release,” was all Marilyn said.