Golda gave a New Year’s Eve party and Rachel dressed for it under Golda’s direction. Golda took her to Port Jefferson to Maurice’s, and there Rachel bought a long maroon velvet skirt, and silk blouse to match, and Maurice himself stood in the door of the dressing room with his hand flat against his cheek, looking at Rachel. “Oy oy oy . . .” Maurice said, “she’s som’pin . . . vay iz mir, that face . . . but who does she look like?”

“Like herself,” Golda said.

He shook his head, “No one looks like themselves. . . .”

He left while the seamstress pinned up the skirt and Golda beamed at her, then he was back, pointing at Rachel: “I got it!” he said, “Gilbert Roland!”

The night of the party, she looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. She was too thin. Her chest was almost flat in the silk; but the maroon reflected some color in her face, and with her hair combed to the side the gray was partly hidden. When she went into the living room to show Levy how she looked, he stood up. “Some bura,**” he said softly. They looked at each other for a moment; she was Adam’s wife, dressed up to go out without him.

“Don’t come home too early,” he said.

When she got there, Golda led her to a slender man standing in front of the bowed window.

“Allan—here she is!” Golda crowed. The man turned, saw her, looked surprised and pleased at the same time. Golda took their hands and held them together, and Rachel looked at the heavy gold chain that stretched from one of his vest pockets to the other. It had a key on it, but she couldn’t tell for what honor, or fraternity, or if it was simply a piece of jewelry. Then she looked at him. He was tall enough, she thought. He had fine blond hair and a long face with thin features and wide blue eyes. He was handsome and she wondered what he was doing on New Year’s Eve waiting for a blind date.

The old Slavic bluntness came out before she could stop it.

“Why don’t you have a date?” she asked.

He laughed impulsively, and everyone turned around to see what was going on. Golda blushed purple. “He just moved in, Rachel. The Burns’s house?” It was huge. Allan-­whoever had money. He was still holding her hand.

“Allan Siegal,” he said, and she nodded. “I don’t have a date because I just got divorced. What’s your reason?”

“Didn’t Golda tell you?” She turned to Golda, but she was edging away into a group of other guests.

“She said you’re a widow.”

“Yes.”

“Recent?”

“I think so.”

He nodded; his eyes were kind. “And no one else does.”

“Something like that.”

“How long?” he asked.

“A year or so.”