Miss Zula said, “Dr. Parris took creative writing with me when she was studying here, and then she had Rivera Rosenblum—one of the film company people, the tall young woman with very dark hair?—in some of her undergraduate classes when she was on the faculty at Smith. She’s kept track of Rivera, and I keep track of Jude, and so the wheel goes round. We are a very small world.”

“Academics?” said the bank president.

“Feminists?” said Button Ogilvie.

“Academic women out of Ogilvie College,” said Miss Zula with a small smile.

“With a weakness for gambling,” added Jude Parris.

The two women exchanged glances, and John thought: Oh. There was something going on here beneath the surface, and curiosity flooded through him. To Jude he said, “So we have you to thank for Tied to the Tracks?”

“Essentially,” she agreed. “And now that you’ve raised the subject, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Rivera earlier, but I’m supposed to meet her and her friends a little later for drinks. If somebody can give me a ride to the Hound Dog?”

The Hound Dog, which Angie had successfully avoided for so long, turned out to be just what she expected. Bars were bars no matter where you went. Right now in Hoboken there were a dozen that could be mistaken for this one, with adjustments for décor and musical tastes. The Hound Dog was underlit, overcrowded, smelly, and loud, and while her first and only beer had tasted very good after a long day in the editing suite and then at the stuffy reunion reception, she really wanted to be somewhere else. She glanced at her watch again and told herself that John wouldn’t be home just yet. And if he was, well, then. She had waited, and so could he.

“You can’t have the keys to the van,” Tony was explaining to her in a ponderous tone. “You’ve had too much to drink.”

“No, you’ve had too much to drink,” Angie said. “I’m sober.”

“I knew it was one of us.” He pulled out his shirt pocket and crossed his eyes trying to look into it. “No keys. Ask Rivera.”

“She said you have them. Check your rear pockets.”

There was a hand on Angie’s shoulder, a firm touch that made her jump and her heart speed up. She turned her head.

“Hey, Wyeth,” she squeaked. “How you doing?”

Above his beard, Wyeth Horton’s cheeks were cherry red, from drink or dancing or both.

He said, “Come on and dance,” and towed her through the crowd by the hand without bothering to hear her thoughts on the subject. There was no chance of making herself heard over the band, she thought, but she’d be able to get away once they reached the dance floor.