About five and a half feet in height, wearing his usual black shirt and ski pants, Arthur Wakefield tucked his clipboard and ever-present bottle of Pepto-Bismol under his arm and barreled in my direction, leaning forward at an acute angle. His taut, no-nonsense air made him look older than the twenty-nine I knew him to be. The director, Lina, a paraplegic woman who rarely left the production van, I had only met once. She gave her cues to the two cameramen and to Arthur via headsets. I had a full plate dealing with Arthur himself: He worried and complained enough for three people.

Clean-shaven down to the cleft in his dimpled chin, Arthur wore his ultracurly black hair combed forward, Roman-emperor-style. Dark circles under his eyes made me wonder about the hangover quotient. I braced to hear the latest crises.

"Here you are, then. Four minutes late." He tsked, then added, "Rorry Bullock was supposed to be here at seven. Nobody's seen her. Eileen Druckman should have arrived with her chef. So we're in a bit of a pickle. A gherkin, maybe."

"Just tell me what I need to know so I can get ready." I hesitated. "No Rorry?" Again, I felt guilt. I should have called her, maybe offered her a ride. . . .

"Do you know her?"

"She and Nate used to live near us. Rorry and I taught church school together." Glancing around at the chaos in the dining room, I had a sudden memory of the fun Rorry and I had had with our fourth-grade class, as we acted out the story of the Valley of Dry Bones. All of us had leaped wildly around the narthex floor once the boy playing Ezekiel prophesied. . . .

Arthur asked, "Did you know she was pregnant when the avalanche happened? They'd been trying for ages. Right after Nate died, she lost the baby." He sighed, and I wondered if the miscarriage, with all its attendant physical and emotional pain, was the reason Rorry had not responded to my letter. Why hadn't I followed up? "Everybody at the station loved Nate. And his shows were popular with the granola set." Arthur searched his pockets fruitlessly for an antacid. "So every year we do a memorial fund-raiser for him. The Federal Communications Commission only lets us raise money on air for ourselves. Sad, because Rorry needs money." He raised a black eyebrow at me. "I was hoping you, Goldy, could introduce Rorry. I wanted her to say a few words at the beginning of the show. She said no to me."

"I haven't seen her in a long time - "

He smoothed the top of his curly hair. "Just ask her yourself, will you? Do you have your script?" I nodded; he glumly assessed the top page of his clipboard. "Live fund-raising is not that different from taping. Just crack a joke if something goes wrong. Most important: If the phones stop ringing? We've got zip. If that happens, the camera will focus on the silent telephone bank. I'll cue you. Watch your screen. Be out here and ready to go at quarter to eight. Got it?"