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Fiona said, "Stop it." They turned.

"Just stop, bom of you," she said- "I'm tired to death of it. I'm tired ^rf Jesse Moran and I\n tired of the two of you, repeating your same dumb arguments and niggling and bickering, Ira forever so righteous and Maggie so willing to be wrong," "Why . , . J?iona?" Maggie said. Her feelings were hurt. Maybe it was silly of her, out she had always secretly believed that outsiders regarded her marriage with jenvy. **We^e not bickering; we're just discussing," she said. "We're compiling oar two views of tilings." Fiona said, "Oh, forget it. I don't know why I thought anything would be any different here," And she stepped into die living room and hugged Leroy, whose eyes were wide and startled. She said, "There, fliere, Ironey," and she buried her face in the crook of Leroy's neck. Plainly, Fiona herself was the one who needed consoling.

Maggie glanced at Ira. She looked elsewhere.

"Soapbox?" Ira asked. "How could you invent such a story?" She didn't answer. (Anything she said might look like bickering.) Instead she walked away from him. She headed toward the kitchen in what she hoped was a dignified silence, but Ira followed, saying, "Look here, Maggie, you can't keep engineering other people's lives this way. Face facts! Wake up and smell the coffee!" Ann Landers's favorite expression: Wake up and smell the coffee. She hated it when he quoted Ann Landers. She went over to the counter and started dropping chicken parts into the paper bag.

"Soapbox!" Ira marveled to himself.

"You want peas with your chicken?" she asked. "Or green beans." But Ira said, "I'm going to go wash up." And he left.

So here she was alone. Well! She brushed a tear from her lashes. She was in trouble with everybody in this house, and she deserved to be; as usual she had acted pushy and meddlesome. And yet it hadn't seemed like meddling while she was doing it. She had simply felt as if the world were the tiniest bit out of focus, the colors not quite within the lines-something like a poorly printed newspaper ad-and if she made the smallest adjustment then everything would settle perfectly into place.

"Stupid!" she told herself, rattling the chicken parts far the bag. "Stupid aid nosy-bones!" She slammed a skillet onto the stove and poured in too much oil. She twisted a knob savagely and then stood back and waited for the burner to heat. Now look: Droplets of oil were dotted across the front of her best dress, over the mound of her stomach. She was clumsy and fat-stomached and she didn't even have the sense to wear an apron while she was cooking. Also she had paid way too much for this dress, sixty-four dollars at Hecht's, which would scandalize Ira if he knew. How could she have been so greedy? She dabbed at her nose with the back of her hand. Took a deep breath. Well. Anyhow.

The oil wasn't hot enough yet, but she started adding the chicken. Unfortunately, there was quite a lot of it. Too much, it appeared now. (Unless they could coax Jesse back before suppertime.) She had to push the pieces too close together in order to fit in the last few drumsticks.

Peas, or green beans? That still hadn't been settled. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and went out to the living room to check. "Leroy," she said, "what would-?" But the living room was empty. Leroy's record had a worn sound now, as if it were playing for the second or third time. "Truckin', got my chips cashed in ..." an assortment of men sang doggedly. No one sat on the sofa or in either of the armchairs.

Maggie crossed the hallway to the front porch and called, "Leroy? Fiona?" No answer. Four vacant rockers faced out toward the streetlight.

"Ira?" "Upstairs," he called, his voice muffled-sounding.

She turned away from the door. Fiona's suitcase, thank goodness, still stood at the foot of the Stairs; so she couldn't have gone far. "Ira, is Leroy with you?" Maggie called.

He appeared on the landing with a towel draped around his neck. Still drying his face, he looked down at her.

"I can'-t find her," she told