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She took so long deciding that Maggie felt a pang for Ira's sake, but finally she said, "Well, okay," and unfolded herself from the floor. "Tell about the professionally painted sign," she told Fiona. Then she followed Ira out of the room. The screen door made a sound like a harmonica chord before it banged shut.

So.

This was the first time Maggie had been alone with Fiona since that awful morning. For once the two of them were free of Ira's hampering influence and the hostile, suspicious presence of Mrs. Stuckey. Maggie edged forward on the couch. She clasped her hands tightly; she pointed her knees intimately in Fiona's direction.

"The sign's going to read FIONA MORAN," Fiona was saying. "LICENSED ELECTROLOGIST. PAINLESS REMOVAL OF SUPERFLUOUS HAIR." "I can't wait to see it," Maggie said.

She thought about that last name: Moran. If Fiona really hated Jesse, would she have kept his name all these years?

"On the radio," she said, "you told the man you were marrying for security." "Maggie, I swear to you, the station I listen to is-" "WXLR," Maggie said. "Yes, I know. But I just had it in my head that that was you, and so I . . ." She watched Fiona set the sponge and needle in the rowboat ashtray.

"Anyway," she said. "Whoever it was who called, she said the first time she'd married for love and it hadn't worked out. So this time she was aiming purely for security. '' "Well, what a ninny," Fiona said. "If marriage was such a drag when she loved the guy, Avhat would it be like when she didn't?" "Exactly," Maggie said. "Oh, Fiona, I'm so glad that wasn't you!" "Shoot, I don't even have a steady boyfriend," Fiona said.

"You don't?" But Maggie found the phrasing of that a bit worrisome. She said, "Does that mean . . . you have somebody not steady?" "I just barely get to date at all," Fiona said.

"Well! What a pity," Maggie said. She put on a sympathetic expression.

"This one guy? Mark Derby? I went out with him for about three months, but then we had a fight. I bashed his car in after I had borrowed it, was the reason. But it really wasn't my fault. I was starting to make a left turn, when these teenage boys came up from behind and passed me on the left and so of course I hit them. Then they had the nerve to claim it was all my doing; they claimed I had my right-turn signal on instead of my left." "Well, anyone who'd get mad about that you don't want to date anyhow," Maggie told her.

"I said, 'I had my left-turn signal on. Don't you think I know my left from my right?' " "Of course you do," Maggie said soothingly. She lifted her left hand and flicked an imaginary turn signal, testing. "Yes, left is down and right is ... or maybe it's not the same in every model of car." "It's exactly the same," Fiona told her. "At least, I think it is." "Then maybe it was the windshield wipers," Maggie said. "I've done that, lots of times: switched on my wipers instead of my blinkers." Fiona considered. Then she said, "No, because something was lit up. Otherwise they wouldn't say I was signaling a right turn." "One time I had my mind elsewhere and I went for my blinkers and shifted gears instead," Maggie said. She started laughing. "Going along about sixty miles an hour and shifted into reverse. Oh, Lord." She pulled the corners of her mouth down, recollecting herself. "Well," she told Fiona, "I'd say you're better off without the man." "What man? Oh. Mark," Fiona said. "Yes, it's not like we were in love or anything. I only went out with him because he asked me. Plus my mom is friends with his mom. He has the nicest mother; real sweet-faced woman with a little bit of a stammer. I always feel a stammer shows sincerity of feeling, don't you?" Maggie said, "Why, c-c-certainly I do." It took Fiona a second to catch on. Then she laughed. "Oh, you're such a card," she said, and she tapped Maggie's wrist. "I'd forgotten what a card you are." "So is that the end of it?" Maggie asked.

"End of what?" "This . . . thing with Mark Derby. I mean suppose he asks you out again?" "No way," Fiona said. "Him