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“Joseph! If your father could hear you. It pains him, you know, this flippancy of yours. And there is absolutely no use in your pretending you don’t go out of your way to needle him.” He could hear the tears in her voice, crouching, nearly ready to spring. “I should think you would want to keep in mind Dad’s heart condition, but I suppose you’re far too busy with this little venture of yours to give him, or me, even the slightest consideration. You know, you can be very selfish at times.”

“I know,” he said softly. “Mother, I really do have to go. Good-bye.”

Slowly, carefully, he lowered the receiver. Standing in his tiny, cluttered office, he gazed out the tiny ironbarred window that was eye-level with the sidewalk outside, watching a woman in spike heels totter past.

Oddly, he was remembering Caryn, and wondering what would have happened if Caryn had lived, if she’d had the baby. He-if it’d been a boy-would be almost five by now, old enough to understand things. Old enough, maybe, to have discovered that mothers and fathers could be real shits sometimes. Christ. What an awful thought.

He felt something brush up against him, and jumped a little, startled. It was Laurel. She slipped her hand into his, and gazed up at him as if she knew exactly how he was feeling. But how could she know? Was he that transparent?

Joe felt touched … as well as a bit panicked. He had a strong urge to get away, to run as fast and far as he could from those trusting blue eyes and the slim, delicate fingers wound about his. He could hear Annie in the kitchen, greeting Rafy and Holt, her strong voice ringing out, and he wanted to plunge into Annie’s bracing presence as if into a cool shower.

He had invited Laurel into his life. He’d coaxed her into warming to him. But now, Joe was suddenly gripped with cold fear. Would he only end up disappointing her? Maybe not today or tomorrow, but … someday? Would

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she know then what Caryn had known-that Joe Daugherty couldn’t be counted on?

dozen … nine … ten …” Annie stopped

counting and looked up from the trays of chocolates stacked atop the counter in Dolly’s cramped storage room. “Dolly, how are we ever going to have these ready in time?”

She picked up a bonbon-milk chocolate with a toffee-cream center, specially ordered for David Levy’s bar mitzvah, each one meant to go inside its own little silver-foil-covered box. Except the printer had screwed up, and instead of “Mazel Tov, David!” he’d sent over two hundred eighty-two unfolded two-by-two-inch boxes with “Forever, Jan and Jeff.” And here it was, Friday afternoon, too late for new ones to be printed-the bar mitzvah was tomorrow!

“We’ll have to find something to put them in,” Dolly said. “Oh, dear, how could this have happened?” She fiddled with the fuchsia chiffon scarf knotted about her neck. In the two months she’d been working at Girod’s, this was the first time Annie had seen her aunt looking so rattled. “Let’s see … wrap each one in tissue paper, and tie it with a bow? Uh-uh, too ordinary. And the Levys will have a cow. I promised them something really special.”

“What about silver foil?”

“They’ll look like Hershey’s kisses. No, no, it has to be something … well, that’ll make people sit up and take notice. Remember those little red-wrapped chocolate hearts we hung on silver cords for Nancy Everson’s wedding?”

“They had the bride and groom’s picture pasted on the back. How could I forget?”

“The point is, people remembered. Since then, four

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of those guests have called me, and want us to do their parties.” Dolly glanced through the open door at the front of the shop, where Gloria was waiting on a gray-haired woman in a tan raincoat. “The walk-in trade is nice, and important… but it’s the parties and hotel contracts where you make the real money.”

“Like records,” Annie mused aloud.

“Huh?”

“I was just thinking, you could sing the same song over and over … but you wouldn’t get rich off it unless you made a record and sold lots and lots of copies.”

“You get the picture. But that still doesn’t solve our problem.” Dolly swept her arm out over the trays of chocolates that Annie had just unpacked from their shipping carton, her silver bracelets jingling. Annie saw that her long fingernails were painted a bright magenta.

Annie, now staring at Dolly’s bright zigzag-patterned dress, was remembering something. That wonderful birthday party Dearie had thrown for her when she was maybe seven or eight-little sandwiches with the crusts cut off, a cake in the shape of a clown’s face, a man in a braided jacket with a pet monkey on a little red leash …

And a pinata-a bright-colored donkey made of papier-mโche, filled with wrapped candies and hung from the living room’s ceiling beam. She remembered being blindfolded, and swinging at the pinata with a long stick, missing it again and again, until finally she hit it with a hard thwock and felt it break open. Then tearing off her blindfold and watching the candies shower down, kids hooting and screeching as they dove to retrieve them. She’d felt so excited, like she’d made something magical happen, given her friends this wonderful gift.

“I have an idea,” Annie said, feeling herself grow excited as she spoke. “We could wrap these in foil or paper or whatever … and put them inside three or four pinatas. Let the kids break them open … and the adults have the fun of watching them.”

As soon as the words were out, Annie wondered if maybe she should have given her idea more thought before opening her mouth. Mexican pinatas at a bar mitzvah? But

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Annie grabbed her coat, and was heading for the door when she stopped and turned back to give Dolly a quick hug. Looking up, she saw there were tears in Dolly’s eyes.

“Thanks,” Annie mumbled.

“What for?” Dolly seemed genuinely not to know what Annie might say next.

“For …” She was about to say, For being there, for giving me this job, for being so nice to Laurey and me, but all she said was “… for everything.”

Someone was following her.

Annie had first noticed him as she was leaving the shop at six to go home, a thickset man in a rumpled khaki raincoat loitering by the mailbox. And now, glancing over her shoulder as she finished crossing Lexington on her way to the IRT at Seventy-seventh, she saw that he too was starting to cross the avenue-which meant he’d been following her for blocks. Why? What could he want?

Annie felt a pocket of cold form about her heart.

You’re being ridiculous, she told herself. Dozens of people, thronging the sidewalk, headed this way for the subway-why should she imagine this man was after her? And even if he was, probably he was harmless, the kind of pervert who just liked to follow girls.

He’d get tired of tailing her soon enough. And if he didn’t, she could easily dodge him.

But deep down, she knew that she was kidding herself. Over one eye, a pulse fluttered, and her legs felt rubbery. I’m going crazy, she thought, just like Dearie. Annie had been like this since that night Rudy had shown up-jumping at noises, glancing over her shoulder all the time. But that was stupid, she told herself. Val was thousands of miles away, and by now so was Rudy. And Dolly seemed pretty sure she’d managed to convince them both that, as far as she was concerned, they were barking up the wrong tree.

But what if she was wrong?

Annie saw a variety store up ahead, and ducked into

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it. Roaming the aisles, taking her time, she collected some of the items on Laurel’s list-balloons, crepe paper, poster paints. Annie would buy the starch and flour her sister would need to make the papier-mโche paste at the grocery store on Avenue J.

As she stood in line at the checkout counter, Annie tried to forget about the man in the khaki raincoat. Anyway, he’d have disappeared by the time she finished in here. It’d be as if he never existed. How could she have been so paranoid? Under the glare of the fluorescent ceiling strips, looking at the shelves of candy bars and greeting cards and camera film-ordinary things, stuff that everybody bought, nice normal people like postmen and schoolteachers-she felt pretty stupid, imagining she was being followed by some shady character out of a private-eye TV show.

No reason for Val or Rudy to be after her now. It had been three months since she and Laurel had come to New York, and more than a month since Rudy’s visit.

And since then Dolly hadn’t heard a word from either of them, not even a phone call.

Still, Annie took her time, even as she was checking out, counting her money out slowly, giving the clerk exact change in nickels and pennies.

Outside the store, Annie saw no sign of him. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of him, idling at a newsstand not far away, pretending to peruse the headlines. It was pretty dark, and the brim of his fedora was tipped over his forehead, so she couldn’t see his face. But she recognized the raincoat. He was definitely watching her.

Annie felt blood rush into her head, pressing like hot fingers against the inside of her skull. Her knees buckled a little, and she nearly collided with a woman carrying a briefcase.

As she passed the newsstand, Annie didn’t dare look over her shoulder; she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to go on if she did. But he was there. She knew it. The skin along her arms and neck felt tight, as if it had suddenly shrunk three sizes.

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Starting down the steps to the IRT, she grabbed hold of the iron railing to keep from stumbling. From the waist up, she felt strangely light, as if her upper body had melted down into her legs, now heavy and clumsy with extra weight.

He had to be connected to Val or Rudy. A private detective, maybe. Or else why would he be following her?

Her thoughts flew ahead to Laurel, alone back at the apartment. What if he followed her all the way there? Then they’d have to leave, right away, before Val and Rudy caught up with them and took Laurel away.

At the prospect of leaving Dolly and Joe and Rivka, Annie’s throat tightened. And then having to start all over, stay in some grubby hotel while she searched for another apartment …

Annie felt her knees buckle as she reached the bottom step. She had to gather up all her strength just to keep moving.

The station, she saw, was crowded. Maybe she could lose him. Rush-hour commuters streaming down the steps were jammed up against the turnstiles and pushing their way through onto the platform. A train had just pulled in. If she could somehow fly in there before the doors shut, then maybe she could leave him behind.

Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted him at the foot of the stairs, surrounded by commuters. But there were people in front of her, too. She wouldn’t make it unless the train waited, which they almost never did, or unless …

On an impulse, Annie darted forward. Clutching her package and purse under one arm, she vaulted over the waist-high railing to the right of the turnstiles. Her skirt caught on something; she could feel it ripping, and thought, Damn, it’ll be ruined. But the energy from every nerve ending kept her racing toward the train before its doors shut.

“Hey! Hey, you … stop!” she heard a man yell. God, he was yelling at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of navy blue against the grimy white-

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tiled wall: a transit cop, his badge glittering with reflected light.

She froze. You were supposed to respect the police. She remembered her fifth-grade class trip to the Beverly Hills Police Department. A grandfatherly whitehaired officer in a crisp blue uniform had given them each a sucker after their tour.

No! Annie thought. If he catches me, I’ll miss the train. And maybe he’d find out who I was, and arrest me … and … and … oh God …

Annie, freeing herself, darted forward, reaching the train just as the doors banged shut. She wanted to scream and hammer at it with her fists. No, it wasn’t fair!

Looking back, she saw that the cop was rushing toward her from the other end of the platform, weaving his way through the crush. And behind her, the man in khaki was just now pushing through the turnstile. She was trapped. It was only a matter of which one would get to her first. She felt herself grow faint.

Then a miracle happened.

The doors of the train jerked open, and she heard the conductor bawl, “Stay inside! Don’t block the doors! This train won’t move until everybody’s inside!” In that split second, Annie threw herself in, flattening herself against the almost solid wall of people already jammed inside. The doors banged shut.

She felt the train shudder, then jerk forward, picking up speed as it moved into the tunnel. With her shoulder wedged against the door’s glass panel, she watched the platform roll away from her like a bad dream. The man in khaki was standing at the edge; he’d missed her by a hair. She caught a glimpse of his face below the brim of his fedora-*-lightblue eyes, a reddish mustache, thin, sagging lips.

Then he was gone, and they were racing through the tunnel, black as a coal mine, except the white glare inside the car, which felt like a magic shield of light. A sob rose in her throat, and was choked off by the deep breath she sucked in at the same time.

Annie leaned her forehead against the steamy glass

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and closed her eyes. She was almost glad for the press of bodies all around her, a tide of damp-smelling wool, scarves, hats, packages, briefcases, which surged against her with every lurch of the train, seeming to hold her up, keep her afloat somehow.

Of all things, she found herself thinking about Joe, wishing he were here with her right now. He’d know how to make her feel better.

Like last weekend, when he’d taken Laurel and her skating at Rockefeller Center. She’d watched him with Laurel, patiently teaching her, one arm firmly about her waist as he guided her slowly across the ice. And Annie, not much of a skater herself, and with no one to help her, kept falling down and having to pick herself up. One spill had been really nasty, knocking the breath out of her and bruising her hip, and then she couldn’t seem to get upher legs scissoring, her skates flying out from under her. But she hadn’t yelled for help. She’d have died before humiliating herself. And just then, like the hand of God swooping out of nowhere, she’d felt herself lifted up off the ice, onto her feet, and suddenly she was sailing like a kite, Joe with his arm around her, holding her tight, his wool scarf fluttering against her cheek. For the first time since Dearie’s dying, Annie had felt wonderfully protected, like a child. And a little scared, too, because being a child also meant not being able to make your own decisions, not being in charge.