5.

"So where's your man?" Her mother is immaculately coiffed, in a suit that could be Chanel, but will neither confirm nor deny. She has lipsticked her chardonnay in three different places, and smiles at the waiter who refills her glass. He pours one for Janice and she takes a sip.

"He was going to come. He got called back by work." And it's true, she had met him in his foyer and they had walked a couple of blocks together. He looked different in a suit, sober and handsome, and Janice felt like the figurehead of liner, her cheeks sea sprayed, coursing through an ocean of people. But then his phone rang, some problem with a credit-default swap, he had to get back, millions of dollars were at stake. So here she is, shipwrecked on a bench seat. She washes her tears away with a glass of water. She makes them glide backwards down her throat rather than her cheeks. This way, her mother cannot suggest the name of a good therapist, or barrage her with the you-don't-know-how-lucky-you-are-count-your-blessings bullets.

"Oh, Janice. I was hoping to meet him."

Janice and to disappoint are synonymous in her mother's lexicon. "That's so disappointing," she sighed, when Janice announced she wouldn't be going to the prom. "What a let-down," she said when she had returned home unexpectedly early to discover Janice and a stoner boyfriend half-naked on the living room floor. "I had thought you were more sensible than that," she said, when she broke down the bathroom door to the sound of Janice throwing up her fourth dinner for the week. "Oh, Janice," she said, when the drugstore rang up to report Janice's theft of a turquoise eyeliner and a roll of chocolate laxatives. Janice doesn't see why she's the one who disappoints. It's not as if her mother has been altogether satisfactory.

"I have some news, darling. I'm getting married again."

"You are? To whom?"

"Do you remember Tom? We played tennis doubles together. His wife died of cancer last year, and we've been seeing a little of each other at the club. He's here, actually."

"Where?"

"Well, I sent him off shopping because I wanted to tell you alone. I'll call him. Tell him to come by."

"No, don't." Janice doesn't think she can face her mother's new man when hers has slipped away.

"Oh. Alright, but you must meet him before the wedding. I'm here to look at dresses. We thought we'd make it September. When the leaves turn. I'll tell him to make his own plans." Her mother fishes in her bag for her phone. "Have you heard from your father lately?" she asks, and Janice knows it's a fake casual voice.

"Not since my birthday." He had called from Barcelona, his new wife was the curator at some museum there. He couldn't talk long, the baby was crying, his wails erasing Janice's voice as if it were chalk on a blackboard. Her father has a new life now, and she's just a lesson he once learned. She had been hoping that he would invite her over to stay, but he didn't.

"Tom? Just pick yourself up something for lunch. She's not taking it very well...she always has been emotionally fragile ...Yes, I know. I don't understand either. At least she's eating, she's filled out a little...okay, love you too. Bye sweetie." She pulls her ear piece out and holds the phone out long-sightedly to push the end-call button.

"Filled out a little? What, do I look fat?" Janice asks her mother. She snaps the menu shut.

"No, honey, you've just got a little flesh on your bones. It looks good."

"And what the fuck do you mean, emotionally fragile ? What about you? You think I don't know where you were when I was at boarding school?"

Her mother's face trembles, but then, as if trained to defuse family spectacles, the waiter appears. "May I take your order, Ma'am?"

"Why, yes, I'll have the quail salad. But could you please put the dressing on the side?"

6.

"Point of etiquette, number six. Bread-and-butter letters," says Janice. Peter paid for her to have a French polish, and now her normally naked nails are the colour of moonstones. She admires them holding her fountain pen. "After attending a social function or receiving a gift, one must always compose a letter. Forget about email, the watermarked heavy-wove paper is all part of the deal." She presses the nib down, and ink bleeds into the paper. "Dear Mom," she writes. "Thank you for inviting me for lunch. I still haven't forgiven you. I would appreciate a little honesty in our relationship. You say that Dad left because he got himself into a pickle with Rita, but don't you think his cheating was symptomatic rather than causal? The man wanted to study art, you made him study law. Shit, you had enough money to support him, why did you have to turn him into your father? Why are you such a control freak?"

"Cut!" says Peter.

"What did you think?" asks Janice. They didn't rehearse this, but she wants to be part of the creative process.

"I don't know, Janice. It's a bit heavy. It's not exactly what I had in mind. It's meant to be parody, not daytime soaps."

"What do you mean, daytime soaps? This is my life I'm talking about. I thought you'd appreciate a little bit of revelation."

"You of all people should know. You just don't talk about that kind of thing in polite society. You keep that to yourself."

"What, so you're polite society? Is that why you don't tell me about yourself? Is that why you still haven't invited me over to your apartment? I mean, hell, we've been going out for two months now. I'm beginning to think you might have a room full of your ex-girlfriends' heads."

"Oh, come on. The reason I haven't invited you over is because it's such a wreck, I'm embarrassed."

"I don't mind mess."

Peter looks around, taking in her white bed linen, her red vase with its single orchid stem in it. His eyes run along her rack of neatly hung clothes, and out the window where her geraniums burst from their pots. "Don't you?"