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before. As a growing thing, I mean, like a tree. So it comes to life, it grows to maturity, then what, death? It had never happened to me that way. A little later she asked me if I thought he saw a shrink.
    —No.
    —Why do you say that?
    —I just don’t think he does.
    —But why? He said he didn’t but I don’t believe it. Everyone in New York sees a shrink except me.
    —He’s from Miami. He’s a piano player. He’s a lush. Honey, I don’t know, I just don’t think he does.
    She didn’t want to hear the truth but at the same time candor was what she said she wanted.
    —What are you doing tonight? she said.
    —Some party Sidney wants to go to.
    —Come out with me. It doesn’t matter about the party.
    —It does to Sidney.
    —Constance, please.
    —Why is it a problem?
    —I’m afraid I’ll lose you.
    —Don’t be absurd. Iris, this is madness!
    She stood up. She walked to the window and with her hands on the sill she leaned out. I was suddenly afraid for her. I’d never seen her like this. It wasn’t just the man. I told her to come away from the window. She said the rain had stopped. We could go.
    We walked east to the seaport. The day was brighter now. The sun was breaking through. The stink of fish from the Fulton Street market made me feel nauseous. Iris suggested a cocktail.
    —It’s not even twelve o’clock, I said.
    —Just one.
    We sat at a table in an empty bar on South Street. I’d never known her to drink liquor in the middle of the day and it didn’t make me feel any easier about her. When she decided to have another one I had to speak up.
    —Won’t you need a clear head later?
    —No.
    —Why not?
    —The work I do, you think they care?
    When the affair with Eddie ended she’d quit her job at the hotel and joined an agency that supplied hostesses to nightclubs. They gave her three nights a week. It was enough to sustain life, she said. She didn’t have many overheads.
    —Isn’t that the truth. But I’m worried about you.
    It was true. I
was
worried. I didn’t believe Iris could be brought so low by a man—and a man like that! She laughed but it was hollow. As though she’d stopped caring what happened to her.
    —It’s not as though anyone gives a damn, she said.
    —I do.
    She said nothing. Suddenly I felt not that she was losing me but that I was losing her. I didn’t know what was going on. I’dassumed she was more resilient than this. She’d gone to the counter to get her scotch, and in the gloom of the place she was consumed by shadows and I couldn’t see her properly. I felt like she was drifting out to sea—
    You want a drink? said Sidney.
    I was rudely jolted from my somber thoughts.
    —Not yet. And I don’t think you should have one either.
    I was still angry with him. I think I was also guilty about Iris and taking it out on him. But what was I, some kind of alcohol cop now?
    —Sidney, sweetheart, please go away.
    I finished with my eyes then slipped off the bathrobe and examined myself in the long mirror. I may have been a few years older than Iris but you wouldn’t know it. Sidney used to say I had a boy’s body, these days he’d prefer it if I was a boy, I wasn’t much use to him as a girl. I opened my underwear drawer and fingered my silky things. There was a tune in my head,
Moon River. Moon River
. It had been troubling me for days.
    The party was an anticlimax. A man Sidney wanted to meet who’d written a book didn’t show and he was irritated. He was also mad at me about something I’d said. I freely admit I’d been less than sweetly charming all night but hell, it was an uptown crowd of professors and they weren’t interested in me, some mere editorial person.
    When we got home I said so and next thing we were arguing, never a good idea after a few drinks. We went back and forth for a while and then I left the room. I wanted a cigarette but where could I get one now? I became aware of movementdown the hallway. Standing in his pajamas gazing