IF SHE hadn’t placed her great-great-grandmother’s spinet in that exact spot along the east wall and hadn’t set aside time to polish it on this particular April day, Jenny might have avoided any confrontation with this bit of unsavory information.

First there was Godfrey Richardson letting himself into the main hallway, which was unusual enough, since he was rarely at home during the middle of a weekday morning. She heard him climb the single flight of stairs to the apartment he shared with his wife, Terry, just above hers on the second floor. The Richardsons rarely used the tiny mahogany-paneled elevator, and she heard his ascending footfalls on the steps, not because she was deliberately listening, but probably because his tread was lighter than usual, as if he were walking on the tips of his toes.

She realized, of course, that she was conscious of the difference because it was out of the ordinary pattern of sound and activity of the weekday life of their building. In the two months that she and her husband, Larry, had lived there, she had discovered that she was usually the only tenant in residence on most days. A couple of the tenants had maids in for an hour or two a week, but they came and went with barely a ripple.

There were five apartments in their converted East Side Manhattan brownstone, and all of the tenants were normally off pursuing their various vocations during the day. As a housewife, Jenny, too, was pursuing her vocation, which she took as seriously as the others in the building took theirs.

Godfrey Richardson’s tiptoeing up the stairs, despite a rational dismissal of it as being none of her business, had alerted her to what followed. Looking out of the bay window through the lower branches of the budding sycamore tree that fronted the building, she had noted that a young woman had passed the building twice already, lingered in front of it briefly, looked up toward the Richardsons’ apartment, then proceeded toward Second Avenue. She was now headed toward the building once again, this time coming from the Third Avenue side.

Jenny continued to apply polish to the spinet. She had it on her mental schedule to polish the heirloom once a week. This was exactly the way her mother had treated the spinet in their house in Indiana, and one of the conditions of the gift was that it be treated the same way in perpetuity. It had been purchased by her great-great-grandmother, handed down to each generation in turn, and had never left Indiana. So far it had fared quite well in its new Manhattan life, had not warped and had kept its tune, although she rarely played it.

Her concentration was deflected by this young woman parading in front of the window. The woman was no more than twenty and wore tight jeans, black cowboy boots, and a black leather jacket, which emphasized the fullness of her breasts. Hussy type, her mother might have said, but then her mother, like the spinet, had never been anywhere but Indiana. As a newly anointed Manhattanite, Jenny felt herself superior to such judgments.

With obviously contrived casualness, the woman stopped in front of the building, looked at her watch, then proceeded up the stone steps to the front entrance. When the woman could no longer be seen from the window, Jenny listened for the faint sound of the outside buzzer. Curiosity, she supposed, had made her hearing more acute than usual. She heard the return buzzer sound, then the door opening, and, after a short interval, the tiny elevator moving in the shaft, stopping on the floor above her.

It was, of course, the kind of information that she would have preferred avoiding, especially since she liked Terry Richardson, Godfrey’s wife. Not that they had been overly friendly, considering Jenny had had them, over Larry’s objections, for an informal dinner featuring her prized meat loaf recipe and they had not yet reciprocated. According to Larry they might never, which he told her would be a good thing. Neighbors, according to Larry, were a nuisance, sometimes a danger, and a good thing to avoid, but he had let her have her way just this once to prove the point.

New Yorkers were like that, Larry had explained, always too busy to reciprocate, although sooner or later they’d invite you out for an obligatory dinner at a restaurant. Such explanations did not jibe at all with her midwestern upbringing. New people were always welcomed by their neighbors, not the other way around.

Swallowing her pride and against her husband’s wishes, she had decided nevertheless not to be standoffish with the neighbors. She wasn’t going to change her Hoosier ways just because New Yorkers were crude and ignorant of the social graces. People were people everywhere, her parents had taught her. Prick them and they bleed. Their basic human instincts were the same as hers, the good with the bad. Above all, follow your own value system. Never stoop to theirs.

Larry thought this attitude naive, instructing her daily in the survival tactics of New Yorkers. Live defensively. Double-lock doors. Avoid carryout deliveries. The delivery man could be a thief, a rapist, or a murderer. Stay off the streets after dark, and in the daytime be wary. Trust no one. When in doubt, cross the street. Since she had never been to New York before their marriage, she had no other frame of reference than his various caveats.

Once, about two weeks after she and Larry had moved into the building, Terry Richardson had come downstairs and asked if she could borrow a screwdriver because Godfrey, who was “all thumbs,” had misplaced theirs somewhere. Jenny had obliged and invited Terry in for coffee. It was Sunday morning and Larry was off playing tennis with friends from the advertising agency where he worked.

Terry was an open-faced brunette with hazel eyes and a broad, toothy smile. To Jenny’s surprise she had volunteered a great deal of information about herself. Not to pry was another in Jenny’s catalog of values inculcated by her Indiana upbringing.

Terry was a vice-president of Citibank, which sounded very awesome and important to Jenny, to whom bankers and banks, at least in the Midwest, still ranked, along with doctors and hospitals, as trusted professionals and institutions.

“That’s quite impressive,” Jenny exclaimed.

“That’s what my mother thinks,” Terry said, sipping her coffee. “But the pay is not quite commensurate with the title, and I’m one of many. I will admit, though, that it does have a wow factor in certain circles.”

“It does to me,” Jenny agreed. Back in Indiana a woman vice-president of a bank would have had real prestige.

“Prestige shmestige, my mother says. She’d rather see me pregnant.” Terry sighed and shook her head. But her hazel eyes revealed a stab of sudden pain. “We tried this fertility clinic three times and are about to go for number four. We’re batting a thousand in strikeouts.”

Jenny didn’t quite know what to say. Encouraging Terry to continue her revelations seemed patronizing. It also crossed her mind that her own and Larry’s fertility had not yet been tested, and she decided, probably on superstitious grounds, to make no comment that might encourage Terry to continue the subject.

“Puts a lot of pressure on Godfrey,” Terry persisted, speaking into the brief vacuum of silence. “I’m the weak sister in the combination. Something about the sperm dying before it hits pay dirt. Like the fallopian tubes were a kind of gas chamber. Only the doctors don’t quite know why. Anyway, we’re going to try yet again.” She contemplated the thought in silence for a moment, then turned her attention to Jenny.

“Don’t wait too long,” Terry said. “I’m thirty-seven. We didn’t try until I was thirty-five.”

In the pause that followed, Jenny held back any comment, except to offer her own age, which was twenty-five, and to point out that she and Larry were only married a little over two months and were not planning a family for a while. After all, friendship and intimacy took time to develop. That was another item in her value system. Perhaps that was the reason the conversation drifted away and Terry swallowed her last mouthful of coffee, thanked Jenny for the screwdriver, and went back to her apartment.

There was something open and fresh about Terry, and as soon as she had left the apartment, Jenny regretted not opening up more than she had. Telling somebody such personal information was, in fact, a confidence, which should really be returned. Jenny made a mental note to reveal something equally as intimate about herself, but she wasn’t exactly sure what that might be.

Certainly she could never tell Terry what she was “witnessing” at this very moment. She tried to push the obvious from her mind and put a better light on the circumstances. Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions. Then why was the woman so cautious, passing the building a number of times before going in? And there was something about the woman that suggested, well, sex. Clandestine sex.

All right, she admonished herself, she was just a hayseed from Indiana, a Hoosier hick, but under that blond blue-eyed curly-topped adorable—some might say Lolita—look, she was not totally naive. She felt a strong rapport with Terry, who was at that moment, Jenny was dead certain, being betrayed by her husband.

The idea took some of the natural joy out of her day. Why couldn’t he do his dirty work away from their home? A home was a sacred place, a nest. Birds never fouled their own nests.

Although she had never crossed the threshold of the Richardson apartment, she imagined that the deed was being done on the marriage bed, in the bedroom, exactly above where Larry’s and her bedroom was located. As if to validate that point, she walked to the bedroom and looked upward at that point where she was certain the Richardsons’ bed was placed. It had to be queen-size. A king or a double would simply not fit properly.

She admonished herself for allowing the silence to exist, knowing that she was deliberately listening for the sounds of lovemaking, feeling ashamed. Worse, she felt that telltale tingle of her own sexiness. The power of suggestion, she rebuked herself, taking a surreptitious glance at her face in the mirror and seeing the slight flush on her cheeks.

She went into the bathroom, ran the cold water tap, and patted her cheeks, then returned to the spinet and resumed her polishing. But she could not rid herself of the idea of those two up there and the sympathy and outrage she felt on Terry’s behalf.

It hadn’t occurred to her when they first rented the apartment that she would be the only tenant whose daily chores revolved around the apartment itself. Of course, she did have lots of errands outside the apartment. It wasn’t easy putting a home together, and there was the regular shopping to do, although most of the food shopping was done on weekends with Larry, who particularly liked those fancy gourmet stores.

They considered themselves quite lucky to find the apartment. They both detested those big impersonal high rises, which made people feel more like transient cave dwellers than human beings. The location, too, was perfect, being on Thirty-eighth Street between Second and Third, which meant that Larry could actually jog the two miles to work at the advertising agency on upper Madison Avenue, where he was a vice-president in charge of the research department.

Mrs. Bradshaw, the rental agent who found them the apartment, told them she knew instantly when it became available that it had their name on it.

“I know this building intimately,” she told them, her half-glasses perched on the end of her nose, as she stood in the middle of the living room reading the listing card and reciting the history of the building. The two brownstones joined together, both built in 1911, had first been converted to apartments before World War II, then refurbished in the early sixties.

Jenny marveled at the spaciousness of the apartment, which was on the first floor of the building. She inspected the high ceilings trimmed with wonderfully elaborate molding, the working fireplace, the exposed brick kitchen with shiny stainless-steel appliances and a gas cookstove and oven, the wall of bookcases, the little mahogany-paneled den, the dining room with a small crystal chandelier, and, best of all, the white-tiled bathroom with the marvelous bathtub that sat on sculpted claw feet. She adored the bathtub and could picture herself lying there enveloped by tingling soap bubbles. There was nothing like a good warm soak to settle the mind and calm the spirit. Mrs. Bradshaw was right about one thing: the apartment certainly had her name on it.

“A steal at three thousand dollars a month,” Mrs. Bradshaw said, smiling, the laugh lines on the sides of her eyes crinkling. She had a grandmotherly air that Jenny liked and seemed sincerely interested in their welfare.

“You’re right about that,” Larry said without cracking a smile. He had told Jenny earlier that he had had one of his researchers check out comparable rental values in the area. “It’s really way out of line. In fact, outrageous.” He looked toward Jenny, who had stiffened inside of herself. Larry had warned her not to appear enthusiastic: “Please restrain yourself, Jenny. We mustn’t give them the advantage.”

All this was against her grain. She hated negotiating, exercising those little ploys and manipulations. The idea of it implied a sense of being sharp, of trafficking in rejection and hurtfulness. Larry, on the other hand, had no compunctions in that department. “In New York, it’s screw them before they screw you,” he had lectured her, part of his endless laundry list of advice about how to survive in the Big Apple. Above all, he cautioned, trust no one. No one!

“That seems like a mighty cynical assessment,” she had countered, offering her own time-honored homily: “People are essentially good and the same everywhere.”

“Everywhere but New York, Jenny. Trust me.”

Why would he say that? she had wondered, especially after saying, “Trust no one.” She put the idea quickly out of her mind. He didn’t, of course, mean himself.

She hoped he wouldn’t be too hard-nosed about the apartment. It was beautiful. Just what she had imagined living in Manhattan would be like. Surely he felt the same way. Then why was he bargaining so hard? It surprised her, too, that the grandmotherly Mrs. Bradshaw didn’t bat an eye at Larry’s statement about the price being “outrageous.”

“Out of range of your financial ability or out of line pricewise?” Mrs. Bradshaw asked. She had taken off her half-glasses and was distributing her gaze between Larry and Jenny.

“There is a clear line between fair and gouging, Mrs. Bradshaw. If I couldn’t afford it, I wouldn’t be wasting my time. And yours,” Larry said smugly, shaking his head. Jenny wished she hadn’t heard his remarks.

“What do you think, Mrs. Burns?” Mrs. Bradshaw said, turning to Jenny.

“Me?”

Jenny was startled at the question and looked quickly at Larry, who blinked his eyes in a kind of signal for her to stay out of it.

“Get real, Mrs. Bradshaw,” Larry said, shrugging, turning his body as if it were a gesture of total rejection. Jenny felt her pulse throb with anxiety. Larry took a folded paper from his inside jacket pocket and unfolded it, then waved it in front of Mrs. Bradshaw. “I’ve got the comparable rental values in the area.”

“You can’t compare apples to pears, Mr. Burns,” Mrs. Bradshaw countered. The cute little crinkly laugh lines had smoothed out, and her lips were tight as she waited for a response. When none was forthcoming, she said: “This place has charm, personality. Anyone can see it’s one of a kind.” She looked at Jenny, her eyes boring in. “Surely you can see that, Mrs. Burns.”

Jenny shifted her eyes quickly to Larry, who was now assuming a pose of bored indifference.

“I’d say two thousand a month tops,” Larry said casually, without apparent interest. Jenny felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. He couldn’t. She loved this place and was already visualizing how she would decorate it. And that wonderful bathtub!

Mrs. Bradshaw started to arrange the papers in her hand and opened the clasp of the large pocketbook that hung from her shoulder as if she, too, were drawing the negotiation to a close.

“I don’t know if I can show you anything better. Sorry about that,” Mrs. Bradshaw said, snapping the clasp of her pocketbook with much fanfare. They had seen enough apartments to confirm that observation. Jenny knew that the woman was right, and she was finding it difficult to hide her disappointment.

“We’re sorry, too,” Larry said with indifference.

Jenny wondered if he really believed that. She supposed he was right about the price being high. That was his department. He had told her never to concern herself about money, only about properly managing her own allowance, which he would decide upon when they got their apartment. At the moment, Larry was providing her with pocket money “as needed.”

Not that she was totally ignorant about managing money. In the past ten years, she had actually saved nearly twenty thousand dollars from her earnings in various jobs. Larry had complimented her on that and had insisted that that money be kept in her own name even after they had married. His gesture was somewhat confusing since her view of marriage meant that everything was to be shared between them forever and ever. She supposed that this was meant by him to be a gesture of generosity, although in her own mind the money was considered shared assets.

In Manhattan, Jenny had found, money had an entirely different meaning. Back in Indiana even two thousand a month was a king’s ransom. This was nearly double her entire monthly take-home pay when she’d worked as an assistant to Dr. Parker. And even after paying her rent, food, and other necessities, she had enough left over for entertainment and savings.

The three of them now headed for the apartment door. Jenny was crestfallen, but still hopeful. Although she was uncomfortable about Larry’s tactics, she had full confidence that he knew what he was doing.

After they reached the street, Mrs. Bradshaw turned to them.

“If you really want this place,” she told them, addressing herself mostly to Jenny, “I could make a call.”

“Suit yourself,” Larry said, looking at Jenny sternly. “At the right price it might be considered.”

Mrs. Bradshaw’s gaze lingered on Jenny’s face. Jenny hoped she was registering indifference properly.

“Yes,” Jenny said. “At the right price.” She noted Larry’s quick glance of approval.

They walked to the corner, where there was a telephone booth. Mrs. Bradshaw picked up the phone and dialed.

“God, Larry. I can’t stand it. I really love this apartment,” Jenny whispered.

“Easy. You’re her target of opportunity,” he said. “Show her nothing. No interest. You had me worried for minute.”

“My stomach is doing flip-flops.”

“Stay cool. Remember this is the Big Apple, the hustler’s paradise. Our top price is twenty-five. She’ll come back at maybe twenty-seven.”

“I can’t stand it.”

“Trust me,” he said, preparing his face for Mrs. Bradshaw’s return. It was a blustery day, but that did not deter people from being on the streets. In fact, nothing deterred New Yorkers in anything, Jenny thought. People looked so determined and intense, although she had observed that they scowled a great deal and did not smile often.

“Best we can do is twenty-seven, Mr. Burns,” Mrs. Bradshaw said. Jenny noted that the woman’s grandmotherly aspect was completely gone. “Frankly, I think that’s very generous.”

“Not in this market,” Larry said. “The vacancy rate is staggering.”

“I could call again,” Mrs. Bradshaw said.

“Okay then. Here’s my bottom line. Twenty-five with the first month free and a three-year lease with an option for another three at a five-percent yearly rise.”

Jenny’s level of anxiety soared. She couldn’t bear to watch Mrs. Bradshaw’s face.

“Really, Mr. Burns. . .”

“Make the call, then,” Larry said.

“It won’t do any good,” Mrs. Bradshaw said, shrugging.

“Try,” Larry said.

Mrs. Bradshaw hesitated for a moment, then, shaking her head, went back to the phone.

“I could never do this,” Jenny confided when Mrs. Bradshaw was out of earshot.

“Worry not, Jenny. She’s a whore. All real estate people are whores. And the biggest whores are in New York.”

“She seems so nice.”

” ‘Nice.’ That’s a dangerous word in this town, Jenny. Nice is okay in Indiana. Not here. Get ‘nice’ out of your vocabulary while you’re in this town.”

Mrs. Bradshaw finished her call and came back to them.

“Twenty-five it is. Two-year lease with option. Six-percent-a-year rise for two-year renewal.” She smiled, her crinkly lines back in place, and held out her hand. “Deal?”

Jenny’s heart was in her mouth.

“I wanted three years,” Larry said.

“Leave us some dignity, Mr. Burns.” Mrs. Bradshaw winked. “Our pants are down.”

He turned suddenly to Jenny.

“What do you think, baby?”

“Me?” Jenny searched his face. His eyes signaled that it was okay. She hesitated, then turned toward Mrs. Bradshaw. “I say deal,” she said with mock assertiveness.

“The little woman has spoken,” Larry said, putting out his hand. Mrs. Bradshaw took it and pumped.

“Now let’s all get a cup of coffee and do the paperwork,” Mrs. Bradshaw said.

“Masterly,” she told Larry later as they lay in bed in their hotel room. They had made love the rest of the day, and she had been gratefully aggressive.

“You’ve got to know how to play the game,” he said as she cuddled in the crook of his arm. She stroked his hard, muscular body, so well proportioned and sculpted by his regimen of pumping iron three times a week along with his daily jogging schedule.

“I married a very smart cookie,” she whispered.

“Here in New York, you’ve got to base everything on the premise that the next guy is out to screw you. You want to make it here, you’ve got to learn survival skills. That goes for every human transaction. Every move you make has to be defensive. Watch your ass. They’re out to do you. And, above all, never show your ruthlessness, unless you’re ready to act on it. That’s why I’m up there in the agency, not just some dumb numbers cruncher. And I’ve just begun to fight.”

“Gives me the shivers,” Jenny said, cuddling closer, her fingers following the contours of his naked body from forehead to penis.

“In this town never, ever take anything at face value,” Larry continued. “People are never what they seem.”

“That will take some getting used to,” Jenny said.

“Just do it fast,” Larry said, turning toward her.

“Some things work better slower,” Jenny said, giggling, as she continued to caress his body. She was so happy. Nothing but nothing was too good for her Larry.

She had met him nearly a year ago when he came into Dr. Parker’s office with a nasty gash on his arm that required some stitches. Apparently he had tripped on a rock while investigating possible sites in the area for a theme park that was being researched by the advertising agency.

She had assisted Dr. Parker in the procedure. In fact, she had actually done the stitching, since it was one of those mornings when Dr. Parker’s arthritis was acting up. For a year after high school, she had taken courses at the Bedford Hospital preparatory to becoming a paramedic, where she had learned a number of emergency procedures. But then the job with old Dr. Parker had come along, and she’d decided to forgo the complete course, reasoning that it would be a good opportunity to be “on her own,” get her own place, and not be a financial burden on her parents.

“Handy little helper,” Larry had commented. She wore a white uniform and white stockings, and Dr. Parker called her “nurse.” He told her often that she was “better than any graduate nurse,” which flattered her enormously. In addition to his arthritis, Dr. Parker’s eyes were failing and he relied on her to assist him to an extent that might have seemed borderline to the Medical Society of Indiana.

“Couldn’t do without her,” Dr. Parker had responded.

Jenny remembered that she had blushed beet red, not simply because of the compliment, which was well deserved, but because it was delivered in front of this handsome young man who had stirred in her a disturbing response to his presence. She sensed, too, that there might be a mutuality about it.

After he had dressed, he had lingered in the reception area and engaged Jenny in conversation between her answering the doctor’s telephone calls.

“Didn’t hurt a bit,” he had told her.

“We aim to please, Mr. Burns.”

“Do you do this often?” he had asked. “Stitching up the wounded?”

“Only on occasion,” she had replied, compelled to be truthful as a point of sincerity. “I’m not really a nurse. More like a paramedical jack-of-all-trades.”

She could tell he was interested, and by then she was dead certain that she was attracted to him. He was so handsome and confident and immaculately dressed in beige pants and blazer with a crisp striped shirt with tab collar and a wonderful perfectly matched tie. He seemed so worldly and sophisticated, so in charge of himself, and above all, so different from most of the men she had dated in Bedford.

“Maybe you can tell me about Bedford over lunch?” he had asked.

After a brief hesitation for propriety’s sake, she’d consented. But she would always remember the thought that had passed through her mind at just that moment: There must be a God, because he just dropped this beautiful man from heaven right on my doorstep.

Attraction was a mysterious and magical thing and, almost always, unpredictable. She knew her own type, which was that category of woman whom people referred to as the “small packages” the “best things come in.” Not that she was that small—five feet two—but well proportioned for her height, too small to win a beauty contest, but with the kind of figure that could and did turn a male eye. So far, heavy exercise was not a necessity, and no matter what she ate she never gained a pound. Her blue eyes dictated her colors, and she dressed to complement them.

In school she was considered perky, the type that made a natural cheerleader. Her mother had pressed her to pursue that phase of her school career, even sending her to baton-twirling lessons. As a baton-twirling cheerleader, she was automatically a kind of local celebrity. Fame of that type was very sought after in a small town like Bedford, mostly because that kind of visibility gave one entrée to date the best boys, meaning the local athletic heroes.

Despite being popular and visible in high school, she was also a conformer and definitely not a rebel, which meant, in that context, that she maintained a monogamous relationship with one boyfriend with whom she had sex, beginning around her sixteenth birthday, which seemed the obligatory age when one lost one’s virginity in Bedford. The experience, as most of the girls agreed, was generally awful but was supposed to get better with time. She had looked forward to that with toleration and hope.

She had never had any plans other than to get married, have children, and stay in Bedford to raise her family as her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother had done before her.

Her mother had instilled in her the idea that when all was said and done, being a housewife and mother was the noblest profession a woman could aspire to. Nor did she envy any of her schoolmates who went on to college, determined to make it in the world at large. She knew, of course, that such an attitude was old-fashioned and totally contrary to the ideas fostered by the women’s movement, but she saw herself as more of a traditionalist and felt no guilt about her well-defined ambition to run a happy home, have a loving husband, and raise two, maybe three children. She considered that a noble aspiration.

But being a traditionalist did not mean that she was not modern in her ideas. One did not have to be militant and outspoken to understand her own version of liberation, which to her meant being respected by men and consulted as an equal on those subjects where she could contribute. In her mind, however, there was a distinct separation between home and business. Home was, generally speaking, a woman’s domain, and business, also generally speaking, was a man’s.

Her own mother, for example, ruled the roost with tact and subtlety, never relegating her father to a secondary position in terms of respect and the illusion of command. He was always the man of the house, an authority figure to be deferred to and consulted for his wisdom and knowledge of the world. Early on, Jenny recognized that her parents’ home was a repository of love and contentment. If she could replicate such a home in her life, Jenny decided, that would be the ultimate fulfillment.

Unfortunately, there were drawbacks to her fulfilling these dreams of love and contentment. The mating rituals in a small town did not provide much variety in terms of husband material. Not if you were choosy like Jenny, whose personality and good looks demanded that she choose a mate who was a cut above most of the boys who stayed on in Bedford.

The local boys who were going to make something of themselves had already moved out of town. This left the older men who had chosen to come back and set up shop in the professions and started to raise their own families.

It was slim pickings indeed, but this never depressed her. She adored her parents and her brother, who had married a local girl before he was twenty and already had three children, and he was just twenty-seven. She envied him, but in a healthy way, not to the point of despair, and she loved her nieces and nephew and never gave up on the idea that her man would come along one day.

Her family, naturally, wanted her to “settle down” and considered her too picky in her choice of men. Her defense was that she prized her independence, which she did, although in her heart of hearts she would have loved to settle down with the right man and raise a family.

Jenny, who had her own small apartment not far from Dr. Parker’s office, loved to come over to her mother’s house and help with the chores. Most of the girls in town were well schooled in what was still referred to in Bedford as the “domestic arts.” They were taught cooking, the care and cleaning of household furniture, sewing, knitting, petit point, simple repairs, gardening, and little specialties such as putting up preserves and canning. Weekly family gatherings were a ritual, as was going to church on Sunday in your best clothes, having the neighbors in for barbecues, and generally participating in community activities.

This did not mean that Bedford was isolated from the realities of the surrounding world, the global village. It did, after all, have cable television and access to a wide variety of other media that provided a great deal of knowledge of what was happening beyond their cloistered small-town world. It even had its share of what were once considered exclusive aspects of big cities, drugs, crime, racial animosities, homosexuality, and, even in Bedford, AIDS. Bedford also had its Republicans and Democrats, its pettiness and gossip, its Gothic secrets, its hidden aberrations, its share of pain and poverty. For people with oversize dreams and ambitions, Bedford was a prison. But not for Jenny.

Her father worked for a carpet manufacturer, a good solid job with a pension and health benefits that paid enough for the family to own their own small home with a nice yard and two old cars and to have raised a son and a daughter. The concept of the family fortress, their good name, being thought well of, doing the right thing, having compassion for the less fortunate, and being decent to your fellow man was the bedrock of her family’s value system.

Jenny’s value system did, however, have its private exceptions, particularly in the practice of sexual congress, which carried with it an element of hypocrisy. The sexual revolution was a fact of life and the peer pressure extraordinary. It was the one value that couldn’t, at this juncture, be multigenerational. It was simply not in her parents’ lexicon of experience. Her mother had been a virgin until she was married, and, Jenny was certain, she believed in her heart that the same was true of her daughter, all the evidence around her notwithstanding.

Her one overt break with the family value system was when she had an affair with a doctor who had offices in the same building as Dr. Parker, Darryl Phipps, a man in his mid-forties who was going through a trial separation at the time of their liaison. Yet officially he was still a married man, which carried with it a stigma that made Jenny uncomfortable and forced them into a secrecy that also made her ashamed.

In retrospect, Jenny rationalized, their affair was part learning experience, part sexual awakening. Darryl Phipps was an import to Bedford, having married one of the local girls he had met on a skiing vacation. He was East Coast Ivy League with a level of sophistication that was unknown in her experience up until then. By osmosis and intimacy, she felt somehow socially and culturally elevated by the relationship.

More important, Darryl had confirmed what she had suspected, that her teenage jock boyfriend, long gone by then, was a sexual illiterate and probably a premature ejaculator, a condition that, by the testimony of her girlfriends, seemed to afflict the young men of Bedford in epic proportions. By contrast, her mature lover was enormously patient, considerate, and wonderfully instructive. In the end he opted to return to his wife and children. Actually Jenny felt relieved by his decision and was enormously grateful for the experience. Discretion had left her reputation intact, her self-esteem enhanced, and her sexual nature understood and vastly reinforced.

This prior relationship stood her in good stead with Larry Burns, who had been married once before for a brief period and was still bitter about that episode in his life.

According to Larry, his former wife had been a journalist, far more interested in her career than in him and their marriage. That was, in fact, the hidden agenda of their whirlwind courtship and the one thing that set Jenny apart from his former wife. It was, she told herself, fate intervening, as if Larry Burns did indeed drop from heaven, right into the target’s bull’s-eye. In a wife he wanted exactly what she aspired to be, homemaker, mother, nurturer, devoted helpmate, lover.

To her family Larry was an awesome figure, a smashing success in the advertising business, handsome, intelligent, articulate, charming. He was extremely fastidious about the care of his body, and his grooming was tasteful and immaculate. She liked that. It showed that he had respect for himself and his good looks. Indeed, at that point in time she enjoyed watching him pose and primp in front of the mirror, and she was oddly pleased when she spotted him surreptitiously checking his image in whatever reflection was handy. Even the after-shave he used was deliciously enticing.

He was also enormously organized, fastidious in keeping records of his expenditures and allocating his time. This greatly impressed her. It indicated that he was a man in charge of his own destiny, someone who would be in control of his and his family’s life, able to intelligently plan the future, not be a victim of circumstances, a rolling stone.

Her parents were proud of her for attracting such a marvelous man at the ripe old age of twenty-five. Her dad called him “a go-getter,” which was his highest form of compliment.

She worried, of course, that the differences between them in terms of “worldliness” would inhibit or even destroy their relationship. A small-town upbringing carried a stigma of diminishment, not that she didn’t have her defenses. When they were together, she made light of the idea that she was “a Hoosier hick” and he was a “city slicker,” but like all humor, there was an element of truth hiding just below the surface of her words.

Of course, Larry’s response was all the more disarming, since he assured her that “a Hoosier hick” was exactly what he had in mind. She wondered how he defined the image and hoped he hadn’t equated it with naiveté or ignorance. Inexperience and innocence were other matters entirely, although she showed him that she was certainly not innocent in sexual matters. That, too, had given her pause. She had worried that too quick a sexual capitulation and the resultant evidence of her experience might frighten him off. It didn’t. After three nights of consecutive dating, she was in his motel bed, an actively aggressive participant.

“Nothing hick in this department,” he had commented.

“Can’t fool nature,” she had responded saucily. “If the conditions are right, it takes you there.”

“You’re exactly what the doctor ordered,” he’d told her.

“Likewise,” she had agreed, complimenting him sincerely on his manliness. She had, of course, been concerned about a possible disappointment in this area. Early on he’d admitted that his first marriage was dysfunctional. It didn’t take long for her to discover that it wasn’t his fault.

“Perfect fit,” he told her.

“Uh-huh,” she agreed.

She hoped that he attributed her knowledge to the fact that she was a medical person.

“Now wasn’t he worth waiting for?” she proudly told her parents and brother when it was apparent that a genuine relationship had begun to spring up between her and Larry. Naturally they agreed.

Even the parameters he had laid down on the night he had proposed, which was exactly three weeks after he had come into town, were a perfect parallel for her own aspirations.

“Make me a home, Jenny,” he had told her the night of his proposal. “Let me love you and protect you.” They had been lying naked on his motel bed. “You can’t imagine what it means to a guy who comes home after fighting the world to find a beautiful, loving woman waiting—”

“To fall into his arms,” she interrupted. “Willing, wet, and wonderful. Who has spent her day making coming home special and has prepared a lovely meal.”

“With a delicious bottle of wine.”

“That, too.”

“Sheer heaven,” he said. “Far from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

“Yes,” she replied, vaguely remembering the words as a famous quote. “Far from those.”

“Which brings up a question,” he teased. “Do we make love before or after dinner?”

“Why not both before and after?”

“Why not? Every night of our lives.”

“Mornings, too.”

“Exactly my fantasy,” he said. “A wife who runs my house and a whore in my bed.”

“A whore?” She feigned offense, but she knew what he meant.

“I will aim to please in all areas.” She giggled.

“Pinch me,” he said. “I must be dreaming.”

“I won’t pinch. But how about a love bite on that?” Her lips closed around his erect penis. God, she thought, how grateful I am that you’ve sent me such a beautiful man.

She loved seeing him naked, and he enjoyed exhibiting himself, especially, as now, when his penis was in glorious erection. He was so perfectly proportioned, he reminded her of a picture of the Michelangelo sculpture of David. She loved the feel of the rippling tightness of his body, his hard buttocks, his ivory smooth penis. She loved wrapping her legs around him, swallowing him into her. It set off sparks within her body. Nor was she loath to try any new way to bring him pleasure, and she could be as compliant in sexual matters as he was aggressive and eager and vice versa.

She also enjoyed exhibiting herself in whatever manner he requested, and she refused him nothing. Pleasing him, even at that early stage, had become her mission in life. She had every reason to believe this desire was mutual.

“Between people who love each other, there are no barriers,” he told her. “Only trust and honesty.” She agreed with all her heart.

It gave her goose bumps to discover such a mutuality of ideas about what a true relationship meant. It was as if they were sharing some wonderfully deep and very private secret.

She was certain that there was something between them of real lasting significance, of which the body’s pleasure was only a symbol, something spiritual and holy. This was, for her, a lifetime commitment. She had no doubt that it was for him as well.

There were of course some drawbacks to the impending marriage. Since his office was in New York, she would have to leave Bedford, which would be traumatic, but it would certainly be exciting to live in Manhattan.

“It’s a lot different from Bedford,” Larry told her. “But I’ll teach you how to hack it.”

There would be an adjustment period, of course. She had never been to New York and was well aware of her own lack of what he called “street smarts.” Big-city life was intrinsically frightening to small-town folks. People might characterize her as a hayseed or a hick. But, she was, she knew, a quick learner, and she was determined to pull her weight as the wife of the brilliant and beautiful Larry Burns.

She was certain also that he would not opt for children immediately. Considering his first experience with marriage, he would be cautious, waiting perhaps a year or two to be sure of their compatibility.

He made a great living, he informed her, although he was never specific about the number. Six figures was all he would volunteer, which was good enough for her and more than good enough for her father, who thought he had reached the pinnacle of success at thirty-five thousand dollars a year. In their value system, the man was the provider.

“And that’s only the beginning,” he told her. “I’ve got plans, big plans, and someday I’ll be the boss.”

She certainly had caught a good one, the family agreed. She also assured them that she would be a frequent visitor to Bedford, certainly on holidays. They knew that, of course. Her heart would always be in Bedford. That was her upbringing. Family was everything, regardless of distance.

Not that they weren’t truly worried. The big city, especially New York, to a small-town Hoosier was seen as a corrupting influence. She assured them that they had given her a good foundation and that she was beyond corruption, and with Larry protecting her, what was there to worry about?

Larry’s family was practically nonexistent. He was an only child who had been raised mostly in boarding schools. His father was an accountant in Seattle who had married twice after leaving his mother and had acquired two additional families, which kept him perpetually strapped for money. He and Larry hardly communicated. His mother had died years ago. Obviously, Jenny reasoned, Larry was a man who hungered for the joys of home and hearth, of real family, and a wife to love and care for him and provide him with children. She vowed to be that wife.

On the day she left Bedford, Jenny and her mother had a real heart-to-heart, complete with tears and lots of hugs.

“Just be good to your man and everything will be fine,” her mother told her.

“You know I will, Mom.”

“And never, never stray from your real values.”

“Never, Mom.”

“Sometimes things will get tough. There will be ups and downs, but in the end it will be the wife who holds things together.”

They hugged each other for a long time and dried their tears. Then Jenny’s mother gave her the petit-point poem entitled “The Wife,” by author unknown. It was suitably framed and had been replicated from her grandmother’s, one of those sentimental possessions that are handed down from mothers to daughters. Her mother, she knew, had hung it on the inside of her closet door, where it still remained through the years, a kind of very private and very cherished idea. Jenny knew that her brother’s wife had also received one when they were married.

She took the petit-point poem from her mother and read it aloud.

THE WIFE

The heart of a home is a loving wife

Who protects it always from trouble and strife

Her sacred role is to love and to care

Always to nurture and forever to share

As helpmate or more, she can never lose

Unless she surrenders to the housewife blues.

Again mother and daughter hugged and cried. Jenny had never been happier.

Jenny set to work putting the apartment together with tremendous enthusiasm. Larry had given her a budget, and she was determined to stay within it and impress him with her own resourcefulness and good taste. He had also given her samples of the colors he favored and she did not make any purchases without his complete approval. She welcomed his hands-on attitude and his firm views.

They haunted the little antique stores tucked away in various Manhattan neighborhoods and bought numerous items that seemed to fit perfectly in their apartment. She favored American Colonial and he favored Victorian English, but they managed to compromise and get the apartment furnished with a minimum of new pieces. They did, however, purchase a new four-poster queen-size bed.

“And it had better be sturdy,” Larry had told the clerk with a wink.

She particularly enjoyed putting together the kitchen. She always had a flair for cooking, and Larry let her buy whatever equipment was needed, including expensive copper pots, which she hung from hooks on the brick wall. She also bought a complete set of knives, which she kept in a wooden block with handy slots on the kitchen island. On a shelf over the sink she had put a wonderful antique spice rack. In the kitchen closet she put a wine rack that held thirty-six bottles. Larry considered himself an expert on wines.

She had known from the beginning that Larry loved the idea of coming home to a well-cooked meal, and she had done her best to oblige. Once, however, while working late into the afternoon in the apartment, she’d neglected to prepare a meal and was obliged to call a carryout pizza place for their dinner.

It was, of course, against Larry’s ideas about how to conduct oneself safely in the city, but she was certain he would allow her to make this one little exception. Besides, she liked pizza, which went very well with a salad and a glass of wine.

Unfortunately, he got home almost at the exact time that the delivery man pressed the outside buzzer.

“Who can that be?” he had asked.

“The pizza man,” she replied, pressing the buzzer that would allow the man to enter.

“Are you out of your mind?” he rebuked.

“You know I like pizza and I haven’t had time . . .”

“Jenny, how many times must I warn you? The carryouts in this city are a license to steal or worse. The statistics on this are appalling and I will not allow you to endanger yourself.”

“Now, that’s being paranoid. Lots of people order carryouts in New York.”

A moment later the door buzzer sounded and Larry rushed to the door. She watched him opening it carefully, keeping the chain on the hook. After inspecting the delivery man, a black teenager, he asked the price and quickly exchanged the box of pizza for the money, then swiftly rechained the lock and slid the dead bolt into its slot.

“He was just a kid,” Jenny said.

“Right. A black kid. The highest single group of crime perpetrators in the country.”

“Really, Larry . . .”

“I’m not kidding, Jenny. No more of this. Not ever again. I want a promise.”

“You’re taking this much too seriously, Larry.”

“A promise,” he repeated.

“If it means that much.” She sighed.

“It does.”

“Well then, I promise.”

It was, after all, just to keep the peace. If it was important to Larry, then it was important to her. She let it pass, put it out of her mind, and did not let it interfere with her putting the apartment together.

He fitted out one corner of their bedroom with a weight bench set up between two standing antique mirrors that gave him a two-sided view of himself when he lifted weights. He usually did it wearing only a jockstrap, and he enjoyed having her watch him do his sets. For Jenny it was sheer joy watching his muscles ripple, and invariably she reacted sexually.

From the beginning Larry had harped on her not to be too pushy in trying to get to know the neighbors. New Yorkers, he insisted, were uncomfortable with neighborliness, and he didn’t want her to have to face what might be interpreted as rejection. She appreciated his concern, but exercising a mild assertiveness, she reminded him that she had worked for several years as an assistant in a doctor’s office and was not totally naive about people and their motives. She pointed out, too, that people who lived under the same roof were obligated to get to know one another, if only as a kind of insurance for emergencies.

“I’ve got to learn how to deal with city people,” she told him.

“Forewarned is forearmed,” he told her. “Most New Yorkers have a siege mentality.”

“People are people.”

“New Yorkers are conditioned by a hostile environment. They react to everything defensively. Even their offense is defensive. Most people in this town are takers, not givers. Besides, what do you need them for? My advice is keep to yourself, mind your own business. It’s safer.”

“I’m perfectly capable of making that judgment on my own.”

“Of course you are, darling,” he said, retreating somewhat. “But, remember, I grew up in Manhattan and it’s gotten worse over the years. I can smell the hustlers, the phonies, the users. Lean on me in that respect. I know. Believe me, I know. All I’m saying is watch out. Next thing you know you’ll be involved in somebody else’s complications. Trust me.”

With that in mind, she nevertheless felt obliged to make a modest effort to strike up some social intercourse with the neighbors. After all, in her comings and goings, how was one to avoid them? A smile and a kind word were certainly in order under those circumstances. So far, the easiest people to get to know were the Richardsons, largely because Terry was naturally approachable. Godfrey was less so, but had been gracious and charming at dinner.

Larry, although he had consented to her inviting the Richard-sons, had been a reluctant participant.

“You know how I feel about getting too intimate with the neighbors.”

“Just dinner, Larry. You never know when you’ll need a little neighborly help one day.”

“As long as it’s just dinner,” he told her.

The dinner had seemed to go well. She had made her grandmother’s favorite meat loaf recipe. She also did her homemade biscuits and baked what she considered her inspired apple pan dowdy. A real “down home” meal with succotash and whipped-up mashed potatoes. Only the fancy French red wine served in big stem glasses gave a touch of Manhattan sophistication.

The Richardsons were pleasant and affable and seemed to like the meal, except that Godfrey hadn’t touched the succotash. But the conversation seemed to steer clear of any real intimacy. Mostly the talk centered around contemporary art. Godfrey owned an art gallery, and Larry probed him most of the evening about which artists were on their way up for investment purposes.

“Now did that hurt?” she asked after the Richardsons had gone and she had finished the dishes.

“Depends on your definition of pain,” Larry said.

“I don’t understand,” Jenny replied, confused.

“Meat loaf?”

“What’s wrong with meat loaf?”

“Oh, it’s fine for cafeterias and home meals, but for guests? Really, Jenny. Meat loaf?”

“It’s my grandmother’s recipe,” she said, her stomach churning.

“Succotash?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I hate to put it this way.” Larry sighed. “You worked so damned hard. But it’s . . . well . . . second rate. Not in taste or even intention. Just . . . lower order . . . not upscale.”

“I did serve that fancy French wine,” Jenny said. She felt rebuked.

“It’s not important,” Larry said. “You did tell them it would be no big deal.”

“Yes, I told them.”

“Call it gentle advice, Jenny. Not worth a hassle between us. Put it in the category of a learning experience.”

“I am confused, Larry.”

“Just trust me. I’ve got a handle on perception. Follow my lead. It’s my fault, really. I should have put my two cents in. Anyway, forget it. Fact is, the meat loaf was yummy and the apple pan dowdy scrumptious.”

He put his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

“You’re wonderful, Jenny. Wonderfully Midwest. Don’t ever lose that.”

She wanted to explore the question further, but she decided that she would leave it for another time. She knew she had a lot to learn.

“Notice how Godfrey was hustling his artwork? Proof positive. Everybody here is hustling something.”

“I wasn’t paying much attention to that side of it,” Jenny said.

“Well, I hope you learned something about the banking business from Terry.”

“Actually we talked mostly about babies. Hers. They’ve been going to a fertility clinic.”

“So much for opportunity,” Larry said with a sigh. She glanced at him suddenly, wondering if he was serious. He must have felt her scrutiny. “She is a banker,” he said. “We gave them dinner. There’s a quid pro quo here somewhere.”

“They’re neighbors,” Jenny said, confused by his remark. “Just neighbors.”

“Nobody is just anything, Jenny. Not in the Big Apple,” Larry said, reaching for her hand and leading her gently into the bedroom.

Two hours and ten minutes by the clock passed before she heard the elevator move in the shaft once again. It annoyed her that she was timing the liaison as if she were a private detective.

Yet as soon as she heard the elevator, she dashed closer to the window, hiding in the shadows at a spot that offered a good vantage to watch the street. Sure enough, the woman appeared on the steps, and Jenny studied her carefully, as if her physical aspect might reveal some confirming truth. She seemed to have combed her hair with some care and put on new makeup and did not look as furtive or as anxious as before. In fact, she seemed almost relieved, as if she had been through some ordeal and was glad that it was over.

Not ten minutes later she heard Godfrey’s regular tread coming down the stairs. No need for him to sneak now. It crossed her mind that his earlier caution had been for Jenny’s benefit, since it was probably apparent to him as well as the other tenants that she was the only one who remained in the building on most weekdays.

She heard the front door open, then Godfrey came into view. He was only visible in profile, his thin face seemed paler than before, his body hunched into his overcoat. She made a conscious effort to read his attitude, hoping that she might sense some element of saving grace, like guilt or remorse for what he had done. Without realizing it, her concentration made her less cautious. She had stepped closer, moving toward the center of the bay window.

Then, suddenly, her attention shifted to the sycamore tree in front of the house. There was that tabby tomcat climbing the tree again. It belonged to the men who lived in the downstairs apartment and was always getting out somehow. Frequently she would see it climbing the tree, posting itself on the branch opposite her window and looking into her apartment, which it was doing now. Larry, who was allergic to cats, hated the sight of it.

“Just don’t give the bastard milk,” he had warned her. “Then you’ll never get rid of him.”

Godfrey’s attention, too, might have been deflected by the cat, and he had turned. Perhaps he had sensed her observation of him as well. She felt a blush of embarrassment rise to her face. Their eyes met and stayed locked together for a brief moment. He did not smile in greeting but turned quickly like a man caught in the beam of a floodlight, then headed swiftly toward Third Avenue.

He knows I know, she cried inside, burning with the discomfort of holding his dark secret, as if somehow she had become a coconspirator in his act of infidelity and betrayal.