“I'll answer as soon as I get around to it, Mom. I have exams right now. It only came last week.”

“It only takes a minute to respond.”

Her tone annoyed Tana as it always did now, and she was curt when she replied. “Fine. Then tell her no.”

“I'll do nothing of the sort. You answer that invitation yourself. And I think you should go.”

“Well, that comes as no surprise. Another command performance from the Durning clan. When do we get to say no to them?” She still cringed every time she imagined Billy's face. “I think I'm busy anyway.”

“You could make the effort for my sake at least.”

“Tell them that you have no control over me. That I'm impossible, that I'm climbing Mount Everest. Tell them whatever the hell you want!”

“You're really not going, then?” Jean sounded shocked, as though that weren't possible.

“I hadn't thought about it till now, but now that you mention it, I guess I'm not.”

“You knew it all along.”

“Oh, for chrissake … look, I don't like Ann or Billy. Scratch that. I don't like Ann, and I hate Billy's guts. Arthur is your affair, if you'll pardon the pun. Why do you have to drag me into this? I'm grown up now, so are they, we've never been friends.”

“It's her wedding, and she wants you there.”

“Bullshit. She's probably inviting everyone she knows, and she's inviting me as a favor to you.”

“That's not true.” But they both knew it was. And Tana was getting stronger and stronger as time went on.

In some ways, it was Harry's influence over her. He had definite ideas about almost everything, and it brought something similar out in her in order to respond to him. He made her think about how she felt and what she thought about everything, and they were as close as they had ever been. And he'd been right about BU too. Moving to Boston had been good for her, much more so than going to Green Hill. And in an odd way, she had grown up more in the last year than ever before. She was almost twenty years old.

“Tana, I just can't understand why you behave this way.” It was back to the wedding again, and her mother was driving her nuts.

“Mom, can we talk about something else? How are you?”

“I'm fine, but I'd like to think that you'll at least think about this.…”

“All right!” She screamed into the phone at her end. “I'll think about it. Can I bring a date?” Maybe it would be more bearable if Harry came along.

“I was expecting that. Why don't you and the Wins-low boy take a lesson from Ann and John and get engaged?”

“Because we're not in love. That's the best reason why not.”

“I find that hard to believe after all this time.”

“Fact is stranger than fiction, Mom.” Talking to her mother always drove her nuts, and she tried to explain it to Harry the next day. “It's as though she spends the whole day planning what to say to me so that it will irritate me the most possible, and she never fails. She hits the nail right on the head every time.”

“My father has the same knack. It's a prerequisite.”

“For what?”

“For parenthood. You have to pass a test. If you're not irritating enough, they make you try again until you get it right. Then after the kid is born, they have to renew it every few years, so that after fifteen or twenty years, they've really got it down.” Tana laughed at the idea as she looked at him. He was even more handsome than he had been when they first met, and the girls went crazy for him. There were always about half a dozen he was juggling at once, but he always made time for her. She came first, she was his friend, in fact she was much more than that to him, but Tana had never understood that. “You're going to be around for a long time, Tan. They'll be gone by next week.” He never took any of them seriously, no matter how desperately they wanted him. He didn't fool anyone, he was careful that no one got hurt, he was sensible about birth control. “No casualties, thanks to me, Tan. Life is too short for that, and there's enough hurt out there without making more for your friends.” But there was no pretense offered either. Harry Winslow wanted to have fun, and nothing more than that. No I love you's, no wedding rings, no starry eyes, just some laughs, a lot of beer, and a good time, if possible in bed. His heart was otherwise engaged, albeit secretly, but other interesting parts of him were not.

“Don't they want more than that?”

“Sure they do. They've got mothers just like you. Only most of them listen to their mothers more than you do. They all want to get married and drop out of school as soon as possible. But I tell them not to count on me to help them out. And if they don't believe me, they figure it out soon enough.” He grinned boyishly and Tana laughed at him. She knew that the girls dropped like flies everytime he looked at them. She and Harry had been inseparable for the past year and she was the envy of all her friends. They found it impossible to believe that nothing was going on between them, they were as puzzled as her own mother was, but the relationship stayed chaste. Harry had come to understand her by now, and he wouldn't have dared to scale the walls she had put up around her sexuality. Once or twice he tried to fix her up with one of his friends, just as a friendly double date, but she wanted nothing to do with it. His roommate had even asked him if she was a lesbian, but he was sure that it wasn't that. He had a strong feeling that something bad traumatized her, but she never wanted to talk about it, even with him, and he let it be. She went out with Harry, or her friends from BU, or by herself, but there were no men in her life, not in a romantic sense. Never. He was sure of it.

“It's a hell of a waste, you know, kid.” He tried to talk to her about it teasingly, but she brushed him off, as she always did.

“You do enough of that for both of us.”

“That doesn't do you much good.”

She laughed. “I'm saving it for my wedding night.”

“A noble cause.” He swept her a low bow and they both laughed. People at Harvard and BU were used to seeing them, raising hell, cavorting, playing pranks on each other and their friends. Harry bought a bicycle for two at a garage sale one weekend, and they rode around Cambridge on it, with Harry in a huge raccoon hat in the winter months, and a straw boater when the weather got warm.

“Want to go to Ann Durning's wedding with me?” They were wandering across the Harvard Quad, the day after her mother had harassed her about it on the phone.

“Not particularly. Is it liable to be fun?”

“Not a chance.” Tana smiled angelically. “My mother thinks I should go.”

“I'm sure you expected that.”

“She also thinks we should get engaged.”

“I'll second that.”

“Good. Then let's make it a double ceremony. Seriously, do you want to go?”

“Why?” There was something nervous in her eyes and he was trying to figure out what it was. He knew her well, but every now and then she hid from him, albeit not too successfully.

“I don't want to go alone. I don't like any of them. Ann's a real spoiled brat, and she's already been married once, but her daddy seems to be making a big fuss about this. I guess she did it right this time.”

“What does that mean?”

“What do you think? It means the guy she's marrying has bucks.”

“How sensitive.” Harry smiled angelically and Tana laughed.

“It's nice to know where people's values are, isn't it? Anyway, the wedding's right after we get out of school, in Connecticut.”

“I was going to the South of France that week, Tan, but I could put it off for a few days, if it'll help you out.”

“That wouldn't be too big a pain in the ass for you?”

“It would.” He smiled at her honestly. “But for you, anything.” He bowed low, and she laughed, and he slapped her behind and they got back on the bicycle built for two, and he dropped her off at her dorm at BU. He had a big date that night. He had already invested four dinners in the girl, and he expected her to come through for him tonight.

“How can you talk like that!” Tana laughed and scolded him as they stood outside her dorm.

“I can't feed her forever, for chrissake, without getting something for it. Besides, she eats those huge steaks with the lobster tails. My income is suffering from this broad, but…” he smiled, thinking of her mammaries, “… I'll let you know how it works out.”

“I don't think I want to know.”

“That's right … virgin ears … oh, well.…” He waved as he rode off on their bicycle.

That night, she wrote a letter to Sharon, washed her hair, and had brunch with Harry the next day. He had gotten nowhere with the girl, “The Eater” as he called her now. She had devoured not only her own steak, but most of his as well, her lobster as well as his once more, and then told him that she didn't feel well and had to go home and study for exams. He got nothing whatsoever for his pains except a large check at the restaurant and a night of good, restful sleep, alone in his bed. “That's the end of her. Christ, the trouble you have to go to, to get laid these days.” But she knew from all she heard that he did fine most of the time, and she teased him about it all the way to New York in June. He dropped her off at her apartment and went on to the Pierre. When he picked her up the next day to go to the wedding, she had to admit that he looked spectacular. He was wearing white flannel slacks, a blue cashmere blazer, a creamy silk shirt his father had made for him in London the year before, and a navy and red Hermes tie.

“Christ, Harry, if the bride had any sense, she'd ditch this guy and run off with you.”

“That headache I don't need. And you don't look bad yourself, Tan.” She was wearing a green silk dress almost the exact same color as her eyes, her hair hung long and straight down her back, and she had brushed it until it shone, just like her eyes, which sparkled as she looked at him.