“Did he leave her?” she asked, looking outraged, the defender of wronged womanhood, Joan of Arc with a Dr Pepper in lieu of saber.

“I have no idea who left who, and I don't think it's any of our business. And by the way,” I said, feigning an ease I was far from feeling, “we're playing tennis with him tomorrow.”

“What?” Charlotte shrieked at me as I tucked Sam and the dog in, and she followed me into my bedroom, where I'd almost forgotten she was still sleeping with me. “I hate tennis!”

“You do not. You played all day yesterday.” My point. But only for an instant. She was quicker.

“That was different. That was with kids. Mom, he's ancient, he'll probably have a heart attack and die on the court.” She sounded hopeful.

“I don't think so. He looks like he might last through a couple of sets anyway. We'll go easy on him.”

“I'm not going.” She threw herself on my bed and glared at me, and I thought about strangling her, stopped only by my deep phobia about prison.

“We'll talk about it in the morning,” I said coolly, walked into my bathroom, and closed the door. And as I stood there, I looked in the mirror. What was I doing? Who was this man? And why did I care if my children liked him? Two dates with him, and I was already trying to sell him to Sam and Charlotte. All the danger signs were there. This had all the earmarks of a truly frightening story. Maybe she was, right. Maybe I should cancel in the morning. Besides, if my kids hated him, what point was there pursuing a romance with him anyway? A what? I squeezed my eyes shut and splashed cold water on my face to douse what I was thinking. I could already hear the lions in the Colosseum beginning to smack their lips, anticipating me for dinner.

I put a nightgown on, turned off the lights, and went to bed, and Charlotte was waiting for me. She waited until I was lying in bed in the dark, and she sounded like the child in The Exorcist when she asked the next question.

“You really like him, don't you?”

“I don't even know him.” I wanted to sound innocent, but even I could hear that I sounded lonely. But the truth was I had been. And she was right. I liked him.

“Then why are you forcing us to play tennis with a stranger?”

“Then don't play with him. Take a book. You can do your summer reading for school.” I knew that would get her, and it did. She harrumphed loudly at me, turned her back, and was asleep in five minutes.

And Peter was on the porch with his tennis racket, in white shorts and a T-shirt, at ten-fifteen the next morning. I pretended to ignore the fact that he had the best legs I'd ever seen. I wished mine were as good as I smiled at him and opened the screen door. Sam was at the kitchen table, eating corn flakes and drinking Dr Pepper. It was a serious addiction.

“Did you sleep well?” Peter asked, smiling at me.

“Like a baby.”

We chatted for a minute, as Sam dropped the cornflakes in the sink and they splashed everywhere, and Charlotte appeared in the kitchen, glowering at everyone. But she was carrying her racket.

He had reserved two courts at a club nearby, a very old exclusive one that Roger had always wanted to belong to, but your family had to bequeath you a membership. Roger would have hated Peter. Peter was everything he wasn't.

And as soon as we arrived, Charlotte suggested we play doubles. I knew then that I was in trouble. He thought she was being friendly. And she insisted that I be her partner. Peter teamed up with Sam, who was just learning, and was feeling mildly carsick from the ride over. And then Charlotte went to town on Peter. She creamed him. I have never seen her play so well, or with such energy, or venom. If she'd been training for the Summer Olympics, I'd have been proud of her. As it was, I was surprised that Peter didn't hit her with his racket, or try to kill her. She was without mercy. And when it was all over, she smiled at him.

“She plays very well,” he said charitably afterward, looking unruffled by her performance. I wanted to strangle her again, and was relieved when she saw friends having Cokes at the bar, and asked if she could join them. I told her she could, if she took Sam with her, which she didn't. And then I apologized to Peter for her blood lust on the courts. “It was fun,” he said, and looked as though he meant it. That was the first time I suspected he was crazy.

“She was trying to prove a point,” I said apologetically, and he laughed.

“She doesn't need to. I'm relatively harmless. She's a bright girl, and she's probably concerned about who I am, and what I'm doing here. That's pretty normal. I warn you, I'm falling in love with Sam though.” And I loved him for it. I had a moment's fantasy about their being friends, and then instantly repressed it. There was no point getting my hopes up.

We chatted easily for a while, and then had lunch with Sam. Charlotte had lunch with her friends on the terrace, and seemed to have forgotten about Peter. Having disposed of him on the court, she had lost interest in him. There were two fourteen-year-old boys in the group who were far more captivating than he was.

After lunch, Sam swam in the pool, and we sat at the side and watched him. Peter and I talked about a variety of things, and were surprised to discover we shared the same political views, liked the same books, and had the same taste in movies. What else is there? Nothing, really. We both liked hockey too, and were longtime Ranger fans. And had visited and loved all the same places in Europe. He promised to take me sailing. I told him about a show at the Met I was dying to see, and he offered to go with me.

It was a terrific weekend, and so was the next one, and the one after that. Charlotte still thought he was a dork, but there was less energy in her complaining. They saw a lot of the sitter that summer. And he even came out once or twice during the week to spend the night at a hotel and have dinner with me. He definitely didn't fit the profile of the men I'd been dating. He was human.

We had spent some serious time kissing by then, but nothing more, and every night when I came home, Charlotte was diligently waiting up to grill me. I would come in floating on the cloud Peter had left me on, and meet Charlotte's gaze like a splash of icy water.

“So?” it usually began. “Did he kiss you?”

“Of course not.” I felt like an idiot lying to her, but how do you admit to your thirteen-year-old that you've been making out with a man in a Jaguar? When I was her age, they called it necking. I could have offered a history, of course, traveling through the ages to explain the terminology used for harmless sex acts through the centuries, but I knew her better than that. She wouldn't buy it. Lying to her seemed simpler. Besides, I had somehow kept a firm grip on the belief that, whatever happened, and whatever you did or didn't do, you had to pretend you were still a virgin. I had the same obsession when I was dating in college. Roger always thought it was pretty funny.

But Charlotte just cut right through it. “You're lying, Mom. I know it.” Yeah, okay, so I am. So now what? There was no certainty at that point that it would ever be more than that, so what point was there to making a confession? He had never asked me to spend the night at the hotel, and I hadn't offered either. And besides, I had to get home to pay the sitter. Her parents would have killed me if I'd kept her out all night, and my children would have killed me. Coming home to Charlotte's inquiries was worse than coming home to my parents when I was in high school.

“I know you're going to do it with him, Mom,” she accused finally, at the end of August, and I was beginning to think she was right. As usual, her extrasensory perception was fully operative. We had gotten a little carried away that night when we left the restaurant, and engaged in some serious groping. But fortunately, we had both come to our senses. Charlotte should have been proud of me, instead of looking so outraged.

“Charlotte,” I said calmly, trying not to remember the feel of his hands slipping slowly under my blouse, and the feelings it had reawoken in me, “I am not going to do it with anyone. Besides, you're not supposed to say things like that, I'm your mother.”

“So? Helena is always walking around naked in front of Daddy, and then they go in the bedroom and lock the door. Just what do you think that means?” Another splash of icy water. I didn't want to hear about what Roger did to Helena.

“That's none of my business, or yours,” I said firmly, but Charlotte was not easily daunted.

“I think you really have the hots for him, Mom.” She grinned evilly, the child from The Bad Seed dropped off on my doorstep, as I glanced back at her in horror.

“Who? Daddy?” I hadn't had the “hots,” as she put it, for Roger in ages, and the thought of it did not cheer me.

“Oh.” The kid never took her eye off the ball for a minute. “I just like him, that's all. He's a nice man, and we enjoy spending time with each other.”

“Yeah … and the next thing you know, you're going to do it with him.”

“Do what?” Sam interjected as he walked into the room with the dog. The neighbors who owned him must have thought he'd gone to camp for the month, but even when he went back to visit his owners every once in a while, he always faithfully left us little presents. “Do what?” Sam asked again, helping himself to a Dr Pepper. It was late, but he said he'd had a nightmare. So had I. Mine's name was Charlotte. She would have had a seat of honor at the Spanish Inquisition.

“I told Mom she was going to do it with Peter, if she hasn't already.”

“Do WHAT?” he shouted at his sister in exasperation, as I tried to get them both to go to bed. It was hopeless.