The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

to notice so avidly, when he's just come to town. It's flattering, I suppose we're meant to think."
    "Darling Alexandra, in some ways you're still awfully unliberated. A man can be just a person too, you know."
    "I know that's the theory, but I've never met one who thought he was. They all turn out to be men, even the faggots."
    "Remember when we were wondering if he was one? Now he's after all of us!"
    "I thought he wasn't after you, you were both after Brahms."
    "We were. We are. Really, Alexandra. Relax. You are sounding awfully crampy."
    "I'm a mess. I'll be better tomorrow. It's my turn to have it, remember."
    "Oh my God yes. I nearly forgot. That's the other thing I was calling about. I can't make it."
    "Can't make a Thursday? What's happening?"
    "Well, you'll sniff. But it's Darryl again. He has some lovely little Weber bagatelles he wants to try me on, and when I suggested Friday he said he has some roving Japanese investors coming by to look at his undercoating. I was thinking of swinging by Orchard Road this afternoon if you'd like, one of the boys wanted me to go watch him play soccer after school but I could just produce my face for a minute on the sidelines—"
    "No thanks dear," Alexandra said. "I have a guest coming."
    "Oh." Jane's voice was ice, dark ice with ash in it such as freezes in the winter driveway.
    "Possibly," Alexandra softened it to. "He or she wasn't sure they could make it."
    "Darling, I quite understand. No need to say any more."
    It made Alexandra angry, to be put on the defensive, when she was the one being snubbed. She told her friend, "I thought Thursdays were sacred."
    "They are, usually," Jane began.
    "But I suppose in a world where nothing else is there's no reason for Thursdays to be." Why was she so hurt? Her weekly rhythm depended on the infrangible triangle, the cone of power. But she mustn't let her voice drag on, betraying her this way.
    Jane was apologizing, "Just this one time—"
    "It's fine, sweetie. All the more devilled eggs for me." Jane Smart loved devilled eggs, chalky and sharp with paprika and a pinch of dry mustard, garnished with chopped chives or an anchovy laid across each stuffed white like the tongue of a toad.
    "Were you really going to the trouble of devilled eggs?" she asked plaintively.
    "Of course not, dear," Alexandra said. "Just the same old soggy Saltines and stale Velveeta. I must hang up."
    An hour later, gazing abstracted past the furry bare shoulder (with its touching sour-sweet smell like a baby's pate) of Joe Marino as he with more rigor than inspiration pumped away at her, while her bed groaned and swayed beneath the unaccustomed double weight, Alexandra had a vision. She saw the Lenox mansion in her mind's eye, clear as a piece of calendar art, with the one wisp of smoke that she had observed that day, its pathetic strand of vapor confused with the poig nance of Jane's describing Van Home as shy and hence clownish. Disoriented, had been more Alexandra's impression: like a man peering through a mask, or listening with wool in his ears. "Focus, for Chrissake," Joe snarled in her own ear, and came, helplessly, excited by his own anger, his bare furry body—the work-hardened muscles gone slightly punky with prosperity—heaving once, twice, and the third time, ending in a little shiver like a car with carbon buildup shuddering after the ignition has been turned off. She tried to catch up but the contact was gone.
    "Sorry," he growled. "I thought we were doing great but you wandered off." He had been generous, too, in forgiving her the tag end of her period, though there was hardly any blood.
    "My fault," Alexandra said. "Absolutely. You were lovely. I was lousy." Plays amazingly, Jane had said.
    The ceiling in the wake of her vision wore a sudden clarity, as if seen for the first time: its impassive dead square stretch, certain small flaws in its surface scarcely distinguishable from the specks in the vitreous humor of her eyes, except that when she