“I can’t wait. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

Claire swallowed. “Listen, I called because I have the world’s biggest favor to ask you.”

“The answer is yes, whatever it is.”

“I need to borrow twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Silence.

Oh, God! Claire thought.

“I got myself into a real mess with this gala. I’m the cochair and my other cochair is a very wealthy woman named Isabelle French. And she has managed to bully me into taking a twenty-five-thousand-dollar table for the gala. And I don’t have twenty-five thousand dollars, and I can’t even broach the possibility with my husband or he will kill me. So I ran through all these other options, and the one that seemed the least painful was to borrow the money from you. But I’ll pay you back. I swear.”

Silence.

Oh, God! Claire thought. Had he hung up? What if he didn’t play the gala at all now? The possibility had not occurred to her until this very second.

“Matthew?”

“I’m looking for my checkbook.”

“You are? You mean you’ll lend it to me?”

“Well, we can call it a loan, but to paraphrase my favorite ex-wife, if you send me a check, I’ll rip it up.”

“But Matthew . . .”

“Claire, relax. It’s just money.”

“Right, but it’s a lot of money.”

“Do you remember when we were kids,” he said, “and your grandmother sent you a hundred bucks for your birthday?”

Claire racked her brain. A check from her grandmother? Sixteenth birthday? Was that what he was talking about?

“Yes.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I . . . we . . . got our ears pierced.”

“Right. You paid for me to get my ear pierced, and you paid extra for a diamond stud. You told me I would never be a proper rock star unless I had a diamond stud. And you bought yourself fourteen-karat studs, which were cheaper.”

“Yes,” Claire said. She actually did remember this: driving to the mall in Rio Grande and sitting in a chair at the Piercing Pagoda. They convalesced in Sweet Jane’s kitchen, both of them holding ice cubes to their earlobes, trying not to cry.

“How many times did you give me five bucks so I could put gas in the Volkswagen?”

“Yeah, but that was only five bucks.”

“How many times did you pay for Kettle Korn or Slushees? How many times did you pay for beer?”

“You had a job. You paid sometimes, too.”

“You paid for dinner before the prom.”

“My father gave me the money.”

“But what I’m saying is, when I didn’t have it, you paid for me, no questions asked. You gave me everything you had. There was no line drawn between what was yours and what was mine.” He paused. “I’d like it if things could still be that way. So I’m going to write this check, and I don’t want to hear about you paying me back.”

“Oh,” she said. “Jesus.” She thought she might cry, but she was too relieved to cry. “Thank you.”

“Does this twenty-five-thousand-dollar table mean you’ll be sitting up front?”

“Front and center.”

“Good,” Matthew said. “Then it’s worth it.”

When she hung up, it was one in the morning, but Claire felt like it was full daylight, bright and sunny. Her chest cavity, she realized, had been filled with concrete, but now the heaviness was gone and she could breathe. Matthew would send the check in the morning, and Claire would have her $25,000 table. Problem solved.

Should she press her luck? Something was telling her yes. She wasn’t at all tired, and the effects of the alcohol were fading. She pulled a Coke out of the fridge, exchanged her sandals for her clogs, and left the house, quietly, for the hot shop.

She spent a long time looking at the chandelier. Maybe that was the difference. She turned it in her hands, scrutinizing, meditating. Other times when she came into the hot shop, she was in a hurry, stressed, worried: Would she finish today? How long would it take? How many tries? Her forearms were in a constant state of fatigue and ache; the muscles were becoming ropy. But now Claire studied the chandelier, she pictured the arc and dip and twist of the final arm, and she saw how the piece would look, completed.

She pulled it on the first try, as she knew she would. She rolled the gather in the frit, and as she pulled and twisted, the final arm came into being. She pierced it with a steady hand. She held it up—yes, no question about it—then gently set the arm in the annealer. Tomorrow, she would blow out the cups. Piece of cake.

She went back into the house. Quarter to two. Suddenly she was very sleepy. She shed her clothes, washed her face, brushed her teeth, did her ritualized rinsing of the sink basin and wiping of the granite vanity top. Then she fell into bed, feeling light, clean, and empty, as though she didn’t have a care in the world.

Once the invitations had been mailed, response cards arrived every day, some bearing credit card numbers, some bearing checks. Gavin kept the checks in a neat pile on his desk, and when he got a stack of ten, he went to the bank to deposit—and skim. Claire dropped off a check for $25,000. Gavin could not help mentioning this to Lock.

“Claire took a twenty-five-thousand-dollar table.”

“She did?”

“Yes.”

Lock rose from his desk and came over to look at the check, as Gavin knew he would.