“I want to know what happened between you and Bill Sweeney. And how it happened.” Serena realized she was ready for this story now.

“I met William Sweeney when I was a senior at Vassar. I was an editor of the paper and I was helping to organize a panel discussion about women in journalism. We had two journalists from the New York Times and a columnist from Esquire scheduled, but at the last minute, the columnist canceled, so Esquire sent William Sweeney instead. He had just written a controversial article about the glory of miniskirts or something like that and they knew they were sending him into the lion’s den.”

“Like hazing.”

“Exactly—our editor in chief was set to moderate and she was a radical feminist, you know, the whole hairy-armpit, no-bra thing that was happening in the seventies. It wasn’t my thing, but it was hers. I marched down Fifth Avenue. I wore an ERA button. But I shaved my legs. She, on the other hand, was ready to make an example of Bill Sweeney. Her name was Lorna, Lorna . . . Feldman. I think what Lorna really wanted was to work at the New York Times and she hoped her insightful critique and dismantling of his work would get her noticed.

“Anyhow, they asked me to be his campus escort. I had to pick him up at the Poughkeepsie train station, get him to the pre-panel wine-and-cheese event, and then make sure he attended the post-event dinner at the president’s house. When I picked him up at the train station, I remember thinking that he looked like Paul Newman, a young, tall Paul Newman. I was entranced by his intellect, his humor. I had never met a man like him.

We immediately went to have a drink, bypassing the official reception, the mandatory rehearsal. Everything I was supposed to do, I didn’t. I was twenty-one and he was twenty-six, but he seemed to have the world on a string. I warned him about the protests, the questions that would be coming at him. By the time we got to campus, he was fully prepped and slightly inebriated. He relished his role as a Male Chauvinist Pig, wore it proudly, and wore down the poor moderator. It enraged the student protestors even more.

“After the panel, we escaped through the back door and headed straight for the guesthouse on campus where he was staying for the night. He whisked me upstairs and I was sunk.”

A picture of young Birdie Tucker flashed through Serena’s mind. Tall, thin, blond, in a suede maxi skirt, Frye boots, and white beret, the product

of Northern European genes, a Darien, Connecticut, upbringing, and a rigorous tennis-training schedule. Throw in a topnotch education and a healthy sense of entitlement and it was easy to see why the college senior was such an attractive mark to the young Bill Sweeney who, until he landed a scholarship to Yale, had none of the advantages that she had enjoyed. A theory was beginning to develop in Serena’s mind, but she let her mother continue.

“For the next three years, my life revolved around Bill Sweeney. After graduation, I moved to Manhattan and got a job at NBC News, but really, my life consisted of our interactions. He was writing Never Not Nothing at the time we met and by the time he left me, he was an international literary sensation. He lived in the Village, which was so exciting, and I lived in Murray Hill, safe but boring. I’d wait in my apartment every night to see if he was going to call and ask me to his place. Sometimes, I’d see him every night for two weeks straight and then he’d disappear into his work for a month. We’d go out in the Village, but never with other people. He said he wanted to keep me for himself, but I think he was a little embarrassed by me. I wasn’t edgy, I wasn’t the next big thing. I was an associate producer at NBC News primarily because I checked the female box and my father knew the president of NBC News at the time. They were members of the same club in Manhattan. Mainly, I got coffee and made copies and picked up dry cleaning for the men in the office. I was no Jessica Savitch. I suppose you’ll think poorly of me, but I wasn’t looking to change the face of journalism. I wanted a husband, a family, stability. I knew I would never marry Bill because he was a Catholic and, you know, Mimi and Granddad never would have approved of that.”

Serena thought about her mother’s opposition to her ex-boyfriend Ben because he was Jewish. “I know how that goes.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” she said, not wanting to derail the story. “Go on.”

“Bill Sweeney was a dynamic man. I couldn’t walk away. I didn’t have to, though. He walked away from me. I wasn’t what Bill Sweeney wanted.”

“What did he want?” Serena asked drily.

“Someone flashier. When he left me for good, I was devasted, really lost.

I wasn’t the independent woman I pretended to be. I didn’t want to be on my own, stay in the city and love my job and sleep around like everybody else in the seventies. Six months after Bill dumped me in a restaurant in

Chinatown for Dyan Cannon, I met your father at the wedding of a college friend and we were married within a year. It was time.”

“Dyan Cannon? The actress.”

“Yes, the actress. Once the book came out, he was the hottest thing in town. Writers became celebrities in the seventies and everybody wanted Bill Sweeney at their party. And he wanted to be at every party, not that he would take me. Then Hollywood noticed and directors flew him out to LA, trying to persuade him to sell the movie rights to Never Not Nothing. He wouldn’t, of course. People thought it was because he had integrity, but actually he just wanted to keep getting those trips to LA. But on one trip, he met a beautiful actress and that was it for me. I don’t think it lasted long with Dyan Cannon, but I couldn’t compete with that or any of the other Dyan Cannons to come.”

“Why did he live next door? Was that intentional?”

“No! Of course not! It was a complete coincidence. We hadn’t been in touch since that night at the Chinese restaurant. I’d followed his career and his picture was everywhere, but no one was more stunned than me when I learned that the new neighbors were William Sweeney and his lovely new wife, Maeve. I hadn’t even told your father about him. How could I? By then, he was so well-known, I didn’t want to make your father self-conscious.”

Serena was on her third cup of coffee. She brought two cans of seltzer over to the living room and her mother gave her a look, so she stood back up to get a glass. “You never told Dad about your relationship with Bill Sweeney? Ever?”

“I know you think I’m rigid, but I have some soft spots. Your father is a good man, but he couldn’t compete with William Sweeney on any level.

What was the point? I was happy enough. I willingly walked away from a career to be a wife and mother. We had money, a nice house, good vacations. Your father provided all of that and more. I am embarrassed by what happened.”

“What did happen?”

“A very selfish affair. The last flicker of a relationship that meant everything to me and, I think, meant something to Bill. But it was short-lived the second time around and the details are rather seedy. I’m not going to tell you any more than that, because I’m entitled to my own life. But we both knew it was wrong and it wouldn’t last. It ended and a few weeks later,

after five years of trying to get pregnant, I learned I was pregnant. Your father was thrilled, I was thrilled. It was the eighties; we didn’t ask a lot of questions then. Soul-searching wasn’t required. I went on and Bill Sweeney went on. We had very little contact after that. I would see him at the library at official events and occasionally run into him on Willow Lane. We spoke after Maeve died, but our connection burned out.”

“Did he know?”

“That he was the father?”

Serena nodded.

“I didn’t know he was the father. Not for sure. Which is another aspect to this story I’m not proud of. But, honestly, I think he was too busy being William Sweeney to notice my pregnancy. After our relationship ended, I wasn’t exactly lingering at the end of the driveway after picking up the morning paper hoping to see him walk by with his dog. I avoided him and he was easily avoided. Our worlds didn’t intersect that much. I was a Southport housewife. Bill was reaping the rewards of his second literary masterpiece, Bitter Fruit. And, in public, he was the devoted husband of Maeve, an esteemed faculty member at Yale, a new father of one, two, then three girls. He chose not to know and I chose not to tell him.”