"I mean, how can we ever tell, if she never sits in the backseat again?" she asked her mother, who had been banished to the backseat beside her.

"That's the beauty of irony, dear," Betty had said, and Annie never brought it up again.

Now she momentarily panicked at the idea of the months ahead with her sister and mother, then firmly reminded herself that she had finally agreed to the Houghteling Cottage scheme only because she saw that if she did not, the two of them would go ahead without her and live in what they considered genteel poverty until there was not a cent left in either of their bank accounts, at which point they would have to move in with her.

She reminded herself that she still had an apartment, that she had sublet it, furnished, for only ten months. Surely within that time the evacuation to the suburbs would lose its charm for Betty and Miranda.

Betty turned onto a tree-shaded road that eventually led them to the shore. Long Island Sound lay before them in its comfortable modesty, a small, calm stretch of blue. The sky was clear and Long Island, a dark wavy line, was visible on the horizon.

Miranda said, "It's hardly Cape Cod."

"We don't have any cousins in Cape Cod." Her sister had been out to Westport countless times. Did she expect crashing waves and towering dunes?

Still Annie said in a coaxing voice, "Fitzgerald lived here. He and Zelda were kicked out of two houses in Westport, I think."

Miranda seemed mollified. "Two houses," she whispered, looking at the Sound with new respect.

"Zelda swam at Compo Beach," Annie added encouragingly, realizing as she spoke that she could quit the Y in New York and save a little money, swim here herself. "No waves, perfect length, up and down, and you've done your laps..."