"Damn, Nan, you look like hell."

"I do?" Nancy closed the door behind her, leaned back against it, and shot the deadbolt home. Her eyes were puffy, her nose red. "No wonder I got out of that ticket."

"What happened?" George pushed back her chair at the table and came over to Nancy, who was just dropping, boneless, into her customary armchair.

"I think he said 'driving erratically,'" Nancy said, and sniffed. George found her a tissue and Nancy took it gratefully. "And then something about 'warning.' I think it's in my purse."

"No, I mean... did something happen with Frank?"

Nancy slumped down until her face was against her knees, her back shaking. "I think we're not seeing each other anymore," she said, her voice almost a wail, but she took a trembling breath and managed to stop herself from crying. "It all kind of blurs, y'know?"

"Oh, Nan, I'm sorry."

"He said--" She drew in a mighty breath and ran the sides of her hands over her wet cheeks, and when she let them fall her eyes were blazing. "He said that I do this all the time. And I don't do this all the time. He said... that he's been trying so hard to not be angry at me since I said I wasn't going to think about marrying him, the way things are right now, but it's too much... George, we've been together ten years, ten fucking years, and this..."

"I know," George said softly, and rubbed Nancy's back. "I was there."

"You were there!" Nancy affirmed, wiping her nose with the tissue. "You were there that summer when we, and... since I was fifteen years old, fifteen, I thought he was the guy. I thought he was it. He said maybe we just need some time to cool off, but, God, it's not that... what if I've lost him? For good this time?"

"What if you have?" George asked.

Nancy sighed. "I think he's met someone else."

George sat up straighter. "Why do you think that?"

"Because I've never seen him look at me the way he did today."

"How did he look at you?"

Like he was so tired of it, the same way I feel when I look at him. "I think this is it," she said. "He's not going to move, and I don't want to move, and if we're not going to be in the same place then why are we fooling ourselves like this and damn, I miss him," she whispered. "God, George, what am I going to do? He's all I know."

"Sometimes that's the best part," George said softly. "Maybe you know him too well. He's too familiar."

"Not today," Nancy said, looking down. "He was like someone I'd never met before. He was so mad at me."

"He's never been mad like this before?"

"He said this time was different," Nancy said, brushing her hands over her cheeks again. "That I'd changed..."

"What's changed," George said. "What did he think was different about you?"

"He said it was since our camping trip."

George waited until the silence had stretched a second too long. "Since you've met Ned."

Nancy nodded. "Since I've met Ned," she said softly. "I called him when I was on the way over here, but he wasn't home and I left him a message, and I must have sounded like a complete idiot..."

"Nancy, what's going on," George said. "You've never been like this."

"I know," Nancy said softly. "I've never felt like this before. I feel so fucking out of control of all of it, and I don't know what I would have done if he'd picked up that phone tonight..."

"Is this like... like with Mick?"

Nancy shook her head. "God, it's more than that," she whispered. "Mick, felt like... he was so far away from anything else I'd ever experienced, he was bright and fun and so intense, and it was so quick... but I can't imagine life with him. A hell of a weekend, yes. A life..." She shook her head. "Right now I can't even imagine a life with Frank."

"Maybe it's because you've never had one."

They turned as one, eyes wide, lips parted, when the knock sounded at the door. "George, go see who it is," Nancy begged in a whisper.

George looked through the peephole and gasped. "It's Ned."

"I can't-- I can't see him right now," Nancy said, and shoved herself to her feet, startled by his more insistent knock. "Can you just tell him that, please, I'll call him when I... I just can't right now..."

George nodded, waiting until Nancy was out of sight before she pulled the door open a few inches. "Ned--"

He shoved the door open and George, surprised, stumbled back a few steps. "Is she here? Is she okay? She called me and left a message--"

"She's okay, Ned," George said. "She's upset, but she's okay, and she can't really see anyone right now..."

"Okay," Ned said, nodding. Then he sat down on the couch.

"I didn't mean just the next five minutes."

"I know," Ned said. "But I'm gonna wait here, if you don't mind."

"What if I did mind?" George crossed her arms, but a smile was trying to come over her mouth.

"Then I guess you won't be the one I bunk with tonight," he said, and she couldn't stop it any longer. "I just need to know she's okay."

"Ned, believe me, I wouldn't lie to you about that."

"I know," he said, and leaned back. "But you didn't hear the message she left me."

After making Ned promise that he wouldn't leave the couch, George went into Nancy's bedroom and closed the door behind her. "He's not leaving until he knows you're okay. I don't know what you said in that message, but you really managed to freak him out. I think Bess would say, props to you, at this point."

"Too bad she's not here," Nancy said, and sniffed. "She could distract him while I snuck down the fire escape and called in a bomb threat."

George shrugged. "I don't even know if that would make him move," she said.

Nancy looked up at George. "Thanks for putting up with me," she said.

"Yeah, well, if he pulls for the 49ers, I might steal him before you ever get a chance."

The growing dusk had reduced the room to shadow and the suggestion of pale when Nancy splashed cold water on her face until it didn't look quite so red or swelled, pulled her hair back, and found her old bathrobe, washed to softness and unraveling at the edges. She slipped into it, and smelled long-steeping tea and a thousand hungover mornings, and shuffled in bare feet down the hallway.

The lights weren't on and the television was quiet, the light straining through the empty beer bottle on the coffee table in front of him, but he turned his head anyway, his hair sticking up at odd angles, but the concern in his eyes almost made tears rise to hers again. He stood up immediately, but stood quiet for a second.

"I didn't know," he said, his voice strained, then cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, I know you probably just wanted to be alone, but... you sounded... I wanted to see for myself that you were okay."

She nodded, twice, slowly, her eyes swimming.

Then she walked forward until her face was brushing against his collar and his arms came around her, warm and tight, held her hard to him.

"Are you okay?" he whispered into her hair.

She shook her head.

"Is there anything I can do?"

She shook her head again. "Not really," she whispered.

When Bess came in an hour later, holding her shoes by the straps in one hand, George held her finger to her lips, her eyes bright. Bess took in the rest of the scene, managing to stifle herself to a gasp when she saw Ned on the couch, his arm around Nancy, her cheek against his shoulder, both of them asleep.

Bess gestured for George to follow her into the kitchen, and pounced on her immediately once they were alone. "What happened while I was gone?"

George laughed softly. "You'll never believe it."