ALTER? When the hills do.

Falter? When the sun

Question if his glory

Be the perfect one.

Surfeit? When the daffodil

Doth of the dew:

Even as herself, O friend!

I will of you!

Emily Dickinson

I play host to over thirty people over the next couple of days. I feel bad because I am almost certain I don't do it particularly well. I keep playing the same moments from the concert over and over in my head, and of course, coming to the same conclusion over and over again. At least I'm not insane. Not yet.

My conclusion is simple, and comprised of four words: something has to change.

There's no way around it now. No way to sit back and let things play out, or to send secret signals and hope they're picked up. My intentions have been misunderstood by more than one person on more that one occasion. There's a time to be polite, and then there's a time to be clear. I am fairly certain that this particular moment in time—infinitessimal in the span of the universe, but life and death in my existence—calls for the latter approach. I can be polite later.

So other things, like hosting guests for tea, fall by the wayside. In fact, I'm fairly certain I put salt in Charles' coffee. He drinks too much coffee anyway.

Louisa, Ben, Harry and Hen come over two days after the concert, dragging Ahmir along with them. He hesitates by the door as all the others come in and exclaim delightedly over my ugly IKEA tables in a way for which I am forever indebted to them. Harry's gruff call of "get your ass in here" propels him as far as the sofa, where he falters again.

Who knew that People's second runner-up for Sexiest Man in the Alive could be so awkward?

The sofa, as it turns out, is the only place where the soccer players can sit down comfortably—Harry takes up most of the loveseat, and Ahmir and Ben are forced by sheer breadth to crush together on my pint -sized couch. Apparently, the furniture works well for me, but not so much for men built like Gaston.

Lou and Hen are comfy in my chairs, while I take a position on the floor, back to Lou's chair, facing the couch head-on. The way I'm supposed to be facing my fears.

He barely looks at me for the entire time they stay, which is about an hour. It's as if we're back in the Berkshires and nothing else has happened between us. When we do make eye contact, he looks away quickly, as if even the sight of me bothers him.

I'm every bit as annoyed as I am disappointed. Apparently it's not even worth coming to me to ask me the truth about what may or may not be going on between Elliot and me. And I'm annoyed at the situation, which has yet again made it impossible for me to talk to him alone. When they leave, Lou demanding she take me shopping for a dress for the engagement party on Saturday, Ahmir is the first one out the door, his coat already on. He throws me a glance before we leave, and as I open my mouth to say something, anything, my cell phone rings. I look down to turn it off, barely registering the MEGAN on the screen, and when I look up, Ahmir is gone.

Discouraged, I call Megan back, and agree to lunch at her apartment. I hop in the shower quickly, trying to scrub away all the bad feeling from the last few days.

The knock on the door comes when I'm just about to dry my hair. I look helplessly from the dryer to the door, but again the curiosity wins out, and I pad my way over, opening it thoughtlessly, without looking through the peephole first.

Standing in the doorway, hands shoved deep into his pockets, is Ahmir.

"Cap!" I say, taken completely by surprise. I correct myself immediately. "Ahmir. Did you forget something?" Then, when he doesn't answer me, "What's wrong?"

"Can I come in?" his voice is flat, but he twists his mouth. I nod before I speak.

"Sure, come on in," I make way for him to pass me, then shut the door behind me. My heart is racing from his nearness, but something holds me back. I feel the pull to reassure him about Friday night, to tell him it was a misunderstanding, but I should let him say what he wants to say. He came to me, I would just be an opportunist.

"Can I sit down?" He asks, pointing to the loveseat Harry had only recently vacated. I raise my eyebrows, trying not to smile.

"Yeah, of course you can sit down. Do you want something to drink?" I feel stupid offering drinks again, but it seems the thing to do, and I am, in fact, the mistress of this estate.

"No, thanks. I just have something to say, and then I'll get out your hair," he looks at my sopping head, and a smile flits around the corners of his mouth. "Literally."

I smile back at him, but his voice sounds ominous. "What's wrong?" I ask again, moving to sit down on the arm of the small chair, feeling awkward at such close quarters with him.

He puts his hands on his knees, and then folds them. Then he unfolds them, and puts them back on his knees. He opens his mouth, then closes it. Takes a breath, and then says, "I have a message from Adam and Nadya."

This is not at all what I was expecting. I wait a moment, eyebrows raised, then say, "A message?"

"Well, more like an offer, I guess." He raises his eyes to mine, then lowers them.

"An offer." I am a parrot.

"Yes." He raises his eyes to mine again, and then says "Adam and Nadya wanted me to tell you that if you wanted to bring Elliot as your date to Louisa and Ben's engagement, you could. He wasn't invited before, but if you wanted to invite him as your special guest, he was welcome to come."

I let that sink in for a second.

"Nadya and Adam said this?"

"Yes." He's watching me now.

"Okay."

"So you will be bringing him?"

"I—"

"Just say it." He looks me dead in the eye. "Yes or no."

I am surprised by a burst of anger. Then, as it grows, I'm surprised that I wasn't angrier beforehand. I clamp my mouth down around it, breathing around it, getting used to it. I don't get angry very often, and when I do, bad things tend to happen. I don't want bad things to happen right now.

My silence bothers him. He frowns, concerned. "Anne?"

"I don't suppose they could have called me themselves, or come by on their own." I keep my voice level, my thumbnail tracing the design on the chair upholstery.

"Well—" he seems flustered, although it seems to me a pretty basic piece of information to give.

"And I don't suppose there's any point in just asking me if I'm dating Elliot," I continue, still levelly, now fixing him with my gaze. He looks at me for a moment, silently, and then says, "You're mad at me?"

"Yeah, actually, I am," I say, and with that confession the worst part of the anger starts to dissipate. All I have left now is my conviction of my own righteousness, which is more than enough to get my point across. Whatever my point ends up being.

"I don't think you've ever been mad at me before," he says softly, his gaze half wondering half wary.

"Well, there's a first time for everything." He doesn't answer, and I take the silence to breathe, steadying myself.

"If you want to know something, Ahmir, just ask me. And also," I continue, sitting back and looking around, as if asking this question generally, "why is it that everyone is just assuming that I'm with—" There's a knock on the door. We both look to it, and I have the strange sensation that we are both thinking the same thing.

I get up and cross to the door. Please don't let it be Elliot, please don't let it be Elliot, because I swear to God, if it's Elliot, I'll…

I open the door. It's not Elliot.

Rochelle smiles at me, sees the expression on my face, then looks around me to see Ahmir in the living room. She steps around me and they gaze at each other for a moment. The silence is killing me. I have to say something, and finally, I choose the stupidest thing ever to say.

"Ahmir, do you remember Rochelle?"

"Rochelle." His response is frigid. He hasn't moved from his seat.

Rochelle folds her hands in front of her. "And how are you?" she asks genially.

"I've been better," is his terse response. I close my eyes for a moment. When I open them, nothing has changed.

Ahmir seems in no hurry to leave. In fact, he sits back in the loveseat and picks up a book from my end table, reading the back of it. Rochelle sits down in the armchair I just vacated, and crosses her legs. I stand, at a complete loss.

"Would anyone like some tea?" I say, moving to the kitchen before anyone has a chance to answer. I turn the faucet, then let the water run a little, leaning against the sink, head thrown back. This is terrible timing. Terrible, awful timing.

I take my time fixing things up. I should probably be out in the living room making sure no one is killed, but I don't want to get in the middle, which is unfortunately exactly where I am, and where I always have been. I step back into the room with a tray of tea perched precariously in my shaking hands, just in time to hear Rochelle ask, "Are you a fan of Joyce?"

Ahmir puts my copy of The Dubliners back where it was. "He's not my favorite." Is all he says. Rochelle smiles. She never thought Ahmir read enough to be with me. That seems to still be true.

Ahmir continues, " Irish literature as a whole doesn't do much for me. Although 'The Dead' is one of the best things ever written. Thank you, Anne," he says, smiling up at me as I offer him a cup of tea. I didn't bother bringing out the sugar bowl. I know how both of them take their breakfast beverages.

Rochelle recognizes his last statement with a slight twist of her lips and a noncommittal sound, the turns completely to me, effectively cutting Ahmir out of the conversation. She says something about walking somewhere, and my eyes flick to the clock on the wall, the clock I had only bought the day before at a hokey consignment shop called Be Our Guest. If I was going to make it to Megan's on time, I would need to leave now.

There's a time to be polite and a time to be clear.

"Actually," I say, standing up and cutting Rochelle off. She and Ahmir both look at me in wonder, their mouths open, their expressions identical. It would be hilarious if I were in the laughing mood. "Actually, I have to be somewhere right now, so I'm going to need to kick you both out so I can finish getting ready."

"A date with Elliot?" Rochelle smiles, collecting her purse in a hurry. She seems perfectly willing to leave if a date with Mr. Williams is in store.

I avoid looking at Ahmir. "Nope. I'm seeing my old roommate for some lunch. Now please leave. Both of you, out!" I shoo them out, making the classic "go away" hand gestures and closing the door firmly behind them. It is perhaps the rudest I have ever been to company. And man does it feel good.

"Why is everyone so obsessed with the idea of Elliot and me? Why does everyone in the world think we're dating?" I exclaim, sitting back and crossing my legs, folding my arms across my chest.

"You aren't dating him?" Megan asks, putting her glass down on the table.

"No. Or course not."

"You're sure?"

"I generally have very good self-awareness when it comes to my own love life. I think I can be reasonably relied upon to know when I'm not dating someone." I say it waspishly, more so than she deserves. But I guess this counts as a time to be clear, as well.

"Okay, filly, reign that in," she holds up her hands (adorned with green-and-purple fingerless gloves bedecked with pink flowers) in a gesture of surrender. Next to me Rocio raises her eyebrows. "I just wanted to know the truth, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition."

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. And can't you just ask me? What is it with the just assuming and not even asking thing?"

"Oh, like you don't do that either. Hush'm, little Miss Elliot. But you definitely aren't dating him?"

"YES, I'm definitely not dating him! Okay? Nor am I secretly in love with him and unable to express my feelings, nor am I denying it for the drama, okay? I don't even like him that much."

"Oh, good," she says, sounding genuinely relieved. Rocio leans in, too and says "No, seriously, it's very good."

I look from one to the other. "What do you know?"

They exchange glances. Rocio nods, and jerks her head towards me. Megan looks at me again, and takes a breath, opening her mouth to speak.

"Now, I've only known this for a day or so. I've suspected it for a while." She splays her hands down flat on the tabletop, as if laying out a battle plan. Rocio and I exchange a glance, and I lean in despite myself. When Megan speaks again, it is in serious, flat tones. "Elliot Williams is after your money."

I can't help it. I laugh. I laugh loudly. "What money?" I scoff. "I work in a diner!"

"Not that money. The money your mother left you. A trust fund."

The smile slides right off my face, and I stare at her, unblinking for a moment. "How do you know about that?"

Because it's true. My mother put money into a trust fund for all three of her daughters, which ended up being quite a significant amount, all things considered. The fund was supposed to be split into three equal parts, and was entailed to us for when we turn thirty or when we get married, whichever comes first. As such, Mary got hers years ago, while Elizabeth, it seems, is expecting to get hers all to herself. I haven't heard of or thought of that fund since I was nineteen. I didn't even tell Ahmir about it. I definitely never mentioned it to Megan, no matter how close we were at school.

"It's over ten million dollars, isn't it?" She says, shocking me further.

"Where did you hear this?" I ask, now frowning thunderously. Megan licks her lips, hesitating, then looks to Rocio, who glances at me uncertainly before leaning in herself. The blood is pounding so hard in my ears that I can barely hear what she says, though I'm hanging on every word.

Missing is Rocio's normal slightly smug smile, like the Mona Lisa, who knows even more than she lets on. Instead, she is urgent and slightly hesitant, as if afraid that I'm going to explode at any second. Well, they do say it's always the quiet ones.

"I was at General Wallis's house two days ago, and I heard him and his wife talking. They talk all the time, the two of them, and they pretend like I'm not there, so I hear things, you know? Well, Elliot Williams and the General are drinking buddies, apparently, as hard as it is to believe for a man who can't leave his house. And Elliot told him a story once about his father being your mother's lawyer, and about how rich you and your sisters are. And about a weird part of the will, some loophole that would make it so that your father's wife—"

She doesn't get any further, because I stand up abruptly, pushing my chair back several inches, and causing the other two to look at me fearfully. I've figured it out, obviously. And really, it's idiotic that I hadn't done it before.

Elliot's father was my mother's lawyer, while my father had been patronizing Mr Shepherd for as long as I can remember. Mr Williams, Harvard educated and top of his class, helped my mother set up the trust fund for my sisters and me, but he had failed to correct a minor error in language in the fund's language. So, too a similar one in her will. What seemed at the time to be a clerical error could possibly be described by some very cynical people as sinister and calculating, but I'm inclined to think it was an error. My mother seemed to be in the peak of health, and she took better care of herself than my clearly hedonistic father.

That loophole is that in the event of a change of plan, that Mrs Elliot is the sole proprietor of the trust. Mrs Elliot. Not my mother's name, not her maiden name. No specifications. All in all, very sloppy work from one of the East Coast's best lawyers. The will, in turn, simply directed the reader to the trust's language.

This would mean, of course, that if my father manages to marry again before Elizabeth turns thirty or gets married, then his wife, if she changes her name to Mrs Elliot, could possibly have unlimited access to a net worth of over twenty million dollars at her disposal. And Hope Shepherd, the pretty daughter of my father's lawyer, has been positioning herself to do just that. She has to have known about the will. Her father knew.

It's a long shot, to be sure, but a good lawyer can make a convincing argument for it. Crazier things have happened.

But if Dad doesn't get married to Hope, then the money goes to Elizabeth and me, the way our mother planned. No doubt Elizabeth is having severely bittersweet feelings about her thirtieth birthday.

And then there's me. I'm a little more than four years from thirty. The quickest way to get my money is to marry me. No doubt Elliot is so assured of my good nature that he is betting everything on my not wanting to sign a prenup. So he needed to make me fall in love with him. Which is essentially what he's been trying to do for months now.

I haven't thought about that money in years. I haven't spoken about it to anyone. For all that it's ten million dollars, more than enough to do whatever I want, the possibility of getting it seemed to remote for so long that that money wasn't even a part of my worldview. I had considered us destitute and bankrupt. And, in my elitism, I hadn't considered Hope to be smart enough or well-informed enough to be capable of thinking past the here and now. That money had seemed so far away from my world that it didn't even enter into my consciousness. Now it seems central to everything.

"So, what you're saying is," I say after taking several deep, supposedly-steadying breaths. "What you're saying is that he wants my money, and he wants to keep Hope from marrying my father."

Rocio nods vigorously. She's gotten over the shock fairly quickly, since she doesn't know me well. Megan looks floored by my admittedly violent reaction. I try to smile and reassure her, but when that fails I sit down carefully, picking up the carafe of water on the table and slowly refilling my glass, willing my shaking hands not to err, making sure not to spill any water. I shouldn't have reacted so quickly. I should have at least tried to keep my cool.

I want to say that my shock and disgust at this situation have nothing to do with my pride. The money itself, while significant, isn't as thrilling as perhaps it should be. At least to any sane, normal person. I guess I'm not sane. I've doubted it several times before, what's one more time?

I usually consider myself to be a good judge of character. I'm also usually right about the people I meet. I take time to think over conversations, I dwell far too much on what was said and what was done. I know the ins and outs of how I feel, because that is what I need to know. I need to understand fully, in long, complex, English sentences, what it is that I'm feeling and thinking and why that is. It's in me. I can't change it.

But Elliot fooled me. I wasn't completely taken in, to be sure, but I also wasn't as suspicious as I should have been. As careful as I should have been. He got very close to me very quickly, for all I tried to keep him away. It's impossible to hate Elliot, even when he does hateful things. It's impossible to despise him, even when he does despicable things. That is his greatest asset. He is beautiful, he dresses well, he is educated and respectful and charming, but his friendly, open demeanor will always get him at least part of what he wants. Not this, though. Never this.

I wonder if he knew it was me at Lyme, all those months ago. Somehow, I doubt it. He rarely shows genuine emotion, and he was actually surprised to see me.

Well. I had no intention of marrying him anyway. This just puts paid to both the on-a-desert-island and last-people-on-earth-and-we-must-repopulate scenarios. No. And no.

I take another sip of water, mulling it over. The perspiration from the glass wets my hand, and a small droplet slides between my pinkie and my ring finger. I cool down.

I've spent so long in my own little world that I forgot how so much of the world really works. I've lived for so long in a prison of my own making that I forgot to remember the possibility of freedom. Having money makes it possible to do more things. Having money makes you prey to the hopes of the rest of the world. There are always two sides to a story.

I place the glass down on the table, fiddling with it so that the corner fits exactly on the placemat.

As for Hope, I don't think she'll succeed. She can try, and she has tried, but Elizabeth turns thirty fairly soon, which loses half the money right there. And first she'd have to marry my dad, which would involve her convincing him that somehow he loved somebody enough to commit to a life change for her. So far, she's been living by his rules. He likes that.

I leave Megan's apartment with a lot to think about. I've managed to convince Megan and Rocio that I'm all right, and for the most part, I am. In reality, this changes nothing. I was never going to fall in love with Elliot. Hope never really had much of a chance with my dad.

But at the same time, I feel more connected to the people I know I can trust. To the open and honest people who are my friends. Lou, Hen, Harry, Charles, Nadya, Adam, even Mary are all who they are. And they don't try to hide their intentions from each other. They lack the calculations. And Ahmir, oh, Ahmir, even on his best days he only slightly inscrutable, slightly uncommunicative. He makes his intentions fairly clear. He is mostly unmysterious. He could never con anyone, not because he lacks the intelligence, but because he simply never would do that. Honesty is best. I learned that from him.

I will be honest. I will be forthright. I will not let this opportunity pass me by. I've dealt with "maybes" and "sometime soons" and haven't gotten anywhere. It's over. I will tell him how I feel. By the time the week is over, this endless toss-around of hints and indications, of clues and fear and stupid, stupid, stupid hesitation will be over. I will tell him how I feel.

And then we'll see.