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with the party, and you know how my mother is about . . .”
    “I talked to your mother already.”
    “You did? What did she say?”
    “She said OK, she’d change it to the following Thursday.”
    “I don’t know, Johanna, I think you misled me. I was under the distinct impression that you were finished with those people and all you had to do now was sit home and write. Am I wrong?”
    “OK, so I did go a little light on the interview stuff. It seemed to disturb you so much.”
    “Well, it does.”
    “It shouldn’t.”
    David doesn’t answer. He’s still working on his shoe but with less concentration. It’s the old argument, and I know he doesn’t want us to fall into the same untenable positions again, but it’s tough for him. This project is always going to give him trouble, but, damn it, he’s going to have to deal with that himself. I stand there watching, waiting for my David to conquer his David, and finally it happens. “You really don’t have a choice, do you?”
    “No.”
    “Then you have to go.” He stops what he’s doing. “Look, Jo, maybe I can help you. Is there any legal work I can research?”
    “Nothing right now, but I know it’s going to come up.”
    “Do you want me to go out to San Francisco with you? I don’t know what I can do out there, but it’s fairly slow this week. I could get away.”
    “That’s OK, I can handle San Francisco. It’s sort of cut-and-dried, two interviews and I come right home, but I love you for offering.” By now two teenage boys and an elderly woman walking her Pekingese have stopped to watch David. In New York, if you pause to sneeze you can pick up a crowd.
    “You’re terrific! I’m mad about you.” And right in front of everyone I hug his arm and kiss his shoulder. He smiles, I smile, and the old lady smiles. The kids laugh.
    “Hey, lady, watch where you’re stepping!”
    “Oh no . . .”

Chapter Four
    I’m a highly disciplined writer. It’s a trick I was lucky enough to learn fairly early in my career. Weekday mornings I try to get to the computer by ten and stay there, breaking only for a modest lunch, until I’ve written four pages. Unless, of course, I have a good excuse. Fortunately for me, they grow on trees.
    The first thing I do each morning is reread the four pages from the previous day’s work, do some editing and rewriting, move to a new page, and I’m ready for action.
    This morning—and it is, by the way, a most magnificent spring morning, clean and sharp with dazzling sunshine flooding my office—I take my time getting started, and instead of only four pages I read the entire first chapter. I know it’s still very rough, but I’m not dissatisfied because I can see that the pacing is right. I know I haven’t caught the true character of Avrum yet, but it’s still too early in the book to be concerned. Besides, I expect his actions to fill him out just as they do in his real life. For the moment I’m using Avrum’s real name and Swat’s and Imogene’s too for my fictional characters, but only during the writing process. Later, when I’ve finished the book, I’ll change them. But for now it’s an enormous advantage to be working with the clarity of real identities.
    I see some changes I could make, but my policy is, unless there’s a major problem, to keep the flow going by always moving ahead. I’ll catch the revisions on the rewrite.
    There are always little things I have to check on along the way. The cabin I describe in the first chapter, the one in upstate New York, is an example. I myself have never been up around there, but my friend Louis has gone on any number of religious retreats not far from the Opalescent River and knows the whole area quite well. I got enough information from him for the first draft, but I’ll need more details for later in the book. He’s promised to round up some photographs, a hiker’s map, and some other things he thinks will be helpful. I’ll also have to pick up some