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I’d had a miscarriage. I’d bought a pair of booties just like these. “I’m pregnant,” I’d said and handed them to him. “That’s terrible,” he had said. There was nothing worse, it seemed to me, than a reluctant father. I hadn’t counted on his ambivalence. But before I could think too much about it, I had lost the baby.
    I realized my problems with Russell had started when I’d handed him those booties.
    I held up a beautiful baby blanket.
    â€œThat’s exquisite. Doris made that,” the one who was the leader said. She had soft white hair molded into a helmet and nice blue eyes. She wore a huge rhinestone pin on her lapel, a wasp or a bumblebee or something. “You have excellent taste.”
    Old ladies liked me. With the exception of my mother-in-law, I had never met a senior citizen I couldn’t befriend. As a child, I always wondered why Dorothy couldn’t win over the witch or why Snow White couldn’t just make the Queen something nice at her school.
    â€œHow’s business?” I asked.
    â€œDoing nicely, thank you,” she said.
    I had started at five, selling Kool-Aid on the street, and I’d probably end up just like this, I thought. Actually I kind of liked the idea. I’d be ninety, selling my knitting, and the Grim Reaper would walk up and buy a scarf—black of course—and we’d do it on the steps of the senior center before he took me with him.
    â€œHow much is the blanket?” I asked.
    â€œOnly thirty-five,” she said.
    â€œThat’s a steal,” I said. “I’ll take it.”
    â€œDoris, you got a sale. That’s Doris and Gert, and I’m Marilyn. And you are?”
    â€œIsolde.”
    â€œIsolde. You don’t hear that name too often with young people. Hat and booties to go with it?”
    â€œNo, just the blanket,” I said.
    She handed me the blanket in a Gristedes shopping bag and I had an incredible urge to pull up a beach chair and join them.
    â€œWe’ll be here next Wednesday,” she called after me as I walked away.

8
    T he next day, when Shasthi came, before she had even set down her quilted gold fake-leather pocketbook, I said, “Do you know how to tell when you’re most likely to get pregnant?”
    I had meant to just say hello and tell her there were sweet potatoes on the counter for Duncan.
    I was wrapped in a towel and hadn’t gotten into the shower yet. My heart was pounding but I had no idea why. There was no reason to feel uncomfortable talking about this and I was practically an expert. Russell sat at his desk, talking to someone on the phone about a book jacket.
    â€œTell? No?” Shasthi said.
    I indicated for her to follow me into the kitchen. “You know there’s only about forty-eight hours a month, or maybe only twenty-four, when you’re able to get pregnant. You know the . . .” I couldn’t think of any possible word. “Mucus. That’s in the vagina?”
    â€œYes?” Shasthi said. She seemed interested and open to this. “Let me just wash my hands.”
    She went into the bathroom and I stood helpless in my yellow towel.
    â€œWhere is the baby?” she asked a little suspiciously when she came back in. She seemed to have approached with caution when she arrived, as if she wasn’t sure what would have gone on the night before in her absence. It was the way, I realized, I had always entered the apartment when I came home after leaving Duncan with a nanny. Or with Russell.
    â€œHe’s asleep in his crib,” I said. “When a woman is ovulating the mucus is very thin like egg whites.”
    â€œOkay,” Shasthi said. She looked like she was concentrating, like I was giving her instructions for what to do in an emergency.
    â€œThat’s how you know you are able to become pregnant.”
    â€œOkay. I will try that,” Shasthi said, as if it were a recipe