HE WAISTBAND OF LAUREN'S SCHOOL UNIFORM WAS as loose as usual; still, it didn't fit somehow. She looked at herself in the mirror and tried to tell herself that no one could tell. She felt like Hester Prynne, only the letter was a scarlet P on her stomach.

She washed and dried her hands and left the bathroom.

Classes were just getting out for the day. Students rushed past her in laughing, chattering pods of red-andblack plaid. On the last school day before a holiday, it was always this loud. She lost track of how many kids called out to her. It seemed impossible they couldn't see how different she was now, how separate.

"Lo!" David called out to her, loping forward, his backpack dragging on the ground beside him. He dropped it when he reached her, pulled her into his arms for a hug.

She clung to him. When she finally drew back, she was trembling.

"Where were you?" he asked, nuzzling her throat.

"Can we go somewhere to talk?"

"You heard, didn't you? Damn it, I told everyone I wanted to surprise you."

She looked up at him, noticing suddenly how bright his eyes were, how broad his smile. He looked ready to start laughing at any moment. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really?" If possible, his smile grew. He grabbed her hand and pulled her along behind him. They ran past the cafeteria and the library, then ducked into a shadowy alcove near the music room. The marching band was practicing. The staccato notes of "Tequila" stuttered onto the cold afternoon air.

He kissed her hard, then drew back, grinning. "Here."

She stared down at the envelope in his hand. It had been ripped open. The upper edge was tattered. She took it from him and saw the return address.

Stanford University.

She barely breathed as she withdrew the letter and read the first line. Dear Mr. Haynes: We are pleased to offer you a place of admission...

Tears made it impossible to read the rest.

"Isn't it great?" he said, taking the letter from her. "Early decision rocks."

"It's so early... no one else knows yet."

"I guess I'm just lucky."

Lucky. Yeah. "Wow," she said, unable to look at him. There was no way she could tell him now.

"This is the beginning, Lauren. You'll get into USC or Berkeley, and we'll be on our way. We'll be together every weekend. And holidays."

She finally looked up at him. It felt as if miles separated them now, a distance as big as an ocean. Different colleges hardly seemed to matter. "You're leaving tonight, aren't you?" Even to her own ears, her voice sounded dull, wooden.

"Thanksgiving at Uncle Frederick's." He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly, whispering, "It's only through the weekend. Then we can celebrate."

She wanted to be happy for him. Stanford. It was what he'd dreamed of. "I'm proud of you, David."

"I love you, Lauren."

It was true. He loved her. And not in that silly high school I-just-want-to-get-laid way, either.

Yesterday that would have been enough; today she saw things differently.

It was easy to love someone when life was uncomplicated.

Last week Lauren's biggest fear--and it had seemed Incredible Hulk big--had been not getting in to Stanford. Today that was the least of her worries. Soon, she would have to tell David about the baby, and from that moment on, nothing would be easy. Love least of all.

SOMEHOW LAUREN MADE IT THROUGH HER WEDNESDAY shift at the restaurant. Truthfully, she wasn't sure how she did it. Her mind was crammed so full, it didn't seem possible that she could remember a single order, let alone dozens.

"Lauren?"

She turned, found Angie standing there, smiling at her with a worried look in her eyes.

"We want you and your mother to come to Mama's house for Thanksgiving dinner."

"Oh." Lauren hoped her longing didn't show.

Angie moved closer. "We'd really like you to be there."

All her life she'd waited for an invitation like this. "I..." She couldn't seem to say no. "My mom isn't one for parties." Unless you're offering gin and pot.

"If she's busy, come by yourself. Just think about it. Please? Everyone will get to Mama's around one o'clock." Angie handed Lauren a slip of paper. "Here's the address. It would mean a lot to us if you were there. You work at DeSaria's. That makes you family."

ON THANKSGIVING, WHEN LAUREN WOKE UP, HER VERY first thought was: You work at DeSaria's. That makes you family.

For once, she had somewhere to go on this holiday, but how could she go there now, ruined and stupid? Angie would take one look at her and know. Lauren had been dreading that moment from the second she found out she was pregnant.

She was still pacing the apartment at eleven when the phone rang. She answered on the first ring. "Hello?"

"Lauren? It's Angie."

"Oh. Hi."

"I wondered if you needed a ride today. It looks like it might rain and I know that your mom's car isn't running."

Lauren sighed. It was a sound of pure longing. "No. Thanks."

"You'll be here at one o'clock, right?"

The question was asked so softly Lauren couldn't say no. She wanted it too much. "Sure. One o'clock." When she hung up, she went to her mom's room and stood by the door, listening. It was quiet. Finally, she knocked. "Mom?"

There was the pinging of bedsprings, then footsteps. The door opened. Mom stood there, bleary-eyed and ashen-skinned, wearing a knee-length T-shirt that advertised a tavern. The slogan was Alcoholics serving alcoholics for 89 years. "Yeah?"

"It's Thanksgiving, remember? We're invited to dinner."

Mom reached sideways for a pack of smokes. Lit one up. "Oh, yeah. Your boss. I thought you weren't sure."

"I... I'd like to go."

Mom glanced behind her--at the man in the bed, no doubt. "I think I'll hang around here."

"But--"

"You go. Have a good time. I'm not one for big to-dos, anyway. You know that."

"They invited both of us. It'll be embarrassing to show up alone."

Mom exhaled smoke and smiled. "No more embarrassing than showing up with me." She looked pointedly at Lauren's stomach. "Besides, you're not alone anymore."

The door closed.

Lauren walked back to her bedroom. By twelve-fifteen, she'd pulled out three outfits and changed her mind on each one. The truth was, she was thankful for the distraction of clothes. It kept her mind occupied, gave her something to think about beside the pregnancy.

Finally, she ran out of time and wore the outfit she had on: a flowing Indian print gauze skirt, a white T-shirt with black lace at the neckline, and the coat Angie had given her. She straightened her hair and brushed it back into a ponytail, then dabbed on a tiny amount of makeup, just enough to give her pale cheeks and even paler eyelashes some color.

She caught the twelve forty-five crosstown bus.

She was the only passenger on this Thanksgiving Day. There was something sad in it, she supposed, the very portrait of a human being without family.

Then again, it meant she had somewhere to go. Better than the people who sat home alone today, eating dinners from tinfoil trays and watching movies that made you ache for what you didn't have. All the holiday specials were like that. The movies, the parades; they all showed families coming together, enjoying the day, enjoying each other. Mothers holding...

babies.

Lauren sighed heavily.

It was always right there, buoyant as a cork, ready to pop to the surface of her thoughts.

"Not today," she said aloud. Why not talk to herself? There was no one here to laugh about it and scoot nervously sideways.

This would be her first ever family Thanksgiving. She'd waited a lifetime for it. She refused to let the baby ruin it for her.

At the corner of Maple Drive and Sentinel, she exited the bus. Outside, the sky was lead pipe gray. It looked more like evening than midday. Wind scraped along the ground, swirling up blackened leaves and shaking the bare trees. It wasn't raining yet, but it soon would be. A storm was coming.

She buttoned her coat against the cold and hurried down the street, reading house numbers along the way, although she hadn't needed to. When she came to the DeSaria house, she knew it instantly. The yard was perfectly trimmed and cared for. Purple cabbagelike flowers bloomed along the walkway, created a stream of color against the winter-dead ground.

The house was a beautiful Tudor-style home with leaded glass windows and a slanting shake roof and an arching brick entrance. A statue of Jesus stood by the door, his hands outstretched in greeting.

She walked down the cement path, past a fountain of the Virgin Mary, and knocked on the door.

There was no answer, though she could hear a commotion going on inside.

She rang the bell.

Again, nothing. She was about to turn and leave when the door suddenly flew open.

A tiny, blond-haired girl stood there, looking up. She wore a pretty black velvet dress with white trim.

"Who are you?" the girl asked.

"I'm Lauren. Angie invited me to dinner."

"Oh." The girl smiled at her, then turned and ran.

Lauren stood there, confused. Cold air breezed up the back of her skirt, reminding her to shut the door.

Cautiously, she walked through the tiny foyer and paused at the edge of the living room.

It was pandemonium. There had to be at least twenty people in there. Three men stood in the corner by the picture window, drinking cocktails and talking animatedly as they watched a football game. Several teenagers sat at a game table, playing cards. They were laughing and yelling at one another. Some small kids lay on the carpet, sprawled out around the Candy Land board game like spokes on a wheel.

Afraid to walk through the crowd, she backed away from the doorway and turned around. On the other end of the small foyer was another room. In it, a few older people were watching television.

Lauren hurried through, holding her breath. No one asked who she was, and then she found herself at the doorway to the kitchen.

The aroma hit her first.

Pure heaven.

Then she saw the women. They were working together in the kitchen. Mira was peeling potatoes, Livvy was arranging antipasti on an ornate silver tray, Angie was chopping vegetables, and Maria was rolling out pasta.

They were all talking at once, and laughing often. Lauren could make out only snippets of the conversation.

"Lauren!" Angie cried out, looking up from the mound of vegetables. "You made it."

"Thanks for the invitation." She realized suddenly that she should have brought something, like a bunch of flowers.

Angie looked behind her. "Where's your mom?"

Lauren felt herself blush. "She... uh... has the flu."

"Well, we're glad you're here."

The next thing Lauren knew, she was surrounded by women. For the next hour, she worked in the kitchen. She helped Livvy set the tables, helped Mira set out the antipasto trays in the living room, and helped Angie wash dishes.

At any given time, there were at least five people in the kitchen. When they set about the task of serving, there was double that number. Everyone seemed to know exactly what to do. The women moved like synchronized swimmers, serving food and carrying platters from one room to the other. When it was finally time to sit down, Lauren found herself seated at the adult table, between Mira and Sal.

She'd never seen so much food in her life. There was the turkey, of course, and two bowls of dressing--one from inside the bird and one from outside--mounds of mashed potatoes and boats of gravy, green beans with onion, garlic and pancetta, risotto with Parmesan cheese and prosciutto, homemade pasta in capon broth, roasted stuffed vegetables, and homemade bread.

"It's obscene, isn't it?" Mira said, leaning close, laughing.

"It's beautiful," Lauren answered wistfully.

At the head of the table, Maria led them all in a prayer that ended with family blessings. Then she stood up. "It is my first Thanksgiving in Papa's chair." She paused, closed her eyes tightly. "Somewhere he is thinking how much he loves us all."

When she opened her eyes, they were full of tears. "Eat," she said, sitting down abruptly. After a moment of silence, the conversations started up again.

Mira reached for the platter of sliced turkey meat and offered it to Lauren. "Here. Youth before beauty." She laughed.

Lauren started with the turkey and didn't stop there. She filled her plate until it was heaped with food. Each bite was more delicious than the last.

"How are your college applications going?" Mira asked, taking a sip of white wine.

"I've mailed them all out." She tried to inject some enthusiasm in her voice. Only a week ago, she would have been pumped up about her applications. Scared of not getting in, perhaps, scared of being separated from David, but still excited about the future.

Not now.

"Where are you applying?"

"USC, UCLA, Pepperdine, Berkeley, UW, and Stanford," she said, sighing.

"That's an impressive list. No wonder Angie is so proud of you."

Lauren looked at Mira. "She's proud of me?"

"She says so all the time."

The thought of it was an arrow that pierced her chest. "Oh."

Mira cut her turkey into bite-sized pieces. "I wish I'd gone away to college. Maybe to Rice or Brown. But we didn't think like that in those days. At least, I didn't. Angie did. Then I met Vince and... you know."

"What?"

"The plan was two years at the community college in Fircrest, then two years at Western." She smiled. "In a way, it worked. I didn't count on eight years between my sophomore and junior years, but life follows its own plan." She glanced across the room at the kids' table.

"So a baby kept you out of college."

Mira frowned. "What an odd way to phrase it. No, just slowed me down, that's all."

After that, Lauren had trouble eating or talking or even smiling. She finished her meal--or pretended to-- then helped with the dishes like an automaton. All she could think about was the baby inside of her, how it would grow bigger and bigger and make her world smaller.

And all around her there was talk of children and babies and friends who were having both. It stopped when Angie was in the room, but the minute she left, the women started up with the kid talk again.

Lauren wished she could leave, just slip unnoticed into the night and disappear.

But that would be rude, and she was the type of girl who followed the rules and played nicely with others.

The kind of girl who let her boyfriend convince her that one time without a condom would be fine. I'll pull out, he'd promised.

"Not fast enough," she muttered, taking her piece of pie into the living room.

Her mind was far away as she sat in the living room, tucked between Livvy's little boys. She stared down at her untouched pie. One of the boys kept talking to her, asking her questions about toys she'd never heard of and movies she'd never seen. She couldn't answer any of his questions. Hell, she could hardly keep remembering to nod and smile and pretend she was listening. How could she possibly concentrate on a child's questions when now, this second, a human life was taking root inside her, growing with every beat of her heart? She touched her stomach, feeling how flat it was.

"Come with me."

Lauren jerked her chin up, yanked her hand away from her belly.

Angie stood there, a plaid woolen blanket thrown over her shoulder. Without waiting for Lauren to answer, she turned and headed toward the sliding glass doors.

Lauren followed her out to the back deck. They sat side by side on a wooden bench, both of them resting their feet on the deck railing. Angie tucked the blanket around their bodies.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

The gentleness of the question was Lauren's undoing. Her resolve faded, leaving behind a pale gray desperation. She looked at Angie. "You know about love, right?"

"I was in love with Conlan for a long time, and my folks were married for almost fifty years. So, yeah, I know something about love."

"But you're divorced. So you know it ends, too."

"Yes. It can end. It can also build a family and last forever."

Lauren knew nothing about the kind of love that stayed firm in shaky years. She did know how David would react to news of their baby, though. His smile would vanish. He would try to say it didn't matter, that he loved Lauren and that they'd be okay, but neither one of them would believe it.

"Did you love your husband?" Lauren asked.

"Yes."

Lauren wished she hadn't asked the question; that was how hurt Angie looked right now. But she couldn't stop herself. "So he stopped loving you?"

"Oh, Lauren." Angie sighed. "The answers aren't always so clear when it comes to things like that. Love can get us through the hardest times. It can also be our hardest times." She looked down at her bare left hand. "I think he loved me for a long time."

"But your marriage didn't last."

"We had big issues, Lauren."

"Your daughter."

Angie looked up, obviously surprised. Then she smiled sadly. "Not many people dare to bring her up."

"I'm sorry--"

"Don't be. I like talking about her sometimes. Anyway, when she died, it was the beginning of the end for Con and me. But let's talk about you. Have you and David broken up?"

"No."

"So it must be college-related. You want to talk about it?"

College.

For a second she didn't understand the question. College seemed distant now, not like real life at all.

Not like a girl who was pregnant.

Or a woman who would have given anything for a child.

She looked at Angie, wanting to ask for help so badly the words tasted bitter. But she couldn't do it, couldn't bring this problem to Angie.

"Maybe it's more serious than that," Angie said slowly.

Lauren threw back the blanket and got to her feet. Walking toward the railing, she stared out at the dark backyard.

Angie came up behind her, touched her shoulder. "Is there some way I can help you?"

Lauren closed her eyes. It felt good to have someone offer.

But there was no way anyone could help. She knew that. It was up to her to take care of it.

She sighed. What choice did she have, really? She was seventeen years old. She'd just sent out college applications and paid every dime she had for the privilege.

She was a teenager. She couldn't be a mother. God knew she understood about mommies who resented their babies. She didn't want to do that to a child. It was a painful legacy that she'd hate to pass on.

And if she were going to take care of it--

Say it, her subconscious demanded. If you can think it, identify it.

And if she were going to have an abortion, should she tell David?

How could she not?

"Believe me," she whispered, seeing her breath in lacy white fronds, "he'd rather not know."

"What did you say?"

Lauren turned to Angie. "The truth is... things are bad at home. My mom is in love with yet another loser-- big surprise--and she's hardly working. And we're... fighting about stuff."

"My mom and I went at it pretty good when I was your age. I'm sure--"

"Believe me. It's not the same thing. My mom isn't like yours." Lauren felt that loneliness well up in her throat again. She looked away before Angie could see it in her eyes. "You know how we live."

Angie moved closer. "You told me your mom is young, right? Thirty-four? That means she was just a kid when she had you. That's a tough road to walk. I'm sure she's doing the best she can." She touched Lauren's shoulder. "Sometimes we have to forgive the people we love, even if we're mad as hell. That's just how it is."

"Yeah," Lauren said dully.

"Thanks for being honest with me," Angie said. "It's hard to talk about family problems."

And there it was--the feeling worse when you thought you'd hit the bottom. Lauren stared out at the darkness, unable to look at Angie. She tried to think of something to say but nothing came to her except a soft, thready "Thanks. It helps to talk."

Angie put an arm around her, squeezing gently. "That's what friends are for."