he next morning, Elizabeth sat on a stool at the kitchen counter, with her hands curled tightly around a mug of chamomile tea.

"Coffee?" Jack asked, pouring himself a cup.

"No, thanks. I'm trying to cut down on caffeine."

"Again?"

"Yeah, again." She set her cup down on the granite countertop. Her fingertip traced the rough, striated ceramic surface of the mug, the slightly bent handle. This cup was one of her many relics, a memento from her pottery period. She often thought that when she died, an anthropologist would be able to visualize who she was from the trail of her hobbies. Pottery. Stained glass. Hooked fabric rugs. Jewelry made from antique silver spoons. Macrame. Photography. Photo and memory albums. And then there were the endless classes she'd taken at local community colleges. Shakespearean literature, art history, political science. Once she'd lost her ability to paint, she'd gone in search of a substitute, something that would light a fire of creativity inside her. Nothing had ever taken hold.

Jack rinsed out the coffeepot and placed it gently back in place. He looked tired, and no wonder. He'd tossed and turned all night long.

"Why don't you stay home today?" she said. "We could go out to lunch. Maybe take a walk on the beach. Or go Christmas shopping in town. The stores are all decorated."

"It's too cold."

She didn't know what else to say. Once, it wouldn't have mattered if it were raining or snowing. Being together was the point. Now, even the weather came between them.

He moved in beside her, touched her shoulder and said softly, "I'm sorry."

The shame in his eyes almost undid her. It took her back in time. For a second, all she could see in the man standing beside her was the boy she'd fallen in love with all those years ago. "You'll get another chance, Jack."

"I love you, Birdie."

This time, she knew he meant it. "I love you, too."

"So, why isn't it enough?"

Elizabeth wanted to look away. "What do you mean?"

"Come on, Birdie, this is the discussion you always want to have, isn't it? The perpetual, burning question: What's wrong with us? Well, now I'm asking it. Why isn't what we still have enough?"

"I want it to be."

"It shouldn't be this hard," he said in a voice so soft she had to strain to hear it.

What she said next mattered; she knew that. They so rarely dared to approach the truth of their unhappiness. But she couldn't imagine being honest, saying I'm afraid we don't love each other anymore. "I know," was all she could manage.

Jack's shoulders sagged; his mouth settled into a frown. "You exhaust me, Elizabeth." He drew back from her. "You moan and whine about how unhappy you are, but when I finally try to discuss it, you clam up."

"I didn't say I was unhappy." She wished instantly that she hadn't said that, that she'd been truthful. But it was so... big... what they were circling now, and it frightened her.

"Of course not. You never actually say anything."

"Why should I? You never listen anyway."

They stared at each other, neither one certain of where to go from there. Woven into the silence was the fear that one of them would finally admit the truth.

"Okay, then," Jack said finally. "I'm off to work. Maybe today I'll score that big story."

With that, they merged back onto the comfortable highway of their lives. Jack might have briefly hit his turn signal, but in the end, no lane-changing was allowed.

Jack stood in front of the stadium, freezing his nuts off. A chilling breeze whipped through the parking lot, kicking up leaves and bits of fallen debris.

"There you have it," he said, giving the camera one of his patented PR smiles. "The two teams competing for this year's State Boys B-8 football championships. They might be small in size and number, but they more than make up for it in spirit and determination. From downtown Portland, this is Jackson Shore with your midday sports update."

The minute the camera light blinked off, he tossed the microphone to his cameraman. "Shit, it's cold out here," he said, buttoning up his coat. With a quick wave good-bye, he walked back to the station. He could have waited for a ride, but the techies were taking forever breaking down their equipment.

Once inside the station's warmth, he got a double tall mocha latte and headed into his office; then he sat down at his cheap metal desk and tried to think of something to do. Nothing came to mind. He got up and went to the window. Outside, the day was as gray as pipe metal. A drizzling rain fell in strands almost invisible to the naked eye. Stoplights threw beams of red and green light onto the wet pavement.

He could always go down to the college and see what was up with the Ducks, but their basketball team didn't look promising.

Maybe something was going on with the Trail Blazers...

There was a knock at his door. "Come in," he said, not daring yet to turn around. He knew he'd have to look "up" for whoever had just walked in, but in an end this dead, sometimes it took a few seconds' worth of effort to draw up that PR smile.

"Mr. Shore?"

Finally, he turned. It was Sally something-or-other, one of the station's new production assistants. She was young and beautiful and ambitious. He'd recognized that ambition the first time he'd seen her. Looking at her now, seeing the passionate fire in her gaze, made him even more tired. "What can I do for you?"

"I wanted to thank you for Tuesday night."

Jack thought for a minute. "Oh, yeah. The Bridgeport Pub." A bunch of the producers and videographers had gone out after work. At the last minute, Jack had invited Sally.

She smiled up at him, and he was caught for a minute, mesmerized by her dark eyes. "It was really nice of you to invite me along."

"I thought it'd be good for you to hang out with the producers a little. It's a tough business to break into."

She took a step closer. "I'd like to return the favor."

"Okay."

"Drew Grayland."

He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but that sure as hell wasn't it. "The Panther center?"

"My little sister was at a party with him on Saturday night. She said he was drinking straight shots and doing all kinds of drugs, and that he took a girl into his room. When the girl came out, she was crying and her clothes were all ripped up. Later that night, a drunk driver hit a dog up on Cascade Street. The rumor is that Drew was driving and the campus police are covering it up. Thursday is the big UCLA game, you know."

Jack hadn't had a tip like this in... ever. "This could be big." He allowed himself to imagine it for just a second--a national story, big-time exposure, his face on every television in America. And Henry, the lead sportscaster, was out of town. A vacation in the Australian outback, no less.

"Can I be your assistant on it?" Sally asked.

"Of course. We'll need to see if that woman filed any charges against him. We can't run with campus gossip."

Sally flipped open a small notepad and started taking notes.

"I'll talk to the news director. You get to work on questions and leads. We'll start with the campus police. Let's meet in the lobby in..." He looked at his watch. It was twelve-forty-five. "Thirty minutes, okay?"

"Perfect."

"And, Sally, thanks."

"What goes around comes around, Jack."

When she grinned up at him, he felt a flash of the old confidence.

By the time Elizabeth got home, she was dog tired. The library meeting had run overtime, her book group had taken almost an hour to get started, and the carpenter she'd interviewed was too damned expensive to do her any good.

Exhausted, she tossed her purse on the kitchen table and went back outside. On the porch, she settled into the rocking chair. The even, creaking motion of the chair--back and forth, back and forth--soothed her ragged nerves.

The endless bronze ocean stretched out before her. The thick green lawn, still damp from an afternoon downpour, glittered in the fading sunlight. A pair of ancient Douglas firs, their boughs sagging tiredly downward, bracketed the view perfectly.

A fleeting if only passed through her mind; she immediately discarded it. Her painting days were long behind her. But if they hadn't been, if she hadn't let that once-hot passion grow cold, this was what she would paint.

Close by, a bird cawed loudly. A plump crow, berating her, no doubt, for daring to invade its space.

But this was her place, her solace. From each of the three hundred bulbs she'd planted in the garden, to the picket fence she'd built and painted white, to every stick of furniture inside the house. Each square inch of this property reflected her dreams. No matter how unhappy or stressed-out she felt, she could come out to this quiet porch and stare at the ocean and feel at peace.

She watched the golden sun sink slowly into the darkening sea, then got to her feet and went back inside.

It was time to start dinner.

She had just walked through the front door when the phone rang. She answered it. "Hello?"

"Hey, kiddo, are you done saving the Oregon coast for the day?"

Elizabeth smiled in spite of her exhaustion. "Hey, Meg. It's good to hear from you." She collapsed into a Wedgwood-blue-and-yellow-striped chair and put her feet up on the matching ottoman. "What's going on?"

"Today's Thursday. I wanted to remind you about that meeting."

The passionless women.

Elizabeth's smile faded. "Yeah," she said, "I remembered," although of course she hadn't.

"You're going?"

Yeah, right. Walk into a room full of strangers and admit that she had no passion? "No, actually, I'm not. It's not my thing."

"And what exactly is your thing?"

That stung. "You're using your lawyer voice."

"What are you going to do tonight, alphabetize your spice drawer? Believe me, Birdie, you're going to wake up one day and be sixty years old, and you won't remember the last time you were happy."

Elizabeth had no answer to that. The same ugly scenario had occurred to her. Often. "If I went--and I'm not capitulating, mind you--but if I went, what would it be like?"

"A bunch of girlfriends getting together. They'll probably talk about how it feels to be lost in the middle of life."

That didn't sound so bad; she'd imagined an Inquisition. Perhaps with torture aids. "Would I have to talk?"

"No, Marcel Marceau, you could sit there like a rock."

"You really think it would help me?"

"Let's put it this way, if you don't go this week, I'll make next week such a piece of hell that by next Thursday you'll be begging to go."

Elizabeth couldn't help smiling. Years ago, when Meghann had suffered through her terrible, heartbreaking divorce, Elizabeth had treated her in exactly the same way. Tough love. Sometimes a friend had to strong-arm you; that was all there was to it. "Okay, I'll go."

"Promise?"

"Bite me."

"For the hearing impaired, I ask again, you promise?"

This could go on all day. "I promise. Now, don't you have some deadbeat dad to harass?"

"No, actually, but I have a date. He's Italian. Giuliano."

"You finally ran out of Americans, huh?"

They talked for another twenty minutes about Meghann's lack of a love life, then hung up. Elizabeth poured herself a glass of wine and took a pair of chicken breasts out of the freezer. As they defrosted in the microwave, she checked the answering machine. There was a message from her younger daughter, Jamie, and one from Jack. He was tracking down a big story and wouldn't be home until late tonight.

"There you have it, sports fans," she said aloud. It was yet another of her crazy-older-woman traits; she talked to herself. "I'm going to the meeting."

She took a shower, then went into her walk-in closet. She stared at her neatly organized clothes. So much of what she bought was bright and colorful: hand-painted scarves, hand-knit sweaters, batik silk-screen prints. She loved art in all its forms. Since her teen years, she'd been complimented on her fashion sense. But none of that helped her now. The last thing she wanted to do was stand out in the crowd.

Look, there. A woman with no passion.

After several false starts, she chose chocolate brown wool pants and a cream-colored cashmere turtleneck. She decided against a belt. It had been years since any of her good ones fit, anyway. She applied her makeup, then pulled her straight blond hair (in need of a dye job, she noticed) back into a french braid. She removed the dangly hammered-silver-and-turquoise earrings she usually wore and put in a pair of pearl studs, then studied herself in the mirror.

"Perfect." She looked as bland as a wren.

At six, she left Jack a note on the kitchen counter, just in case he got home before she did. It was a wasted gesture, of course. With his homing skills, she'd be through menopause by the time he found it.

Twenty-five minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot.

The community college had been built in the late seventies and looked like it. Textured concrete walls supported a flat orange metal roof. Winter-bare trees lined the pathways and gave the campus a strangely sorrowful mien. Haggard, worn holiday decorations--grayed snowmen and faded menorahs--hung from the streetlamps, rustled in the slight breeze.

Elizabeth clutched her handbag tightly under her arm and kept going. As she moved down the interior hallways, she was glad she'd worn her loafers. Her footsteps were muted, barely noticeable. No one would hear a thing if she decided to turn back.

Finally, she came to room 106. Unfortunately, there was no window in the door, no way to peek inside and find a reason to change her mind.

Cautiously, she opened the door. Without allowing herself another pause, she walked inside.

It was a small classroom, ordinary. A green chalkboard showed the eraser-swiped remnants of a math equation. In the middle of the room sat a semicircle of folding metal chairs; some of them were empty; others held nervous-looking women. Off to the left, a white-clothed table held a coffeemaker and a tray of baked goods.

"Don't be shy. Come on in."

Startled, Elizabeth spun around and found herself nose-to-nose with a stunningly beautiful woman wearing a scarlet suit. A name tag on her lapel read: sarah taylor.

"I'm Sarah," the woman said, smiling brightly. "Welcome to the meeting."

Elizabeth couldn't manage a smile. "I'm Elizabeth."

Sarah touched her shoulder, gave her a reassuring squeeze. "Everyone's nervous at first." She turned to the other women. "Charlotte, why don't you welcome our newest member?"

Elizabeth panicked. She wasn't really a member, was she?

Charlotte--a large woman wearing black velour sweats and green rubber gardening clogs--was already moving toward her. "Hey," Charlotte said simply. "Welcome to the group. Come on in." She took hold of Elizabeth's elbow and guided her toward the circle of chairs.

Elizabeth sat down.

Beside her was a tiny, bright-eyed young woman dressed in a denim jumpsuit and scuffed cowboy boots. "I'm Joey," she said, smiling brightly. "My husband left me to join a rock band. He plays the harmonica. Can you believe it?" She laughed. "They call themselves Dog Boys. I call 'em Dog Shits, but not in front of the kids."

Elizabeth nodded stiffly. Joey kept talking, smiling all the while. All around the circle, women chatted with one another about ordinary things. Kids' school schedules, loser ex-husbands, dead-end jobs, and child-support checks. The voices blended into a steady, blurring drone. More women drifted into the room, took seats in the semicircle. Some joined in the conversation. Others, like Elizabeth, sat quietly.

Finally, Sarah closed the door and took a seat in the middle of the group. "Welcome, ladies. It's nice to see so many new faces tonight. This is the Women's Passion Support Group." She smiled. "Don't worry, we're not as erotic as that sounds."

Laughter followed that remark, some of it nervous.

"Our objective here is to help each other. Simple Simon. We have something in common, and that something is a sense of loss. We've reached a certain age and discovered that we've misplaced a vital part of ourselves. For lack of a better word, I call the missing element passion. Our goal is simply to share our feelings with women who understand. Together we can be strong. To begin, let's go around the circle and share one dream each." She turned to the woman seated beside her. "You've been here before, Mina. Why don't you begin?"

Mina, a plump, red-haired older woman dressed in a flowery, polyester housedress, seemed entirely at ease. "I started coming to these meetings about six months ago, when my husband--Bill--was diagnosed with Alzheimer's." She shook her head, made a tsking sound. "It's a horrible thing, losing someone you love by inches.... Anyway, I promised my daughter that I'd come to the meetings. I couldn't imagine finding passion, but now, I'm taking driving lessons. It doesn't sound like much to you young gals, but it's given me a new freedom. Next week I'll be going in for my final test. Hopefully I'll drive here on my own next time."

The group applauded, and Mina giggled.

When the room quieted, the next woman began to speak. "My name is Fran. My husband ran off with his secretary. His male secretary. The only passion I have lately seems to center around buying a handgun. Unfortunately, I can't decide which one of us to shoot." She smiled nervously. "That was a joke."

Sarah leaned forward. "What do you love doing, Fran?"

"I loved being a wife." She paused, shrugged. "My friends act like I have a terminal disease. This is the first time I've left the house in weeks. My divorce attorney recommended it, but I don't see how you can help."

"We can all relate to that," Joey said. There was a murmur of assent.

"Think about it, Fran," Sarah said. "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? Answer fast. One word. Don't censor yourself."

"Sing." Fran looked surprised by her answer. "I used to sing."

"I belong to a women's choir," Mina said. "We sing at local nursing homes and hospitals. We're always looking for new members."

"Oh, I didn't mean to imply that I was a good singer."

Mina chuckled. "We sing to people who wear hearing aids. Really, join us. We have a lot of fun."

Fran looked uncertain. "I'll think about it."

Several women started talking at once. Many of them, it seemed, had reached for unexpected things, too. Flying, sky-diving, marathon running. The consensus was that anything could be a start.

"That's what we're all about," Sarah said. "Finding your passion isn't just about careers and money. It's about finding your authentic self. The one you've buried beneath other people's needs. Fran, you might be amazed at how much difference a little thing like joining a choir can make." She nodded to the woman beside Fran.

The woman moved her fingers nervously, rubbed her hands together. She was tall and thin, dressed all in black; maybe forty years old. She'd bleached her hair the color of straw; her roots were jet black. "I'm Kim. When my shit-head husband left me for a woman with braces, I started drinking. Believe me, it became a passion. I've been sober now for three months, but I'm thirsty all the time. I have no idea how to replace booze. My mom heard about this group on television and made me promise to come, so here I am."

"What do you do in your spare time?" Sarah asked.

Kim tugged on one of her long, silver earrings. "All I have is spare time. He left me plenty of money. I dyed my hair and got a tattoo--it says, 'Fuck Don.' Those are positive steps forward, don't you think?" She wasn't smiling. In fact, behind all that black eyeliner, her eyes were pools of pain.

"Maybe you could get a job," someone said. "Earn your own money."

"Believe me," Kim snapped, "I earned that money. Besides, what could I do? I left college to get married and raise my daughter, who is now sixteen and thinks I'm dumber than a lug wrench. Volunteer work and husband ego-boosting hasn't qualified me for a whole hell of a lot. I can't see getting dressed in DKNY every day and saying, 'Would you like fries with that?' "

"There must be something that interests you."

Kim sat back. Her fingers played a pianolike rhythm on her black pants. "Nope, nothing. Sorry." She looked up. "Does revenge count?"

The group fell silent. Sarah said, "Maybe if you just listen tonight, you'll stop being so afraid."

"I'm not afraid." Kim reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of Virginia Slims. When she realized what she'd done, she crammed them back into her bag.

Sarah leaned forward. "You're in a desert right now, dying of thirst, but you're afraid to reach for water. Just don't give up, Kim. Sooner or later, you'll get to a point where it's more frightening to do nothing than to do something, and then you'll reach out."

Kim gave Sarah a look of barely veiled contempt. "Can I find that crocheted on a pillow somewhere? Really. Maybe at a Losers 'R' Us outlet store?"

Sarah let the silence continue for a moment, then nodded at the woman beside Kim, who immediately started talking. After her, another spoke, then another and another.

Elizabeth realized suddenly that it was her turn.

Everyone looked at her.

Sit here like a rock, huh, Meg? She'd look like an idiot if she passed. She took a deep breath. "I'm Elizabeth. I'm an ordinary housewife with two grown daughters. Stephanie is almost twenty-one; Jamie is nineteen. I haven't been divorced or widowed or dumped on. Everything that's wrong with my life is my own fault."

"Blame isn't what we're looking for," Sarah said. "We're interested in what you want from life. Your dreams, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth knew that if she didn't answer, her turn would last forever. "I used to paint." Surprisingly, it hurt to say the words out loud.

"I work at an art supply store. Picture Perfect on Chadwick," one of the women said. "Come down this Saturday, and I'll help you find everything you need."

Elizabeth had plenty of supplies. Paints and brushes were the least of what an artist needed, and no support network could convince her otherwise. "There's no point, really."

"Don't be afraid," Sarah said. "Buy the paints and see what happens."

"You're lucky," Joey said, her voice wistful. "You actually have a passion. I've been coming to the meetings for months and I still have no clue."

"I wish I could paint," added another woman.

Elizabeth looked at the faces around her. They believed this was helping her. In fact, it was making her feel worse.

"Sure. I could do that," she said just to end her turn. "It'd probably be fun to paint again."

She thought the women were going to start break-dancing.

Except for Kim, who sat there, dressed in her mournful black, staring at Elizabeth through knowing eyes.