***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof*** Copyright  2016 Delia Ephron Lizzie             I have a snapshot of me standing on Finn''s shoulders when I was twenty-nine, a trick we''d perfected. I would sprint toward him and work up enough steam to climb his back to his shoulders. I look triumphant and not a little surprised to have done this--it was unlikely I would ever stand on a man''s shoulders, having been neither a cheerleader nor a gymnast, and I am not physically daring (a deficiency). I was unhappy that day on a Maine beach fifteen years ago, but you''d never know it from the four-by-six glossy. Finn and I broke up that afternoon. In the photo I am looking at now, you can read my mind. I am depressed. I''m hunched on a stone bench, wearing a black quilted jacket, not flattering.

There I am looking like winter on a June day. Behind me in the distance lies the little port, dotted with sailboats and small yachts, one of Siracusa''s few sweet spots. My hair, always a tumble, is messy in a way that suggests I hadn''t bothered with it. My eyes are hidden behind sunglasses. This seems intentional. I was confronting the camera, my face turned toward it but flat. I had neither the inclination nor energy to strike a pose. Who took the picture? I can''t remember.

Events that day are muddy. Suppressed? It''s been a year and some of us no longer speak, not the ones that you would expect or maybe you would. I didn''t. Since the photo is on my cell, odds are Michael is the photographer, although possibly not because I am centered in the photo. The subjects in Michael''s shots are frequently missing the tops of their heads or their arms. Snow should never have been on the vacation at all. It was a grown-ups'' trip, but Taylor never went anywhere without her, so Finn said. Although you never know in a marriage who is responsible for what, do you? Husbands and wives collaborate, hiding even from themselves who is calling the shots and who is along for the ride.

She was ten years old and a mystery. Finn and Taylor''s daughter. "She is brilliant," said Taylor, but in England the year before Snow had spoken rarely and then softly. Her mother had ordered for her. The waiter would look at Snow studying the menu, clearly intelligent, and Taylor would speak. Snow often read straight through a meal, the iPad open on her lap. When I asked her a direct question, she looked to her mother. Anxious, I''d thought.

For rescue. "You prefer milk chocolate, don''t you?" said Taylor. "You loved that movie Pitch Perfect? Didn''t we see it three times?" For Michael and me Snow was wallpaper. I''ve barely begun and undoubtedly with that remark, I''ve turned you against me. I''m like that, unpleasantly blunt. Some people like it, some hate it. I tend not to worry. Finn would be horrified to hear that even if he were not Snow''s father, but not Michael because he''s a writer.

Writers often forgive cruel observations. They even admire them. It makes them feel empowered, justified, off the hook for their own ruthless words. For doing that thing writers think is their right: taking a friend, swallowing him (or her) whole, and turning him into a character to suit their own fictional purposes. The trip was my idea, a moment of spontaneity, enthusiasm, and slight inebriation. Liquor played a role right from the start. Since our summer f ling years before, Finn and I had maintained an attachment that neither of us fully understood. We were given to bursts of e-mail intimacy, intense for a few months, then lapsing for longer.

The intermittent friendship was solely between us. We''d been at each other''s weddings, but the four of us never got together socially. Then I discovered that by chance we''d all be in London at the same time. We had dinner. Then another and another. We had little in common (except that Finn and I had history, which is not quite the same as something in common). They weren''t from our world--Michael''s and mine-- which turned out to be relaxing, and yet they were curious and playful. Especially Finn.

Taylor was obsessed with culture, which I admired, although I wasn''t. Good travelers, different travelers. "Where should we meet next year?" I''d said on our last night together. I raised my glass. "To next year." I still wonder about that moment. What if I''d let that convivial feeling pass? Taylor mostly planned the trip, her thing, fine by me. Michael normally scours travel books for weeks before we leave, hunting out the obscure and off beat--on a trip to Paris he''d whisked me off to the Muse de la Vie Romantique to see a cast of George Sand''s arm and her lover''s too, Chopin--but he was in the home stretch on a novel and utterly preoccupied.

I''m used to this. I''ve done it to him. I haven''t written a novel, nothing major like that, but I write too, mostly articles for magazines and websites. Writers have to allow each other a private world. Finishing is always more compelling than anything else, than anything real. A thrilling narcissism sets in. It''s so much fun. I could never deprive Michael of that.

I was good about tolerating it. I took pride in tolerating it. I put up with silent dinners--a "what?" two minutes after I''d said something interesting. "It''s not a good time to go anywhere," he said. "It''s too late to cancel. It''s all in the works, much of it paid for. A break may help you, it really might. Please.

I want it desperately." An eight-day vacation--how could that hurt when I was adrift? Panicked. It was the most difficult time of my life. Taylor             From the start it was a conspiracy between Lizzie and Finn to be together. Michael and I were in the dark. We''d had such a lovely time the year before in London. We happened to be there when they were and met several times for dinner. The fivesome was comfortable.

Snow really enjoyed it Why not repeat the experience? "That''s so brave of you to travel with Lizzie, she is terrifying," my friend April told me. She remembered Lizzie from our wedding. As a toast Lizzie had recited three haikus she''d written about Finn, all about how she never thought he''d get married, and then she presented him with a book, Toilets of the World. The book was what it sounds like, photographs of toilets from Appalachia to Madagascar. That is Lizzie, highbrow and low, equally intimidating. Finn loved the book. He kept it on the coffee table. It was his childish notion of a shocker.

At the time I found it only silly, the book a bit of foolishness. Looking back, reconsidering everything, I think it was a way for Lizzie to be there every day of our lives, reminding Finn of something, something about the two of them, a kind of I get you and she doesn''t. Eventually I got rid of the book and Finn never noticed. If some- thing''s not in front of his face, it''s not on his mind. I spend a lot of time reconsidering what I thought, but it''s nobody else''s business. I''m certainly not seeing a shrink. I don''t have the problem. Way back when we first got married twelve years ago, Finn was starting the restaurant and we were a good team.

I have class. He needed that. He became the hometown boy with something extra, me. I''m from the Upper East Side, the best private schools, Vassar, summa cum laude. My hair was long, thick, blond, and straight. I had power hair. That made me more of a catch. "If you have hair like this," my mother said, "you only need to be half as pretty.

" Once I''d snared a husband, I didn''t need long hair and chopped it off. Now I have it cut at the local men''s barbershop. Under my direction, Rudy does it short and slicked back off my face. I keep it smooth and shiny with a L''Oral gel. No other woman in town goes to Rudy, and it''s safe to say that no other Portland woman of my acquaintance has my talent with home hair products. (I''m being funny here, and the reason I point this out is that people often don''t know when I''m funny and when I''m not.) Even though Finn complains about the money I spend on clothes, he likes a cutting-edge wife. It''s difficult to keep that up, to maintain originality in Port- land, Maine.

I find it a welcome challenge. Finn and I met when I was twenty-six (he was three years older) and teaching English at a private school in New York, Spence, the same one I''d graduated from. I''d stopped in Portland on the way to my summer camp reunion, and he was driving a water taxi, subbing for a friend (unlicensed, he told me later, and I guess that is part of his story). He showed me his "joint," as he called his future restaurant, then just a dusty empty space with grimy leaded windows. We sat on the floor--it was actually a subfloor, the linoleum had been stripped off--and ate lobster rolls. I believed in him, believed that he would be successful, I''m not sure why. Perhaps mere instinct. As a mother I''ve learned that instinct is very important and some have it and some don''t.

I have instinct. Besides, on the way there, he''d known every single person we passed. That impressed me. Now I realize everyone knows everyone in Portland. He wore khaki shorts with big f lap pockets. When he came to New York, my mother was horrified. "Men in shorts," she shuddered. And he pronounced the t in often, one of her personal pet peeves.

Out to dinner at Gerard, where jackets and slacks are the rule, he wore them, but not socks. "You wanted to get away from your mother," said April. I wanted to shine. It''s so much easier to shine in Portland.