FOR A LITTLE WHILE around half past nine it looked as if no one was going to come. Guy put another chunk of cannel coal on the fire, then racked the tongs and brushed his hands with his handkerchief; Rosemary came from the kitchen and stood motionless in her pain and her just-right hair and her brown velvet; and the bartender, by the bedroom door, found things to do with lemon peel and napkins and glasses and bottles. He was a prosperous-looking Italian named Renato who gave the impression that he tended bar only as a pastime and would leave if he got more bored than he already was.

Then the Wendells came—Ted and Carole—and a minute later Elise Dunstan and her husband Hugh, who limped. And then Allan Stone, Guy’s agent, with a beautiful Negro model named Rain Morgan, and Jimmy and Tiger, and Lou and Claudia Comfort and Claudia’s brother Scott.

Guy put the coats on the bed; Renato mixed drinks quickly, looking less bored. Rosemary pointed and gave names: “Jimmy, Tiger, Rain, Allan, Elise, Hugh, Carole, Ted—Claudia and Lou and Scott.”

Bob and Thea Goodman brought another couple, Peggy and Stan Keeler. “Of course it’s all right,” Rosemary said; “don’t be silly, the more the merrier!” The Kapps came without coats. “What a trip!” Mr. Kapp (“It’s Bernard”) said. “A bus, three trains, and a ferry! We left five hours ago!”

“Can I look around?” Claudia asked. “If the rest of it’s as nice as this I’m going to cut my throat.”

Mike and Pedro brought bouquets of bright red roses. Pedro, with his cheek against Rosemary’s, murmured, “Make him feed you, baby; you look like a bottle of iodine.”

Rosemary said, “Phyllis, Bernard, Peggy, Stan, Thea, Bob, Lou, Scott, Carole…”

She took the roses into the kitchen. Elise came in with a drink and a fake cigarette for breaking the habit. “You’re so lucky,” she said; “it’s the greatest apartment I’ve ever seen. Will you look at this kitchen? Are you all right, Rosie? You look a little tired.”

“Thanks for the understatement,” Rosemary said. “I’m not all right but I will be. I’m pregnant.”

“You aren’t! How great! When?”

“June twenty-eighth. I go into my fifth month on Friday.”

“That’s great!” Elise said. “How do you like C. C. Hill? Isn’t he the dreamboy of the western world?”

“Yes, but I’m not using him,” Rosemary said.

“No!”

“I’ve got a doctor named Sapirstein, an older man.”

“What for? He can’t be better than Hill!”

“He’s fairly well known and he’s a friend of some friends of ours,” Rosemary said.

Guy looked in.

Elise said, “Well congratulations, Dad.”

“Thanks,” Guy said. “Weren’t nothin’ to it. Do you want me to bring in the dip, Ro?”

“Oh, yes, would you? Look at these roses! Mike and Pedro brought them.”

Guy took a tray of crackers and a bowl of pale pink dip from the table. “Would you get the other one?” he asked Elise.

“Sure,” she said, and took a second bowl and followed after him.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” Rosemary called.

Dee Bertillon brought Portia Haynes, an actress, and Joan called to say that she and her date had got stuck at another party and would be there in half an hour.

Tiger said, “You dirty stinking secret-keeper!” She grabbed Rosemary and kissed her.

“Who’s pregnant?” someone asked, and someone else said, “Rosemary is.”

She put one vase of roses on the mantel—“Congratulations,” Rain Morgan said, “I understand you’re pregnant”—and the other in the bedroom on the dressing table. When she came out Renato made a Scotch and water for her. “I make the first ones strong,” he said, “to get them happy. Then I go light and conserve.”

Mike wig-wagged over heads and mouthed Congratulations. She smiled and mouthed Thanks.

“The Trench sisters lived here,” someone said; and Bernard Kapp said, “Adrian Marcato too, and Keith Kennedy.”

“And Pearl Ames,” Phyllis Kapp said.

“The Trent sisters?” Jimmy asked.

“Trench,” Phyllis said. “They ate little children.”

“And she doesn’t mean just ate them,” Pedro said; “she means ate them!”

Rosemary shut her eyes and held her breath as the pain wound tighter. Maybe because of the drink; she put it aside.

“Are you all right?” Claudia asked her.

“Yes, fine,” she said, and smiled. “I had a cramp for a moment.”

Guy was talking with Tiger and Portia Haynes and Dee. “It’s too soon to say,” he said; “we’ve only been in rehearsal six days. It plays much better than it reads, though.”

“It couldn’t play much worse,” Tiger said. “Hey, what ever happened to the other guy? Is he still blind?”

“I don’t know,” Guy said.

Portia said, “Donald Baumgart? You know who he is, Tiger; he’s the boy Zöe Piper lives with.”

“Oh, is he the one?” Tiger said. “Gee, I didn’t know he was someone I knew.”

“He’s writing a great play,” Portia said. “At least the first two scenes are great. Really burning anger, like Osborne before he made it.”

Rosemary said, “Is he still blind?”

“Oh, yes,” Portia said. “They’ve pretty much given up hope. He’s going through hell trying to make the adjustment. But this great play is coming out of it. He dictates and Zöe writes.”

Joan came. Her date was over fifty. She took Rosemary’s arm and pulled her aside, looking frightened. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Rosemary said. “I’m pregnant, that’s all.”

She was in the kitchen with Tiger, tossing the salad, when Joan and Elise came in and closed the door behind them.

Elise said, “What did you say your doctor’s name was?”

“Sapirstein,” Rosemary said.

Joan said, “And he’s satisfied with your condition?”

Rosemary nodded.

“Claudia said you had a cramp a while ago.”

“I have a pain,” she said. “But it’s going to stop soon; it’s not abnormal.”

Tiger said, “What kind of a pain?”

“A—a pain. A sharp pain, that’s all. It’s because my pelvis is expanding and my joints are a little stiff.”

Elise said, “Rosie, I’ve had that—two times—and all it ever meant was a few days of like a Charley horse, an ache through the whole area.”

“Well, everyone is different,” Rosemary said, lifting salad between two wooden spoons and letting it drop back into the bowl again. “Every pregnancy is different.”

“Not that different,” Joan said. “You look like Miss Concentration Camp of 1966. Are you sure this doctor knows what he’s doing?”

Rosemary began to sob, quietly and defeatedly, holding the spoons in the salad. Tears ran from her cheeks.

“Oh, God,” Joan said, and looked for help to Tiger, who touched Rosemary’s shoulder and said, “Shh, ah, shh, don’t cry, Rosemary. Shh.”

“It’s good,” Elise said. “It’s the best thing. Let her. She’s been wound up all night like—like I-don’t-know-what.”

Rosemary wept, black streaks smearing down her cheeks. Elise put her into a chair; Tiger took the spoons from her hands and moved the salad bowl to the far side of the table.

The door started to open and Joan ran to it and stopped and blocked it. It was Guy. “Hey, let me in,” he said.

“Sorry,” Joan said. “Girls only.”

“Let me speak to Rosemary.”

“Can’t; she’s busy.”

“Look,” he said, “I’ve got to wash glasses.”

“Use the bathroom.” She shouldered the door click-closed and leaned against it.

“Damn it, open the door,” he said outside.

Rosemary went on crying, her head bowed, her shoulders heaving, her hands limp in her lap. Elise, crouching, wiped at her cheeks every few moments with the end of a towel; Tiger smoothed her hair and tried to still her shoulders.

The tears slowed.

“It hurts so much,” she said. She raised her face to them. “And I’m so afraid the baby is going to die.”

“Is he doing anything for you?” Elise asked. “Giving you any medicine, any treatment?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

Tiger said, “When did it start?”

She sobbed.

Elise asked, “When did the pain start, Rosie?”

“Before Thanksgiving,” she said. “November.”

Elise said, “In November?” and Joan at the door said, “What?” Tiger said, “You’ve been in pain since November and he isn’t doing anything for you?”

“He says it’ll stop.”

Joan said, “Has he brought in another doctor to look at you?”

Rosemary shook her head. “He’s a very good doctor,” she said with Elise wiping at her cheeks. “He’s well known. He was on Open End.”

Tiger said, “He sounds like a sadistic nut, Rosemary.”

Elise said, “Pain like that is a warning that something’s not right. I’m sorry to scare you, Rosie, but you go see Dr. Hill. See somebody besides that—”

“That nut,” Tiger said.

Elise said, “He can’t be right, letting you just go on suffering.”

“I won’t have an abortion,” Rosemary said.

Joan leaned forward from the door and whispered, “Nobody’s telling you to have an abortion! Just go see another doctor, that’s all.”

Rosemary took the towel from Elise and pressed it to each eye in turn. “He said this would happen,” she said, looking at mascara on the towel. “That my friends would think their pregnancies were normal and mine wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?” Tiger asked.

Rosemary looked at her. “He told me not to listen to what my friends might say,” she said.

Tiger said, “Well you do listen! What kind of sneaky advice is that for a doctor to give?”

Elise said, “All we’re telling you to do is check with another doctor. I don’t think any reputable doctor would object to that, if it would help his patient’s peace of mind.”

“You do it,” Joan said. “First thing Monday morning.”

“I will,” Rosemary said.

“You promise?” Elise asked.

Rosemary nodded. “I promise.” She smiled at Elise, and at Tiger and Joan. “I feel a lot better,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Well you look a lot worse,” Tiger said, opening her purse. “Fix your eyes. Fix everything.” She put large and small compacts on the table before Rosemary, and two long tubes and a short one.

“Look at my dress,” Rosemary said.

“A damp cloth,” Elise said, taking the towel and going to the sink with it.

“The garlic bread!” Rosemary cried.

“In or out?” Joan asked.

“In.” Rosemary pointed with a mascara brush at two foil-wrapped loaves on top of the refrigerator.

Tiger began tossing the salad and Elise wiped at the lap of Rosemary’s gown. “Next time you’re planning to cry,” she said, “don’t wear velvet.”

Guy came in and looked at them.

Tiger said, “We’re trading beauty secrets. You want some?”

“Are you all right?” he asked Rosemary.

“Yes, fine,” she said with a smile.

“A little spilled salad dressing,” Elise said.

Joan said, “Could the kitchen staff get a round of drinks, do you think?”

The chupe was a success and so was the salad. (Tiger said under her breath to Rosemary, “It’s the tears that give it the extra zing.”)

Renato approved of the wine, opened it with a flourish, and served it solemnly.

Claudia’s brother Scott, in the den with a plate on his knee, said, “His name is Altizer and he’s down in—Atlanta, I think; and what he says is that the death of God is a specific historic event that happened right now, in our time. That God literally died.” The Kapps and Rain Morgan and Bob Goodman sat listening and eating.

Jimmy, at one of the living-room windows, said, “Hey, it’s beginning to snow!”

Stan Keeler told a string of wicked Polish-jokes and Rosemary laughed out loud at them. “Careful of the booze,” Guy murmured at her shoulder. She turned and showed him her glass, and said, still laughing, “It’s only ginger ale!”

Joan’s over-fifty date sat on the floor by her chair, talking up to her earnestly and fondling her feet and ankles. Elise talked to Pedro; he nodded, watching Mike and Allan across the room. Claudia began reading palms.

They were low on Scotch but everything else was holding up fine.

She served coffee, emptied ashtrays, and rinsed out glasses. Tiger and Carole Wendell helped her.

Later she sat in a bay with Hugh Dunstan, sipping coffee and watching fat wet snowflakes shear down, an endless army of them, with now and then an outrider striking one of the diamond panes and sliding and melting.

“Year after year I swear I’m going to leave the city,” Hugh Dunstan said; “get away from the crime and the noise and all the rest of it. And every year it snows or the New Yorker has a Bogart Festival and I’m still here.”

Rosemary smiled and watched the snow. “This is why I wanted this apartment,” she said; “to sit here and watch the snow, with the fire going.”

Hugh looked at her and said, “I’ll bet you still read Dickens.”

“Of course I do,” she said. “Nobody stops reading Dickens.”

Guy came looking for her. “Bob and Thea are leaving,” he said.

By two o’clock everyone had gone and they were alone in the living room, with dirty glasses and used napkins and spilling-over ashtrays all around. (“Don’t forget,” Elise had whispered, leaving. Not very likely.)

“The thing to do now,” Guy said, “is move.”

“Guy.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to Dr. Hill. Monday morning.”

He said nothing, looking at her.

“I want him to examine me,” she said. “Dr. Sapirstein is either lying or else he’s—I don’t know, out of his mind. Pain like this is a warning that something is wrong.”

“Rosemary,” Guy said.

“And I’m not drinking Minnie’s drink any more,” she said. “I want vitamins in pills, like everybody else. I haven’t drunk it for three days now. I’ve made her leave it here and I’ve thrown it away.”

“You’ve—”

“I’ve made my own drink instead,” she said.

He drew together all his surprise and anger and, pointing back over his shoulder toward the kitchen, cried it at her. “Is that what those bitches were giving you in there? Is that their hint for today? Change doctors?”

“They’re my friends,” she said; “don’t call them bitches.”

“They’re a bunch of not-very-bright bitches who ought to mind their own God-damned business.”

“All they said was get a second opinion.”

“You’ve got the best doctor in New York, Rosemary. Do you know what Dr. Hill is? Charley Nobody, that’s what he is.”

“I’m tired of hearing how great Dr. Sapirstein is,” she said, starting to cry, “when I’ve got this pain inside me since before Thanksgiving and all he does is tell me it’s going to stop!”

“You’re not changing doctors,” Guy said. “We’ll have to pay Sapirstein and pay Hill too. It’s out of the question.”

“I’m not going to change,” Rosemary said; “I’m just going to let Hill examine me and give his opinion.”

“I won’t let you,” Guy said. “It’s—it’s not fair to Sapirstein.”

“Not fair to—What are you talking about? What about what’s fair to me?”

“You want another opinion? All right. Tell Sapirstein; let him be the one who decides who gives it. At least have that much courtesy to the top man in his field.”

“I want Dr. Hill,” she said. “If you won’t pay I’ll pay my—” She stopped short and stood motionless, paralyzed, no part of her moving. A tear slid on a curved path toward the corner of her mouth.

“Ro?” Guy said.

The pain had stopped. It was gone. Like a stuck auto horn finally put right. Like anything that stops and is gone and is gone for good and won’t ever be back again, thank merciful heaven. Gone and finished and oh, how good she might possibly feel as soon as she caught her breath!

“Ro?” Guy said, and took a step forward, worried.

“It stopped,” she said. “The pain.”

“Stopped?” he said.

“Just now.” She managed to smile at him. “It stopped. Just like that.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and deeper still, deeper than she had been allowed to breathe for ages and ages. Since before Thanksgiving.

When she opened her eyes Guy was still looking at her, still looking worried.

“What was in the drink you made?” he asked.

Her heart dropped out of her. She had killed the baby. With the sherry. Or a bad egg. Or the combination. The baby had died, the pain had stopped. The pain was the baby and she had killed it with her arrogance.

“An egg,” she said. “Milk. Cream. Sugar.” She blinked, wiped at her cheek, looked at him. “Sherry,” she said, trying to make it sound non-toxic.

“How much sherry?” he asked.

Something moved in her.

“A lot?”

Again, where nothing had ever moved before. A rippling little pressure. She giggled.

“Rosemary, for Christ’s sake, how much?”

“It’s alive,” she said, and giggled again. “It’s moving. It’s all right; it isn’t dead. It’s moving.” She looked down at her brown-velvet stomach and put her hands on it and pressed in lightly. Now two things were moving, two hands or feet; one here, one there.

She reached for Guy, not looking at him; snapped her fingers quickly for his hand. He came closer and gave it. She put it to the side of her stomach and held it there. Obligingly the movement came. “You feel it?” she asked, looking at him. “There, again; you feel it?”

He jerked his hand away, pale. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I felt it.”

“It’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said, laughing. “It won’t bite you.”

“It’s wonderful,” he said.

“Isn’t it?” She held her stomach again, looking down at it. “It’s alive. It’s kicking. It’s in there.”

“I’ll clean up some of this mess,” Guy said, and picked up an ashtray and a glass and another glass.

“All right now, David-or-Amanda,” Rosemary said, “you’ve made your presence known, so kindly settle down and let Mommy attend to the cleaning up.” She laughed. “My God,” she said, “it’s so active! That means a boy, doesn’t it?”

She said, “All right, you, just take it easy. You’ve got five more months yet, so save your energy.”

And laughing, “Talk to it, Guy; you’re its father. Tell it not to be so impatient.”

And she laughed and laughed and was crying too, holding her stomach with both hands.