If she dressed the monkey in the blue velvet suit with the hole cut out for its tail, if she dressed the boy in the green velvet suit with the lace collar, if she dressed the angry girl in the sherry-colored velvet dress with the puffed sleeves, they would all three look suitable for the reception, which was intended to introduce her, the new bride, to her husband's friends. He was the father of the boy and the girl and the owner of the monkey.

But the monkey had outgrown his suit and bit her thumb when she tried to force him into it (what kind of infection should she expect?) the boy had become too fat for the velvet pants and the girl threw a fit when she was presented with the sherry-colored dress.

"Well then I give up in defeat," she told her new husband when she was disinfecting her thumb.

He was disinterested. His morning coat was tight, and he was turning this way and that to see his two sides in the pier glass. She wondered again why he had married her. Of course even love matches have their pedestrian underpinnings. They'd even joked about it: "You help me win the Senate seat and I'll set you up in fine style in Washington,"he'd told her.

"But I've already set myself up in fine style in Washington," she'd reminded him. Her last husband had been a five-term senator from Connecticut, which trumped a new congressman with no seniority from Arkansas.

She would not be long in Little Rock; that much was certain. "You won't trap me here," she'd warned him. She was built for the big stage. "I plan to play a role in Washington."

"But who will look after my children? " he'd complained.

"They're practically grown--" This after the episode with the velvet clothes. "But I don't believe your monkey will ever accept me." She showed him the gash in her thumb.

He was still studying himself in the mirror. "He's not my monkey, never was," he said, trying to button the lowest button on the morning coat. It wouldn't.

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