“Ellen is going to teach me how to hypnotize my friends,” said Jack without looking up from his spot in front of the television, where he was lying on his stomach and playing with a small computer game.

“I can teach you, mate,” said George. He picked up a teaspoon and let it swing back and forth between his fingertips. “You’re … getting … sleepier.”

He slapped his knee. He was one of those self-applauders.

“Yeah, right, Grandpa,” said Jack.

“I bet Ellen’s never heard that joke before,” said Simon.

“George!” said Maureen. “I’m sure there’s more to hypnotizing people than that!” She looked anxiously at Ellen. “That is—is there?”

“A little bit.” Ellen smiled. The French onion dip was made from sour cream mixed together with a packet of dried French onion soup. It took her right back to her school days.

“Sometimes I feel like I’ve been hypnotized after I’ve been watching too much television,” said Maureen. “I feel like I’m coming out of a daze.”

“Well, that actually is a form of hypnosis,” said Ellen.

“Is it really?” said Maureen, looking gratified.

“Ellen helps people give up smoking or lose weight,” announced Patrick. “Things like that. She helps high-powered business executives overcome their fear of public speaking.”

He was quoting verbatim from one of Ellen’s brochures. She hadn’t even known he’d read it.

She felt like their relationship had reached a new level today: a deeper, more complex, more profound level. Their lovemaking in the shower this morning had been so extraordinary she kept wanting to tell people about it. The man at the fruit and veg shop had said chattily, “What have you been up to today?” and she’d wanted to say, “Well, actually, I had a particularly enjoyable sexual experience in the shower this morning! Thanks for asking!” Afterward, they got back into bed and talked, and Patrick had apologized for snapping at her and said that Saskia made him feel so crazy at times that he’d even thought about counseling.

“So, you help people with public speaking. I have to do talks in front of clients for work,” said Simon, who was a website designer. “I always think I’m not nervous at all, but then this weird thing happens.”

He stood up to demonstrate. “It’s like an involuntary spasm in my left leg.”

He made one knee knock against the other one.

“Huh!” said Patrick. “The same thing happens to me. Except for me, it’s more like this.” He stood up and made his leg twitch.

“You boys look like Elvis impersonators,” chortled Maureen.

Jack had rolled over onto his back to watch. “I’m great at doing speeches,” he said. “That doesn’t happen to me. Does it happen to you, Grandpa?”

George shook his head. “Nope. You must get your nerves of steel from me.”

“Nerves of steel,” murmured Jack to himself. “I have nerves of steel.”

“What about you, Maureen?” said Ellen.

“Actually, I’m rather good at speeches,” said Maureen unexpectedly. “I’ve been doing the speech at our tennis club Christmas party for over forty years. It normally goes down quite well.”

“Mum tells a good joke,” said Patrick, sitting back down and picking up his drink.

“Most mothers are hopeless at telling jokes,” said Simon. “Not ours.”

Both men looked proudly at their mother. Maureen beamed.

“Sometimes they’re pretty dirty,” said George. “My wife tells a good dirty joke.”

“Oh, I do not,” giggled Maureen.

“I’ve got a joke! Knock knock!” cried Jack.

There was a knock on the door. Everyone laughed.

“I haven’t said the punch line yet,” said Jack, offended.

“Someone knocked when you said ‘knock knock,’” explained Maureen. “We were laughing at the coincidence. I wonder who that could be. I’m not expecting anyone. Are you boys expecting someone?”

“Probably some door-to-door salesman,” said Patrick. “Bet they’ll try to get you to change phone companies.”

“Well, I just don’t know,” said Maureen, without moving, as if they really needed to work this puzzle out first.

“Might be one of those Jehovah fellows.” George didn’t move either.

The person knocked again.

“I just can’t think of anyone who would visit at this time,” mused Maureen. “It’s such a funny time. Just before dinner.”

“Man! This is the craziest thing that has ever happened to us!” said Simon with such authentic astonishment that Ellen thought at first he was serious. “This is life on the edge! This is—”

“I’m going to answer the door.” Patrick put his hands on his knees.

“I’ll get it.” Jack leapt to his feet and ran out of the room.

There was the sound of the door opening and then the unintelligible sound of a woman’s voice.

“Probably some beautiful woman desperately trying to track me down,” said Simon behind his hand to Ellen. “Happens a lot.”

“Happens a lot in his dreams,” said Patrick.

They could hear Jack talking at length.

“I think he’s telling the mystery visitor the knock knock joke,” said Simon, grinning.

“Well, I suppose I really should—but I just can’t think who it would be!” Maureen left the room, patting down her hair.

They heard the sound of a woman laughing and suddenly Patrick banged his drink down so hard on the coffee table that beer sloshed over the side. “You’re kidding me.”

“Kidding you about what?” said his father.

Patrick stood up and pulled back the curtain of the window that looked out on the street. He shook his head with a nasty, bitter smile, dropped the curtain and went striding from the room without looking at Ellen.

Ellen felt her heartbeat pick up. Patrick had spent the drive over with one eye in the rear-vision mirror. “No sign of bunny-boiler,” he’d said happily as they pulled up in front of his parents’ house.

“What’s going on?” said Patrick’s father.

“I think you-know-who has stopped by,” said Simon. He gave Ellen a rueful, curious look.