"Do I look okay, Mom? " Jill asked, coming up the stairs of the house we were renting for the week at Southold. We had just arrived and were getting ready to go out for dinner. Jill was dressed in black high-top sneakers, high black socks, heavy black leggings, and a long-sleeved sweater. It was a hot summer day.

"You look fine," I lied. "But you look like you're dressed for a different season," I added hesitantly, hoping I wouldn't offend her.

"What do you mean?" Jill asked a bit defensively.

"Well, why are you wearing a long-sleeved top?" I queried for an answer.

"It's for the ticks!" Jill explained matter-of-factly.

As full-time Manhattan residents, Jill and I are both extremely alert to the numerous hazards of country life. Among other things, ticks really scare us. So I immediately understood her dressing strategy. However, I suggested that she might consider an alternative tactic.

"You could always put on something lighter and just be sure to go directly from the house to the car and from the car to the restaurant," I pointed out.

I guess she was really feeling hot in her tick-proof outfit, because she seemed relieved. "That's a good idea," she agreed, going downstairs to change. I was proud of her. She was willing to take a risk - to go outdoors with skin bared despite the legions of unseen ticks undoubtedly lying in wait! I, too, resolved to be brave.

So we dressed for dinner in an appropriate manner and proceeded watchfully into the car. Soon Chuck was driving along shady tree-lined streets. He braked unexpectedly to let a tawny deer and her spotted fawn cross the road.

"They're beautiful!" Chuck commented appreciatively.

"They are not!" I retorted, shuddering. "They're pests. They're covered with ticks. They're all over the place; they have no natural predators; the population has exploded; there's an imbalance." I paused for breath.

"I still think they're beautiful," Chuck persisted I declined to reply. I concluded he was in one of his stubborn moods.

We heard a pattering sound on the roof of the car.

"What's making that sound?" Chuck wondered aloud. "It's not raining," he observed unnecessarily.

"Maybe it's ticks falling from the trees," Jill volunteered.

"Yeah," Chuck assented dryly, listening to the synchronized taps. "And maybe they're tap-dancing."

The noise stopped as suddenly as it had started. We arrived at the restaurant, and Chuck parked as close as he could. Jill and I reluctantly emerged from the safety of the car and proceeded warily into the restaurant, using our utmost care not to step on a single patch of tick-infested grass.

A hearty dinner in the warm atmosphere of Joanthony's left us feeling comfortable and happy. We piled back into our car and headed for the 7-11, which was the one store in all of Southold that stayed open late. Chuck bought peanut-butter ice-cream and tangerine-lime seltzer. I bought paper for the computer. Jill bought candy-flavored bubbles to blow and asked the pretty young teen-ager at the register if there were clubs in the neighborhood for dancing. The girl said that there were. Then scrutinizing Jill, she added with a note of disdain, "But you have to be over 21."

Jill, who is quite a bit over 21, ran out into the parking lot to tell us about the incident, and we all laughed. We noticed that overhead the sky stretched more immense than it does in Manhattan and that the Big Dipper hung large and luminous, like a pendant in the vast and shimmering dark.

It wasn't until we were indoors again that I realized something momentous. Jill and I had survived an entire country evening and had almost totally forgotten about ticks!

Five days later, our vacation over, we made a last stop at one of Southold's beaches before starting back to Manhattan. Toward the west, the sky was awash in a soft pink glow cast by the setting sun. Toward the east, a stretch of blue-white sand curved on and away into the blue horizon.

As we were departing from our rented house, we had seen a stag, a deer and a young fawn scampering lightly among the trees. For five days, Jill and I had been in Southold without encountering a single tick, and as we watched the deer bound away, they no longer seemed as menacing. They were, of course, another part of nature - as inevitable in their own way as beaches and sunsets. And a curious thing happened. As we on drove past the deer, all at once it seemed to me as if they, too, looked - almost beautiful.

September, 1996
BB