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brilliant Mission Bell and California poppies,
sweet peas, larkspur, hollyhocks, and giant sunflowers--I recognized those. There were other
plants I didn't know. I decided to trust they were licit.
    Angharad insisted that her husband was a trained botanist. She was merely his
handmaiden. I thought she protested too much. There was no further sign of Ted. Perhaps he was
brooding over seed catalogs.
    Denise and Lydia spent a lot of time exclaiming about the herb garden. It did smell good
and all that basil would be nice for pesto, but the herbs themselves were rather ugly. The bees
seemed to like them.
    I found the vegetables more satisfying than the herbs and flowers. So, according to
Angharad, did the rabbits. She was stern about bunnies. The Peltzes ate a lot of rabbit stew. The
lettuces and other salad veggies in Mrs. McGregor's garden were interplanted in raised beds, with
marigolds to keep down the insects. Everything seemed to be flourishing, though the green corn
wasn't very tall. I sneaked a pea-pod.
    It was almost eleven by the time we escaped. On the way back to the lodge, Janey and I
led the pack. Jay and Win D'Angelo had gone rowing on the lake. Janey and I put on our
swimsuits and piled into a canoe.
    An ancient swimming platform floated well out in the lake and the four of us spent an
hour or so swimming and sunning. The water was so frigid three feet below the surface it was
necessary to climb out every ten minutes to thaw. We splashed a lot and laughed a lot, and I got a
sunburn.
    After lunch I called Ginger. She and Annie had everything under control. No, she didn't
need me, but if I didn't show up in the bookstore by three Saturday I was dead meat. She had sold
a Collected Shakespeare to somebody heading north to Ashland. Dennis had sorted out
his fire crews, the blaze was trailed, the crisis over, and he was taking her down to Lake Siskiyou
for the fireworks. I applauded and made promises. Then I went upstairs to anoint my rapidly
freckling shoulders.
    I wound up napping.
    Jay woke me when it was time to take the sail board out for a spin. He caught onto the
trick of keeping the mast erect right away. Janey had a wet-suit and bobbed in the water giving
directions. She said we were her star pupils. When the breeze picked up around six we had
several flutters across the waves, but my shoulders burned through the long-sleeved cotton shirt I
wore for protection, and by the time we came ashore my legs were half-frozen from the knees
down. Winton D'Angelo, who was forty-five if he was a day, had pooped out early.
    Miguel and a small cross-looking man I took to be Domingo, the cook, were already
setting up a buffet table on the veranda when we came back to the lodge. Jay and I showered and
changed very fast.
    With my height I look like a walking Christmas tree in frilly dresses, but I'm not dumb
enough to buy frilly dresses. I slipped into a turquoise linen sheath that enhanced the color of my
eyes and contrasted nicely with my black hair. I wore straw sandals (for no poet in creation
would I swelter in pantyhose with the temperature above ninety), heavy silver earrings, and a
wide Navajo bracelet, silver with a turquoise setting, that Jay had given me at Christmas as a
guilt-offering for refusing to fly back East with me. I touched up my eyelids with turquoise
shadow.
    Jay pursed his lips and whistled when I presented myself for his inspection.
"Classy."
    "You look good enough to eat yourself, James B."
    He grinned. "Who needs dinner?"
    Being civilized guests, we wended our way downstairs. Everybody but Janey was also
tricked out like a fashion ad. The food was, as promised, lucullan. Jay could even eat some of
it.
    We ate early, around seven, and drank and talked and milled around the lawn, waiting
for darkness and fireworks. Ted Peltz was there, dressed almost like a human being and very
subdued. Someone had trimmed his whiskers. He had eaten everything in sight, but I think
Someone was also rationing his drinks.