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it.”
    “It’s bright. Don’t you think it’s kind of bright?”
    “We’re keeping it,” I said. Ed looked at me, a question written on his face. “We’re keeping it,” I said again, and went to the bedroom to dress.

     
    I WAS on my way to work that morning when a black limousine, the size of two sedans, took a corner too close to the curb and splashed me with water from the gutter. Without thinking I walked up to the dark tinted driver’s window of the car, now stopped behind a line of traffic, and tapped on the cold glass. No answer. I tapped again, hard enough this time to rattle the glass in its frame. A driver in a suit and plastic-brimmed cap rolled down the window. He had pink skin and copper hair pulled into a narrow ponytail, with a copper mustache to top it all off. He scowled at me.
    “Yeah?”
    “You should apologize,” I said.
    “What the fuck?” spat out the moustache.
    “You should,” I repeated, “apologize. Now.” I leaned my face into the window and breathed in the leathery smell of the clean car. The driver had two choices now; apologize or push me out. He made a face and cursed under his breath.
    “I’m sorry,” he finally spat out, dripping with sarcasm. “I’m sincerely fucking sorry. Now get out of the car.”
    I stood back up, and he rolled the window closed. As the glass came up I saw my reflection. Distorted in the glass my hair looked longer and darker, my skin smoother, and my lips as red as the ruby doorknob.

     
    WE WERE on the crimson sand by the blood red sea. Her name was still spelled out on the sand.
    “You’re mine,” she said. She licked my cheek with a tongue as stiff and wet as a snake.
    I looked into her eyes. “You’ll never leave?”
    “Never.” She wrapped her arms tighter around me. “Never never never.”
    “Why me?” I asked.
    She didn’t answer. Instead she smiled and licked my nose in a thin straight line from bottom to top.
    When I woke up I could still feel the damp trace of her tongue on my face.

     
    ED AND I had another fight the next morning. Lately I hadn’t been as neat and orderly around the house as usual, which drove him up the wall.
    “Amanda, please,” he said. He was looking at a pile of yesterday’s clothes, left on the bedroom floor. He was standing in the middle of the bedroom in socks, underwear, and a pale blue oxford shirt, scowling at the clothes.
    Usually I would have picked them up and put them in the hamper where, after all, they belonged. This morning, though, I didn’t want to put the clothes away. No reason. I just didn’t want to.
    “Yes?” I said to Edward. I was still in bed—or rather back in bed, having woken up, gotten a cup of coffee, a cigarette, and an ashtray, and returned. So I would be a little late to work. Big deal.
    “Amanda, these clothes!” He was clearly irritated now, shifting his weight from one foot to another, torn between falling a minute or two behind schedule and dealing with the vital situation at hand.
    “What about them?”
    Ed scrunched his face and looked at me for a long anxious moment. He looked ridiculous, and it was hard to hold back a giggle.
    “Oh, FORGET IT!” he said, and picked up the clothes himself. Not wanting to delay his schedule any further, he let the matter drop. I was sure it would be picked back up again when he came home that evening.

 
    T HE CONNECTIONS slowly began to knit themselves together. One bright summer morning I was sitting at a conference table looking over plans for Linda Marcello’s cottage for the umpteenth time. Linda Marcello was a longtime Fields & Carmine client. We were renovating her summer cottage upstate. Linda was difficult; she wanted light in the shade, she wanted a dark brown room to feel “airy,” she wanted a terrace with no visible means of support. I was daydreaming about being outdoors, at the park or maybe the beach. My hand, moving to point out a walk-in closet, brushed against hers. When our skin touched I saw