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feet, arms trembling, and led Christine to a half-dozen pedal-powered potter wheels and motioned Christine onto a clay-splattered stool. “Now sit.”
    In for a penny, in for a pound, Christine thought, sitting. She’d have to share that with Marcus, when she told him his advice had worked.

    “B UT I CAN’T do MY homework,” David whined as Christine drove him into New Mirage for his first appointment with Dr. Mike. “Dial-up’s too slow. It freezes all the time.”
    “You don’t need the Internet once you’ve downloaded the assignments. Look, do you want to be a junior when school starts or not?” She gritted her teeth and twisted her hands on the steering wheel. Losing her temper wouldn’t help a bit. “You made a deal, David.”
    “I’m sick of the deal. Let’s go home. I hate it here. It’s boring and stupid. There’s nothing to do.”
    “There’s plenty to do. You’re just not doing any of it.” He’d been assigned to work in the garden with Marcus and help Bogie in the greenhouse, but he was constantly wandering off. Sullen with her, full of complaints, he stayed mostly in his room, except when he talked to Brigitte, and he was sneaking in extra calls, Christine was certain.
    David showed no improvement, but at least Christine had made progress at the clay works in the past week. The agency’s designer was putting together the Web site using digital shots Christine had sent of Aurora’s most beautiful pieces and Christine had been contacting previous clients about new orders, as well as generating new business with cold calls to tourist boutiques around the state. Maybe boosting the commune’s income made Christine a slave to the capitalist overlords, but she didn’t care. Aurora and Bogie must have huge medical bills to handle. This was a way Christine could help.
    Aurora came out to the barn each morning to issue opinions, question everything and generally slow things down. The first two days, Christine steamed with annoyance, barely holding her tongue. But she gradually saw this was Aurora’s way to hang on to the place a little. She looked so relieved when Christine would suggest Aurora head back to “handle things in the house,” which was code for lying down.
    Christine had downloaded heart surgery postoperative instructions and read them out loud to Aurora, over her strenuous objections. She was supposed to rest every day, take breaks between activities, avoid stairs, not cross her legs, not lift anything over five pounds and not drive.
    The good news was that if she followed the rules, in six to eight weeks, she’d be back to normal, with decades of life ahead of her, which relieved Christine immensely.
    Christine parked in front of Dr. Mike’s office, which used to be a Laundromat, crossing her fingers that this visit would change things.
    Dr. Mike wore an Indian tunic and flowing pants, and his office smelled of patchouli and was ringed with shelves of crystals, stoppered bottles of herbal remedies and books on alternative medicine. Okay, so not traditional therapy, but if the man helped David, Christine didn’t care if he used a Ouija board and danced under a full moon.
    Leaving David in his hands, Christine headed to Parsons Foods to pick up a few things. She saw that Susan Parsons was “filling in” at the register again and she reminded Christine of the dinner at her house Saturday night.
    On her second day, Christine and Marcus had gone on a grocery run together and Susan had insisted they both come to supper and bring David to meet her twin sixteen-year-old sons. To get David friends, Christine would endure a night of Susan showing off her husband—she’d mentioned that he was the mayor at least five times before the groceries got bagged—and her, no doubt, perfect princess home.
    Back at Dr. Mike’s office, Christine wrote a check and walked a smiling David out to the car. Her hopes soared. Maybe this would help. In the car, she asked, “So how was it?”
    “He