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businesslike mastication missed a beat, and his eyes winced. He didn’t have to look to know: it was Larque’s inane friend Doris, the professional neurotic, the one for whom blond jokes had been created. He couldn’t mistake her voice. It always made him think of bubble gum. In her case, Tutti Frutti.
    â€œLike, maybe in childbirth. Or, I was a lady’s maid at some kind of important court function and I couldn’t leave to go to the bathroom, you know what I mean? I’m almost sure that’s what actually happened. Sometimes when I’m dreaming I almost remember.”
    Hoot kept his head down and ate faster. Doris was around the corner from him, talking to somebody over her own lunch, probably. Maybe she wouldn’t see him. If she did, he would smile and say hi, but he’d rather not have to talk with her. Not that he didn’t like Doris—he just couldn’t deal with her. Even blond jokes failed adequately to define the otherworldly quality of her ditziness. Hoot had never been able to understand how or why a nice woman like Larque collected such bizarre friends.
    â€œOr maybe it’s an omen of how I’m going to die.”
    Doris’s companion said, “Ewwwww!” It was the first thing she had said loud enough for Hoot to hear. She must have been a soft-spoken woman. Doris, though, came through like a tin whistle.
    â€œI don’t believe that, not really. I don’t believe we can know the future. Reincarnation makes sense, though,” she held forth. “Like, take an artist, like Larque, you know her, Larque Harootunian?” Speak of angels. “I swear, she has such talent, she must have been a great painter in a previous life. Like, Van Gogh or somebody, you know? No, not Van Gogh, he’s the one who cut off his ear. But somebody. Rembrandt, or, uh, what’s his name, Rubens. Isn’t that who I mean? The guy who painted cows?”
    Hoot almost choked on his last bite of crab cake, and wished he had bought himself a Mountain Dew.
    â€œPicasso,” the other woman suggested.
    â€œOne of those famous people. Anyway, it makes sense to me. I dated this gorgeous guy once and he turned out to be gay and I was so mad but now I wouldn’t be, you know why? It wasn’t his fault. It’s just like they keep saying, it really isn’t their fault. All it is is, they were women in a past life. And they did something wrong, so they had to come back as men.”
    The way she said “men” made Doris and her friend laugh like ha-ha birds. Hoot gulped the remains of his pie and skedaddled; he had heard enough. What was it about women and queers anyway? Most women seemed to adore faggots. They panted over swishy models and movie stars. His boss always got the hots over the most faggoty-looking strippers. Larque had made him stop telling fag jokes around the house. She said he might be hurting the kids, there was a one in ten chance Rodd or Jason or Jeremy could be gay. Which had shocked the hell out of him, that she would say that or even think it, but that was Larque. She had a mind that was always going; it showed in her face like a spotlight playing on her—she always looked more alive than anybody else he knew, and she would say things that he wouldn’t even let into his mind, much less talk about.
    Down on the main floor of the market again, he tried to concentrate on the nonfood booths now, looking for a gift for her. Even staying away from the flowers and the perfumy candles and potpourri and fancy soaps and stuff, he still had plenty of choices. There were all sorts of little craft stands. Stuffed animals, cloth dolls, ceramics, wooden toys, door wreaths—
    Hoot settled on a heart-shaped grapevine wreath that was plain, kind of nice-looking, and not too god-awful expensive. But then before paying he stood there with his wallet in one hand and the grapevine heart in the other, hesitating. Would it cheer her