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sliding windows were open to admit a draft, but the August day declined the invitation to provide a breeze.
    In her tiny bedroom, Micky kicked off her toe-pinching high heels. She stripped out of her cheap cotton suit and pantyhose.
    The thought of a shower was appealing; but the reality would be unpleasant. The cramped bathroom had only a small window, and in this heat, the roiling steam wouldn’t properly vent.
    She slipped into white shorts and a sleeveless Chinese-red blouse. In the mirror on the back of the bedroom door, she looked better than she felt.
    At one time, she’d been proud of her beauty. Now she wondered why she had taken so much pride in something that required no effort, no slightest sacrifice.
    Over the past year, with as much mulish resistance as the most obstinate creature ever to pull a plow, Micky had drawn herself to the unpleasant conclusion that her life to date had been wasted and that she was solely to blame for what she had become. The anger that she’d once directed at others had been turned upon herself.
    Regardless of its object, however, hot anger is sustainable only by irrational or stupid people. Micky was neither. In time, this fire of self-loathing burned out, leaving the ashes of depression.
    Depression passed, too. Lately she had made her way from day to day in a curious and fragile state of expectancy.
    After giving her good looks, fate had never again been generous. Consequently, Micky wasn’t able to identify a reason for this almost sweet anticipation. Defensively, she tempered it with wariness.
    Nevertheless, during the week that she’d been staying with Aunt Gen, she awakened each morning with the conviction that change was coming and that it would be a change for the better.
    Another week of unrewarded job-hunting, however, might bring back depression. Also, more than once during the day, she’d been troubled by a new version of her former rage; this sullen resentment wasn’t as hot as her anger had been in the past, but it had the potential to quicken. The long day of rejection left her weary in body, mind, and spirit. And her emotional unsteadiness scared her.
    Barefoot, she went into the kitchen, where Geneva was preparing dinner. A small electric fan, set on the kitchen floor, churned the hot air with less cooling effect than might be produced by a wooden spoon stirring the contents of a bubbling soup pot.
    Because of the criminal stupidity and stupid criminality of California’s elected officials, the state had suffered electricity shortages early in the summer, and in an overreaction to the crisis had piled up surpluses of power at grossly high prices. Utility rates had soared. Geneva couldn’t afford to use the air conditioning.
    As Aunt Gen sprinkled Parmesan cheese over a bowl of cold pasta salad, she served up a smile that could have charmed the snake of Eden into a mood of benign companionship. Gen’s once golden hair was pale blond now, streaked with gray. Yet because she’d grown plump with age, her face was smooth; coppery freckles and lively green eyes testified to the abiding presence of the young girl thriving in the sixty-year-old woman. “Micky, sweetie, did you have a good day?”
    “Sucky day, Aunt Gen.”
    “That’s a word I never know whether to be embarrassed about.”
    “I didn’t realize anyone got embarrassed about anything anymore. In this case, it just means ‘as bad as a sucking chest wound.’”
    “Ah. Then I’m not embarrassed, just slightly sickened. Why don’t you get a glass of cold lemonade, honey? I made fresh.”
    “What I really need is a beer.”
    “There’s also beer. Your uncle Vernon liked two icy beers more evenings than not.”
    Aunt Gen didn’t drink beer. Vernon had been dead for eighteen years. Still, Geneva kept his favorite brand in the refrigerator, and if no one drank it, she periodically replaced it with new stock when its freshness date had passed.
    Although conceding the game to Death, she remained