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next to a bag of groceries that hadn't been put away.   She had started changing into more attractive clothing but had gotten waylaid by something real or imagined and seemed halfway about everything.   As Peter watched her, he noticed with a quiet sadness how Kate could be euphoric or depressed for no visible reason.   All week she'd been irritable, waiting for something, or teary-eyed and deeply regretful.   He had actually caught her a few times staring out the window as she was doing at this moment.
     
    He stood watching her.   The muted sunlight brought out only the surface texture of her face and so he saw every wrinkle and crack in the skin.
     
    He saw how her hair would look when it turned white and her features, how they would fall.   Then, in one calm and graceful motion, she turned her eyes like the girl in the Vermeer painting being interrupted at her music lesson.   The slight twist of her neck and the engagement of her eyes presented themselves with a candor that was always flirtatious.
     
    Now that her affair was over and had clearly ended badly, Peter knew that only he could make her happy again.
     
                              Molly was glad her bed was warm and the night hot because she carried with her a faint but present desire to masturbate to Kate.
     
    She thought to her as if it were a gift, but she actually meant to masturbate to a memory of making love with her like one moves She was in a hallucinatory state.   It was too hot and her body could not get cool.   Each part of her was sore and had a distinct odor.   When Kate said "I love you," its effects lingered on Molly's skin like radiation.
     
    Molly could sail out the window on the strength of that alone.   She could fly out into the sky that was always between her apartment and Kate's like an ocean of buildings instead of barnacles.   When Molly sat on the bed and looked out the window she could just make out the shadow of terra cotta surrounding Kate's rooftop.
     
    I"I want to be a good lover to you," Molly said to the grayred funnels and chimneys, the slanted collapsing mountains that formed the boundaries of their pleasureland.
     
    "But I want you to be a good lover to me as well.   I want this to be reciprocal."
     
    Molly lived with this conflict like an itch, like mites laying eggs under the skin that made her squirm with discomfort, especially at night, when she, without restraint, relived those moments of pure anger.   Like waiting for Kate.   She seemed to always be waiting, the afternoon getting longer and later until it disappeared into that other time.   Then a figure would appear, finally, on the stairs preceded by huge flowers.   Molly was immediately reduced to some businessman's daughter whose daddy tried to replace a forgotten birthday with a gift too large and obvious to have any meaning.
     
    "I couldn't leave on time because Peter was hanging around.
     
    I would have had to say where I was going."
     
    "You should have told him you had an appointment with me and had to leave."
     
    At the same time that she spoke, Molly thought about having to watch those flowers wilt and crumble all over the floor before Kate came back to her again.
     
    Maybe someday she'll come while the last bunch is still fresh, Molly thought.   If she does that, I'll sprinkle the petals on her chest.
     
    She dialed Kate's number.   The phone rang.   It rang again and Molly decided not to hang up because she liked knowing the room it was ringing in, having memories in that room.   But after a dream that lasted five rings she heard the click that announced the presence of an answering machine, to be followed one breath later by a greeting, perhaps accompanied by music.   That was new.   Kate had bought an answering machine for her studio.   Who wanted to come home to messages?
     
    Molly had long ago decided that buying an answering machine would be a public admission of a private sin; waiting for women