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studying.”
    “What, pray?”
    “Environmental something. He wants to be an environmental lawyer.”
    “Does he now?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, why not? A band manager, shepherd, poet-in-residence, film producer, lifeguard ought to study law, the more environmental the better. An advantage really, since he’s certainly had enough environments to choose from. And what will you do? Design no-nuke stickers?”
    “You can’t make me change my mind.”
    “It’s not a matter of changing it. It’s a matter of using it. Let him alone, Margaret. Let him be. You can’t do it over. What you want is crazy.”
    “No.
This
is crazy. I live in airplanes now. Nowhere. Not in Philadelphia where I at least have friends. Not here boiling under a palm tree with nobody to talk to. You keep saying next month, next month, next month. But you never do it. You never leave.”
    “But you do—whenever you like. Lots of people live in two places.”
    “I want to live in one—just one. In October you said after New Year’s, you’ll come back. Then when New Year’s comes you’ll say after carnival. If I want to live with you I have to do it your way—here. I can’t keep flying back and forth across the ocean wondering where I left the Kotex. Anyway. I’m going back with Michael. For a while. Make a home for him.”
    “You’ll have to eat corncakes. Three hundred and twenty-five per serving.”
    “I told you he’s not there anymore. He’s applied at U.C. Berkeley, I think.”
    “Marijuana cookies then. Two hundred—”
    “You will not listen.”
    “Margaret, promise me something.”
    “What?”
    “That you won’t go unless he agrees to it.”
    “But—”
    “Promise.”
    She studied him for a moment for she never knew if he was teasing her, patronizing her or simply lying. But now he looked deadly earnest so she nodded saying, “All right. All right. That’s no risk.
    “What about Jade, then?” asked Valerian.
    “What about her? She can stay as long as she likes.”
    “She thinks she’s working for you.”
    “Let her work for you while I’m gone.”
    “Oh dear.”
    “Or just relax. She wanted to spend the winter here is all. Why, I can’t think.”
    “Getting over an affair, I thought.”
    “At her age it takes three days, not three months.”
    “You don’t like her anymore?”
    “I love her. But I’m not going to give up going back with Michael just to help her cool off for another month or two. Besides, look what she has to go back to.”
    “What?”
    “Everything. Europe. The future. The world. Why are you frowning? Does she need money?”
    “No. No. Not that I know of. She signed on with some agency or something in New York, or is about to.”
    “There. She doesn’t need the pretense of working for me.”
    Valerian swallowed the last bit of egg and ham and tapped the toast basket with his fork. “Clever. Very clever.”
    “Jade?”
    “No, Ondine. This is really good. I think she served something like this in the States.”
    “Talk about calories. You’re eating like a horse already and the day has just started.”
    “Pique.”
    “Pique. Why?”
    “The nursery, Stateside, sent a defective order. Completely ruined.”
    “Shame.” Margaret reached toward a croissant, changed her mind and withdrew her hand.
    “Have it,” said her husband. “It wasn’t four twenty-five, that mango. Not even a hundred.”
    “You liar. I should have known. I was going to ask Jade about that.”
    “She wants to open up a little shop of some sort,” he said.
    “You’re mumbling.”
    “Shop. She wants to be a model a little longer, then open up a shop.”
    “Wonderful. She has a head. You’ll help her, won’t you? Won’t you?”
    “Of course.”
    “Well, why the long face?”
    “I was thinking of Sydney and Ondine.”
    “As usual. What about them?”
    “They like her here.”
    “We all do.”
    “She’s their family. All they have of a family left.”
    “And you. You’re as much family to