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career.
     That’s the part I handle. The right review in
Artforum
, in
Flash Art
, the right humble little cottage in the Hamptons, the right niche in the Basel Artfair and Dokumenta. And as for the churning
     in Japan? That merely solidifies natural values. But anyway this is, well, this is
my
job. Leave this to me. Your job is to stay in your studio and make your boxes.”
    Sparks flash from Annie’s eyes. “
My
job? Oh great, it’s nice to know I’m still involved. Hey, listen to me, Mr. Lyde—”
    “Call me Zach.”
    “Listen—”
    “And may I call you Annie?”
    “You can call me whatever the hell you want. But I don’t want to have anything to do with these, these—”
    “Sleazy patrons? Does the notion of that offend you? ‘Sorry, Duke,’ says Raphael, ‘but you’re corrupt and sleazy and you boil
     your enemies in oil, so I don’t want your help—I’ll just slip quietly into obscurity—’”
    “What I’m saying—”
    He stops her. “Annie, what do you think I get out of this? Money? I don’t make money on this. I don’t need to. What I do for
     a living, I do well.”
    The waiter appears. Glides soundlessly onto the terrace, but Zach Lyde raises his hand slightly, and without taking his eyes
     off Annie he says, “David, not now? Please?”
    The waiter retreats.
    Zach Lyde leans in even closer to her. “I do this so an artist like you can go into your studio and make your boxes and not
     worry about whether or not your kid gets fed. OK? So your thoughts can be as chaotic as you need them to be. And your life
     won’t have to suffer. So all those idiots in the art world, those gnats, they won’t bother you. So you can
work.
”
    Abruptly he looks away from her. Blows out a breath of air. Shakes his head. “But look, it’s your career. Keep your boxes.
     Keep your check too, consider it a grant… my compliments. I wish you luck.”
    He turns, looks for the waiter.
    “Mr. Lyde?” she says quietly.
    “Zach.”
    “Zach. You know, you know you
are
very persuasive.” She tries to smile. “It’s just that this is… this is. Oh God.
Sudden.
It’ll take some getting used to, I guess. That’s all. That’s all I meant. I guess.” She looks down at her smoked-salmon summer
     rolls. She laughs. “Did I tell you how delicious this was? Though I, I’m not sure I can eat any more.”
    “That’s OK. Anyway, you have to go. You have that jury duty, right?”
    “Oh yeah. Right. Forgot. Real life.” She shakes her head. “I wish I didn’t have to go, though. I feel like, there’s really
     a lot we could talk about, I mean I’m sorry, I wish I didn’t—”
    “Be other opportunities.”
    “Yes.”
    “For example dinner.”
    “What?”
    “Will you have dinner with me tonight, Annie?”

    O LIVER coasts on his bike. With his chin in the air he looks straight up into the great sugar maples along Church Street, the shuddering
     leaf-caverns, until his mother, riding behind him, cries sharply, “
Ol
iver!” Then he drops his eyes, and in truth the bike
had
been sort of straying off to one side of the street….
    Side by side they coast down toward the lake. To the corner with the old stone library, where Church Street meets Old Willow
     Avenue.
    Oliver slows not with the hand brake but by wobbling the wheels.
    They wait for a few cars to go by on Old Willow. Then they cross the road and bounce over hummocky yellow grass to the bike
     trail that runs alongside the lake.
    He calls back to his mom, “So will I get a new bike?”
    “Oliver,” she says.
    “No, I mean a new Mongoose, Mom, why not?”
    “I’m serious. Shut up.”
    “Who’s listening to us, Momba?”
    “I don’t care. You do not say one word.”
    They pass the bronze statue of Hannah Stoneleigh, the Revolutionary War heroine of Pharaoh, clinging to her bronze horse and
     shouting a bronze shout.
    Says Oliver, “How about a PowerBook?”
    “What?”
    “A PowerBook. It’s a computer with a built-in