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need a drink. I need to get laid.’
    ‘Eloquent as always. Can’t imagine why they’re not kicking your door down.’
    ‘I’m serious,’ Paige said. ‘I seem to remember having sex a lot in my twenties. What the hell is going on here?’
    ‘You were married for most of your twenties.’
    ‘Okay, then maybe it was my teens. I just know that I had a lot of sex during one of these decades, and it sure as hell isn’t my thirties.’
    ‘Yeah, well, things will pick up. Don’t worry.’
    ‘Speaking of picking up,’ Paige began, and Amelia immediately sensed that the conversation was shifting to the St John soap opera. And that meant they would shift to their much-practiced verbal shorthand. ‘Is Roger—’
    ‘I don’t think so. Of course, I’m the one who was completely clueless the first time he cheated on me. Big, stupid lap dog. Who’s to say?’
    ‘Have you guys—’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘Wow. How long has it—’
    ‘Too long,’ Amelia said. ‘Long enough for me to think about it every time I pick up a gourmet cucumber at Food Fair.’
    ‘Hmmm. A gourmet cucumber.’
    ‘Hey,’ Amelia replied, trying to make light of a feeling that had churned the acid in her stomach for the past two weeks, constantly, an emotion blender set on low. ‘That’s my cheating husband you’re speculating about.’
    Paige laughed. ‘You know, if you need any—’
    ‘I know. Thanks,’ Amelia replied, recalling Paige’s appropriately hued pink vinyl gym bag full of adult sex toys. Roger St John, one of the three lovers in Amelia Randolph’s entire sexual repertory company, had been the one to open her up sexually, the one who had first brought her to orgasm, the one with whom she dared to be free. They had even done a few kinky things over the nine years, had even braved a few public places with their amorous adventures. It was just one of the thousand reasons she was so saddened and outraged at Roger’s indiscretion.
    How could he ?
    Paige, having made the offer, returned to her own woes. ‘Be there for me, Sparky,’ she said.
    Sparky. It was a goofy term of endearment they had foisted upon each other ever since they had met at junior college fifteen years earlier. Pre-Roger. Pre-Maddie. Pre-Suburbia. Pre – Roger’s – Midlife – Crisis – Affair – with – the – Blond-Paralegal.
    Pre-Everything.
    ‘Just try and keep me away,’ Amelia said, transferring over to the cordless phone, knowing Paige’s moods about as well as she knew her own.
    This was going to be a long one, she thought.
    Might as well get some dishes done.
    It was nearly an hour later when Amelia got her software loaded, slowly and scrupulously following the manual’s instructions like a cake recipe for an Easy Bake Oven. She was certain she had done something wrong when that little progress bar seemed to take forever moving left to right. But in the end she got a cheerful and satisfying little window that said ‘Installation successful!’
    Maddie, having dutifully held her nose and swallowed a dose of children’s cough syrup, was watching TV. Amelia could hear the sounds of SpongeBob SquarePants drifting down the hall.
    So, as she stood in front of her small desk in the downstairs bedroom, with her steaming mug of Celestial Seasonings Lemon Zinger tea at her side, Amelia took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment, opened them, sat down, arranged her weight on the navy blue swivel office chair, and typed:
    This Slow-Gathering Storm
    by Amelia Randolph St John
    She looked up and placed her hand over her mouth, as if she had violated some ancient literary law, titling something before it was written. But it was a start.
    Now she could begin.
    With Andress already dead and the others looking for her, Vesta knew she had no choice. She cocked the pistol and waited for Gaspar to mount the stairs; the sound of his big boots, once so enticing, once a sound that kept pace with her accelerating pulse, would now be the knell that brought him