Armed with coffee, I took my running clothes off and sniffed them. Smelly, but not too bad for one more morning. I dropped them over a chair back and gave myself up to a long hot shower. The stream of water drumming on my skull soothed me. I relaxed, and without realizing it, I started to sing a bit under my breath. After a while the tune drifted into my consciousness, a sad Italian folksong Gabriella used to sing. Rosa was really lying heavy on my mind-the nightmare, visions of my skull breaking, now mournful songs. I was not going to let her control me this way-that would be the ultimate defeat. I shampooed my hair vigorously and forced myself to sing Brahms. I don’t like his Lieder, but some, like “Meine Liebe Ist Grun” are almost painfully cheerful.

Coming out of the shower I switched to the dwarfs’ song from Snow White. Off to work we go. My navy walking suit, I decided, to make me mature and dignified. It had a three-quarter-length double-breasted jacket and a skirt with two side pleats. A knit silk top of pale gold, almost the colour of my skin, and a long scarf bright with red and navy and brushed again with the same gold. Perfect. I edged the corners of my eyes with a faint trace of blue pencil to make their gray color bluer, added a little light rouge and lipstick to match the red in the scarf. Open-toed red-leather pumps, Italian. Gabriella brought me up to believe that my feet would fall off if I wore shoes made anyplace else. Even now that a pair of Magli pumps go for a hundred forty dollars, I can’t bring myself to wear Comfort-Stride.

I left the breakfast dishes in the sink with last night’s supper plates and those from a few other meals. And the bed unmade. And the clothes strewn around. Perhaps I should save the money I spend on clothes and shoes and invest in a housekeeper. Or even a hypnosis program to teach me to be neat and tidy. But what the hell. Who besides me was going to see it?