“And promote the hell out of it,” Harry suggested.

Priss gazed into the fire. “I don’t know which I would rather not have,” she said thoughtfully. “My face on the back cover or my bottom on the front.”

“Toss a coin,” Harry said. “It’s a question of-”

“I know, I know.”

“-heads or tails,” Harry said, unnecessarily. Sometimes it’s hard stopping him.

We went on, in this weathered vein, joking about autograph parties and guest spots on the Carson show. It was reasonably amusing conversation and went well with the drinks and the fire and the music. Mozart, if I remember correctly. And if you care.

And then, after another round of drinks had been poured and another log sentenced to immolation, Priss finally said, “Hey, wait a minute.”

We waited part of a minute.

“What is it going to be about?”

“Huh?”

“Our book,” she said. “A book has to be about something. What’s it going to be about?”

“It is going to be about sixty-five thousand words long,” Harry said.

“I’m serious,” Priss said.

“Well, don’t look at me,” Harry said, looking at me.

“Us,” I said.

Priss widened her eyes. Harry squinted.

“Us,” I said again. “We three.”

“ We three,” sang Harry, sounding less like Ted Lewis than he hoped, we’re not a crowd, we’re not even com-pa-ny-”

“The three of us,” I said. “How this all happened. How everything got started and got complicated and worked itself out.”

“ My echo -”

“With each of us keeping the story going from our own point of view, you see, so that what we would wind up with is this ongoing story of a relationship developed from three directions-”

“- and me ” Harry finished. And looked long and deep at me. “This,” he said, “is not something that just occurred to you sitting here in front of the fucking fireplace.”