“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.”