My woman is sharper than new truth,

a clean bullethole in thick glass.

Winter cuts its teeth on her, the sun

cuts its hand on her,

She's too hot for the beach, the golden sand

Goes all to white crystal under her.

She's too proud, the full moon is her mirror.

When she turns from me I see her face

in the rolling window of heaven

and when she conies barefoot to my bedside,

holding a candle,

an elf skates on my heartstream.

Eager candle, milk my mind of treasons.

She's young and I want to fill her with my world.

Cullen,

Now you and I are twins. If you don't wear this jacket I'll kill you. Just make sure you don't pull on the pockets. . . . Here too is my address and number in Florida AND the key to my house in Remsenberg. That's near Westhampton, out on Long Island. It's very beautiful there; almost too beautiful. The house is on a bay right smack in the middle of a bird sanctuary. The family who owned it before me named it «The Laughing Hat» and it's an appropriate name. It always makes me feel good to be there, which isn't very often nowadays. I've written the address below. Lots of addresses today. Please go on and use it whenever you like. Knowing you're there would make me very happy. Please be sure to leave dirty glasses in the sink so I know you were there. I'm serious!

I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, this thing between us isn't over yet. Not by a long shot. You must have hit me with some kind of wonderfist because I _cannot_ stop thinking about you. Even now.

This is what I wrote back to Florida:

Weber, thank you _very_ much for the world's most beautiful jacket. I've never had anything like it. I don't know what to say other than I'll take good care of it. Your kindness is unfairly huge. I don't think I'll ever use your «Laughing Hat» house, but I like having the key on my ring.

I looked at the note and changed the punctuation around twenty times. Then I threw it in the wastebasket and went in to make dinner.

Danny and I had had a fight. A middle-of-the-winter, we're-bored-and-there's-nothing-better-to-do-so-let's-annoy-each-other fight. Danny was sort of right and so was I. Who cares? It ended with me walking regally out of the room.

«I'm going to bed!»

Luckily I had put the baby down half an hour before our fireworks started. Luckily the bathroom was connected to the bedroom, so I didn't have to lose face by seeing my husband again on my way to wash up. It was only nine o'clock, but I had no other alternative but bed.

The dream began in an empty room which reminded me of a ballet rehearsal hall. Middle-aged women in nondescript dresses stood in the center of the room; there must have been twenty of them in all and they had identical long green scarves in their hands, which they swept across the floor in slow choreographed arcs. The end of each scarf was on fire, but the flame didn't grow or consume the silk; it flickered on each end like a lit wick.

The women stared blankly at me. The air in the room was heavy and rank with smoke and old sweat. The scarves burned in queer, alien colors.

«You don't live here anymore. Your name is James!» They said it as one, and their stiff unison was unnerving. «You have no right to the Bones. You live _away_!»

They started moving toward me, scarves behind them. Glaring tails.

«Stay here and your Mae burns. Little scarf. Silken baby.»

Our dreams are like the messes children make in a kitchen when no one is around to yell at them. Ketchup, an egg or two, chocolate sauce – all thrown into a blender and zipped around.

Where's the wheat germ and look at that tin of clams! Throw 'em in! A little from real life, a few daydreams, a lot from God-knows-where, and _voila_! There was the movie for the night. But with the advent of my special, strange Rondua, things had grown increasingly more clear, connected and sometimes frightening.

I woke. It was only the second time a reference had been made in the dreams to my real waking world, but in both cases it had had to do with Mae.

I slid out of bed as quietly as possible and walked into the living room. The little light over her crib was on for some reason and she was lying on her back, wide awake. It must have been three in the morning.

«Hello, Mommy.»

«Mae?»

Five months old and she had said my name.

«Yes, Mommy, I was waiting for you.»

Gripping the side of the crib, I stared down at her.

«Go look at your face, Mommy. The women did it. They scare me so much. They _burn_.»

The next thing I knew, I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror staring at my brand-new face. Colored swirls and circles, blue flecks, a small black horse were all drawn over my forehead and cheeks, chin . . . I touched myself here and there to make sure. The skin, as if to confirm its change, was slick and slimy. The little horse over my right eye blurred forever under my unbelieving, sliding fingers. The purple circle became a cone, the indigo . . .

I woke and this time the world was the real mine: Danny right next to me, his back curved and warm and totally familiar, the pillow under my head, the Italian alarm clock offensive in its solid electronic beeping. «Holy Cow! You again?»

The telegram man looked disgustedly at me and held out another one. «Just doing the job, lady. What'd you do, win the lottery or something?»

He had been there four times that day. The three previous telegrams had been from Weber Gregston and all said the same thing: «Today I'm missing you more than I ever thought possible. Please punch me again.»

Two weeks earlier I'd had a bunch of postcards from Florida where he was scouting locations for a new film. For no good reason, he'd spent a weekend taking a train across the state. Getting off at stations all along the way, he sent me postcards from places like DeFuniak Springs, Cornbee Settlement and Mary Esther.

I walked back into the living room and waved this newest telegram at Eliot. He had dropped by for an afternoon piece of cake.

«_Another_ one? Oh, Cullen, they're going to have you in _Interview_ magazine: 'Who is the mysterious Gregston's mysterious paramour?' I _love_ it!»

«Oh, shut up! Eliot, what's he up to?»

«I would say he's trying to get you, but in a very romantic way. If it had been me, I'd have been his after the leather jacket. Now I think he likes your stubbornness. Have you written back?»

«Not a word.»

«Has he called you? Come on, cut me a bigger piece. Cullen. You're always such a tightwad.»

«He hasn't called me since that time we went to the market. The telegrams are daring enough, thank you. What's the scoop on him, Eliot? Is he a big wolf? How can a man be so vile the first time you meet and then so sweet after that? Is he schizo?»

«I checked on it for you, Cullen. I think he's just tremendously shy and guarded. A lot of people come at him from all angles, so he retreats into an easy corner – he snarls. There are a lot of movie people who use that device, believe me. The news I had on him is interesting. For a few years he lived with a writer named Lenore Conroy. Word has it that she left him for someone else, but that there were no hard feelings between them at the end. The women who know him well enough all say basically the same thing – he's reliable, thoughtful and a very good friend to have.

«Cullen, there's something I've got to tell you I've been thinking about. Remember how he said he couldn't stop thinking about you only _after_ you'd knocked him down? I don't want to scare you or anything, but do you think maybe a little Rondua has crossed over into his life?»

«Oh swell! Thanks, Eliot. There aren't enough problems around here! Now I'm going to start thinking I've got magical _powers_!»