swimming pool positively glittered for an instant as if a vagrant wind had touched its 
surface. As if it were alive.  As she stepped forward, a tiny red light flashed on the 
motion detector, but she could see immediately by the control panel on the kitchen 
counter that the alarm wasn't set. That was why it hadn't gone off when she opened the 
window. What luck! She'd forgotten about that damned alarm, and it had been the alarm 
that had saved Michael's life.  He'd have drowned if the firemen had not come and found 
him-men from his father's own firehouse, though Michael's father had died a long long 
time ago.
  
  Michael. Yes, it was fatal attraction from the moment she'd first met him. And the 
sheer size of the man had a lot to do with it-things like the perfect width of his neck. 
Mona had a keen appreciation of men's necks. She could watch a whole movie just to get a 
load of Tom Berenger's neck.
  
  Then there was that constant good humor. When had she ever not gotten a smile from 
Uncle Michael, and often she'd gotten winks. She loved those immense and amazingly 
innocent blue eyes. Downright flashy, Bea had said once, but she'd meant it as a 
compliment. "The man's just sort of too vivid!" Even Gifford had understood that.
  
  Usually when a man was that well-built, he was an idiot. Intelligent Mayfair men were 
always perfectly proportioned. If Brooks Brothers or Burberrys' couldn't fit you, you 
were illegitimate. They'd put poison in your tea. And they behaved like windup toys once 
they came home from Harvard, always combed and tanned, and shaking people's hands.
  
  Even Cousin Pierce, Ryan's pride and joy, was turning out that way - a shining replica 
of his father, down to the Princeton cut of the blond hair, and loving Cousin Clancy was 
perfect for Pierce. She was a small clone of Aunt Gifford - only without the pain. 1 hey 
looked like they were made of vinyl, Pierce and Ryan, and Clancy. Corporation lawyers; 
their whole goal in life was to see how much they could leave undisturbed.
  
  Mayfair and Mayfair was a law firm full of vinyl people.
  
  "Never mind," her mother had said once to her criticism. "They take care of all the 
money so that you and I don't have to worry about a thing."
  
  "I wonder if that's such a good idea," Mona had said, watching her mother miss her 
mouth with the cigarette, and then grope for the glass of wine on the table. Mona had 
pushed it towards her, disliking herself for doing it, disliking that she did it because 
it was torture to watch her mother not be able to find it on her own.
  
  But Michael Curry was a different sort from the Mayfair men altogether - husky and 
relaxed, more beautifully hirsute, altogether lacking in the perpetual preppie gleam 
perfected by men like Ryan, yet very adorable in a beastly way when he wore his 
dark-rimmed glasses and read Dickens the way he'd been doing it this very afternoon when 
she'd gone up to his room. He hadn't cared a thing about Mardi Gras.  He hadn't wanted to 
come down. He was still reeling from Rowan's defection. Time just didn't mean anything to 
him, because if he had started to think about it, he would have had to think on how long 
Rowan had been gone.
  
  "What are you reading?" she'd asked.
  
  "Oh, Great Expectations," he'd said. "I read it over and over. I'm reading the part 
about Joe's wife, Mrs. Joe. The way she kept making the T on the chalkboard. Ever read 
it? I like to read things I've read before. It's like listening over and over to your 
favorite song."
  
  A brilliant Neanderthal slumbered in his body waiting to drag you into the cave by your 
hair. Yes, a Neanderthal with the brain of a Cro-Magnon, who could be all smiles and a 
gentleman and as well-bred as anybody in this family could possibly want. He had a great 
vocabulary, when he chose to use it. Mona admired his vocabulary. Mona's vocabulary was 
ranked equal to that of a senior in college. In fact, someone at school had once said, 
she had the biggest words coming out of the littlest body in the world.
  
  Michael could sound like a New Orleans policeman one moment and a headmaster at 
another. "Unbeatable combination of elements," Mona had written in her computer diary. 
Then remembered Oncle Julien's admonition. "The man is simply too good."
  
  "Am I evil?" she whispered aloud in the dark. "Doesn't compute."
  
  She really hadn't the slightest doubt that she wasn't evil. Such thoughts were 
old-fashioned to her, and typical of Oncle Julien, especially the way he was in her 
dreams. She hadn't known the words for it when she was little, but she knew them now: 
"Self-deprecating, self-mocking." That is what she'd written into the computer in the 
subdirectory \WS\ JULIEN \ CHARACTER in the file DREAMi3.
  
  She walked across the kitchen and slowly through the narrow butler's pantry, a lovely 
white light falling on the floorboards from the porch outside. Such a grand dining room. 
Michael thought the hardwood floor had been laid in the thirties, but Julien had told 
Mona it was i89os, a flooring they called wooden carpet, and it had come in a roll.  What 
was Mona supposed to do with all the things Julien had told her in these dreams?
  
  The dense murky murals were surprisingly visible to her in the darkness-Riverbend 
Plantation, where Julien had been born-and its quaint world of sugar mill, slave cabins, 
stables and carriages moving along the old river road. But then she had cat's eyes, 
didn't she? Always had. She loved the darkness. She felt safe and at home in it. It made 
her want to sing. Impossible to explain to people how good she felt when she roamed alone 
in the darkness.
  
  She walked around the long stable, now all cleared and stripped and polished, though 
only hours ago it had held the last Mardi Gras banquet complete with frosted King cakes, 
and a silver punch bowl full of champagne. Boy, the Mayfairs sure ate themselves sick 
when they came to First Street, she thought. Everybody was just so happy that Michael was 
willing to keep the place going though Rowan had flat-out disappeared, and under 
suspicious circumstances. Did Michael know where she was?
  
  Aunt Bea had said, with tears in her eyes, "His heart is broken!"
  
  Well, here comes the kid with the wonder glue for broken hearts!
  
  Stand back, world, it's little Mona.