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exhibits some degree of symptomatic distress, but what exactly is it we are convalescing from? She hasn't a clue. I need a good night's sleep. I need a good night without sleep. Overhead, the mounting darkness is studded with stars, glint of the nailheads supporting the big roof. A sudden light from the Avery bedroom projects a long yellow trapezoid over the spiky grass. Down the block the heavy metal kids are crashing and burning their way through a catchy number whose name she almost seems to recall. There's nothing around us, and deep inside, too.
    The steaks are grilled to perfection, and though it's difficult to make out in the dim wicklight exactly what it is that's on one's plate or identify the grit in the potatoes, the meal is rated a four-star success. Tommy raises his glass to deliver a toast so pompous and strained it must have been intended to evoke the manner of some media android or other.
    "Do your De Niro," Rho orders her husband. "You know his De Niro. All his impressions are fabulous, but the De Niro is uncanny."
    He smiles wearily.
    "C'mon, Wylie, put out for your guests."
    The smile fades.
    "Let's go now, let's get this party into high gear." Her husband's reserve is irritating her. She's fed up with the many humors and riddles of him. "I want some fun here," she demands, "and I want it now."
    "You're drunk," he says.
    "I'm not," announces Gerri with aggressive finality. She's the hardliner at the negotiating table. She's decided not to go in on Monday. Let her colleagues enjoy a new appreciation of her worth in a musing upon her absence. Wylie wouldn't go in if he didn't feel like it. Wylie does as he pleases. He's a free lance. He says he's in microsystems, but she knows better, she thinks he must be in government, he's a governor. She can feel her hands running up under Wylie's shirt. She can feel heat.
    Tommy rises, he wants to dance. Won't anyone join in? He stumbles alone down the steep redwood steps and out across the yard, a small dark figure moving within a larger darkness. He's humming, he's dancing.
    It looks to Rho as if Tommy has actually removed his shirt, and since a good hostess accommodates her company she hustles out to perform her duty. Arm in arm they dance, it's a night for grand gestures, cheek to cheek they glide on over behind the garage where in a crush of mint, she. . . he. . . well, nothing really, and he did have his shirt on the whole time.
    Abandoned at the dinner table, Wylie and Gerri have somehow slipped, without apparent embarrassment, into an engaging discussion upon the nature of the soul, its defining qualities, the possibility it manifests a specific shape, the likelihood of its integrity beyond formaldehyde and flowers, speculation on its absence from an unfortunate sum of mortal beings since God, at the moment of creation, released into the universe a fixed number of souls to be recycled among a diminishing percentage of an exponentially expanding population, hence bodies with no souls. Who are these people? she inquires. He shrugs his shoulders. Movie executives? There's a dark rustle in his voice that vibrates the base of her spine. Her hands upon his chest.
    When Tommy and Rho come tripping back to the campfire, Tommy presents an idea, a great escape, a week-long getaway, all four of them, to the lands over the sun. Gerri squeals and claps. On the island there will be no telephones, no televisions, no papers. No one will wear any clothes. Tommy knows a guy at Eastern who knows the choice beaches (e.g., tourist-scarce, noncommercial) in the Caribbean and who was just yesterday commending the unspoiled charms of one rare shore Tommy unfortunately cannot. . . "Saint. . ." he tries, "Saint something," looking for help to Rho, her skin in the candle glow burnished to a model's tan. He's convinced he understands the contents of her face, always has.
    "They're all Saint something," says Gerri, playing to the still watcher across the table. "Those grubby Catholics always