"This'll be good," Larissa blurted suddenly. "Drop me off here. It's fine."

Mejida pulled into a little parking lot near a closed trinkets shop. They were still half a mile away from Balcony Bar. "Thanks so much for the ride." Larissa slammed the door so hard, the empty beer can standing upright nearby fell over and rolled down the roughly paved lot.

She was glad for the walk in the dark, to will herself to calm down. She had never liked Mejida. She felt judged by her, critically appraised and dissected. She couldn't believe her friend Bianca talked about her to that woman, of all people! Oh, the spirit of idle talk, the malicious banter. What did Mejida care what Larissa did with her life, anyway? Since when did she become Larissa's confessor? Larissa couldn't believe they owed that woman and her lewd husband rent money. But perhaps that's why Mejida talked to Larissa like thata"because she knew she could. The conformity of it, the illusion of control, the threat of eviction, of blackmail. Larissa wished she had longer to walk to get to Balcony Bar.

The place wasn't busy since it was Tuesday and none of the locals or the migrants got paid till Wednesday. There were a few people at the bar, a few at the tables, the music was subdued, which meant Creedence instead of Van Halen. She spotted Kai right away, standing in a social circlea"Bart and Bianca (d.a.m.n her) and laughing people Larissa had not seen beforea"holding a tall gla.s.s of frosty beer in his hand and telling a joke. His ukulele lay behind him on the barstool. He looked like he hadn't a care in the world. What was she going to say to him? Didn't he know that she'd been alone all day? And was that his responsibility?

When he saw her he waved and, pushing through the group, walked jauntily toward her. He was wearing ragged jeans, black boots, a jean jacket over a gray hoodie. His hair was tied back away from his stubbled face; he left this morning without shaving. "Hey," he said, "aren't you a sight for sore eyes. Whatcha up to?" He kissed her without hesitation. And why not? Did she expect hesitation? Was she looking for it?

"Why are your eyes sore?" she said, standing close to him. "I was waiting for you. I made you dinner."

"I'm sorry." He put his arm around her. "I didn't know you were cooking. I thought we had no money."

"Yesterday you said you were tired of going out all the time."

He laughed. "I was supposed to get dinner from that?"

"But you went outa"without me."

"Just a quick drink after work."

"Kai, it's ten in the evening. Everything closes at six. What *after work' are you talking about?"

The bloom washed off his face, a frozen smile drifted across it. "No fighting," he said. "I'm sorry I didn't know you were making dinner. How was I supposed to know? What'd you buy it with?"

"What are you buying drinks with?"

"Billy-O bought the rounds tonight. I told him I'd take care of him tomorrow when I got paid from Snowfield."

"Who is Billy-O? And tomorrow we're going out again?"

"Well, it is pay day." He grinned. "Come, I'll introduce you. Billy O'Neal. He's one of the drifters looking for work."

"Oh, so more compet.i.tion."

"No, he's a brumbie hunter. Different business from me. Come."

"You just met him and he's buying you drinks?" Larissa glanced in the direction of the group by the bar, watching them, waiting for Kai.

"I didn't say I just met him." His arm was still around her. His face was close. He kissed her again, sweeter. "Come on. Have a drink. They're nice. Bart. Patrick. Billy's hysterical."

"They're all nice?"

"They're all nice." His free arm went around her waist, to pull her to him. "No one's as nice as you."

But when Kai introduced her to his new friends, Larissa was suddenly not so sure that no one was as nice as her. Billy-O's squeeze in particularaperhaps the girl was tipsy, or perhaps this was the way all Billy-O's broads giggled at Kai's jokes, but this one seemed extra pleased to be having a drink in his company. Who was she again? Billy-O was a ranger, a sloppy-looking tiny, tiny dude out of the bush, worn, faded from the sun. He was wiry like a jockey, his face looking like it spent twenty hours of every day outdoors. Larissa a.s.sumed he was in his twenties, but the weathered lines in his hands and cheeks made him look fortysomething. The girl's age? Younger. She was smooth-skinned and pale; she wore a wide-brim hat to shield herself from the Australian winter sun.

With Creedence desperately wanting to know if she'd ever seen the rain coming down, Larissa couldn't catch the girl's name, her rank, her connection to the proceedings, her connection to Billy-O. She couldn't even catch Billy-O's connection to Billy-O. Who was he again? Horses? Well, then, how did Kai know him?

"Billy-O came here to find work a few months ago," Kai told Larissa, "and stayed. He doesn't ski, just like us, but he found work in the local stables taking care of the horses for the winter. He wants to go round up some brumbies for his own business."

"Billy-O has a business?"

"Yeah, he runs a stable out west. He's got an amazing life. He goes out into the gra.s.slands, finds the wild horses, brings them back, tames them, and then sells them. But now he's looking to keep a few of his own; he wants to start a horseback riding business in the National Park. They need to be really docile, though, to withstand tourists on their backs. Most of the horses he owns are barely tamed."

Larissa stared at Kai through the puzzled pinpoints of her troubled eyes. "You sure know a lot about him."

Kai shrugged. "We got to talking, became friendly."

"But where would you meet someone like that?"

Kai shrugged. "I went to look for work at the stables in Thredbo Valley."

"You? The stables?"

"I know a little bit about horses. I used to clean them in Maui before I got into masonry. I can handle a horse. Anyway, it's work, what do I care?"

"Did you get, um, work?"

"Not yet. Listen, you want a drink or what?"

Or what, Kai. Or what. Out of their remaining few dollars, he bought her a Jager. They lived without cell phone service, without a bicycle, without a car for her, and the rent was two months late. But he had to spend three bucks to buy her a Jager. If only they had something to drink at home, maybe they could go home to drink it. Maybe if they had somethingabut what was it? What did she want from her cottage on Rainbow Drive? Perhaps a little bit of Bellevue Avenue? But which part? The domestic part? The cleaning and cooking part? The laundry part? The unread books? The soft down bed in which she spent her winter mornings? Or something else? It was something else, something larger, yet smaller, something indefinable. The gla.s.s of Red Bull and Jagermeister liqueur in her hand started to shake, duly noted by Kai because he turned his shoulder to her and started talking to Billy-O and his girl.

As he was talking, Larissa, with incomprehension, watched Kai pour off a little of his beer into Billy-O's girl's gla.s.s. She hadn't even asked! As he was chatting away, he just held the girl's gla.s.s steady and poured. Maybe Larissa's narrowed eyes were failing her. It was dark in the bar, and Creedence was now demanding to know who was going to stop that d.a.m.n rain, and then Steppenwolf informed her they were on a magic carpet ride, and all this questioning noise and darkness made it hard to think in a place where the jukebox was loud and other people joyous, standing too close to hear each other; other people, not Larissa. She was squinting, constricted, tired, feeling unbeautiful, standing wondering who it was that had the emptying gla.s.s into which her lover poured a bit of his cold beer. When were they going to leave? When would this end?

The girl's name was Cleo Carew. Larissa found her name pretentious and p.o.r.nographic. It sounded made up, created specifically for stripper work: first name from the name of her horse, second name from the street where she lived as a child, e.g. Bunny Highland or Josie Mary. As if her real name had been Martha and she changed it to appear more s.l.u.tty. As if she needed help in that department, with her jeans three sizes too small and her pink sweater too thin, too small and too low. She wore a horror-show amount of makeup, laughed obnoxiously loud, flung her slick blonde hair around and thought herself disproportionately attractive. Yet Kai poured his beer into her gla.s.s. What was up with that?

Larissa couldn't wait for the opportunity to ask him.

"Ready to go?" she said after another half-hour had pa.s.sed.

"One more drink and we'll go." It wasn't a question.

She wanted to shake her head, say, look, no more drinks. After all, I'm on the back of your bike. The uphill road is dark and twisting. But he obviously didn't want to go home. And something inside Larissa rebelled against making him. If he couldn't see straight to the time of day, she wasn't going to be the one to point out to him it was quittin' time. Not here, anyway. She shook her head to another drink, and tried in vain to partic.i.p.ate in a conversation she neither heard nor cared to hear. Cleo was giggling non-stop.

She watched Kai drag out finishing his drink, like he was chewing gum long after the flavor had gone out. She watched him as he talked, his animated face, his straight-up spine. And when she glanced away for a moment, in the dark, she noticed that Cleo was watching him also, his animated face, his straight-up spine.

"Well, it's time I go," he said to Cleo. Not time we go, but time I go.

"So soon?" whined Cleo. "Come on, have another drink. My round."

"Thanks, but no." He smiled. "I won't be able to ride my bike."

"I'll drive you. I got a car."

"I think the designated driver might need a driver," muttered Larissa, and Cleo laughed, and Kai too, and Cleo said, your girlfriend may be right about that, and Larissa cringed after being so superficially acknowledged by this female stranger.

Cleo stuck out her hand to Larissa. "It was nice to meet you," she said. "You have a cool accent."

"I don't have an accent," said Larissa, reluctantly shaking hands. "You're the one with the accent."

Cleo laughed like it was the funniest thing she'd heard all nighta"and that was saying a lot. "You're in our country, now," she trilled. "Do as the Romans do."

Larissa didn't know what that meant. Was an accent something the Romans turned on and off at will?

"Does she even know who the Romans are?" she said to Kai as they walked out.

"Oh, come on," he said, taking her hand. "Sure she does. She's a good kid. Nothing wrong with her."

"Who is she?"

"Not quite sure. Friend of Billy-O's, I think."

"What's she doing in town?"

"Looking for work. Like everybody."

"Gee, there must be something a girl like her could do around here," remarked Larissa.

"Hey," he said. "What's with the tone?"

"What tone? No tone. You had too much to drink."

"Be that as it may, there was still a tone."

Thing about a bike, it wasn't like a car. You couldn't fight on it on your way home, so that by the time you reached your house, you were halfway done arguing, and all that was left was the makeup s.e.x. On the bike, Larissa had to hold on to him, sit behind him, and he had to concentrate on the road so he wouldn't crash. They didn't speak. When they got home, they hadn't even begun.

His tactic when they walked inside the house surprised her. He took her in his arms. "I'm sorry," he said, bending to nuzzle her neck. "I'm sorry I didn't come home and eat dinner. I know you're upset, but I don't want to fight with you. Honest." He smelled like strong beer, like smoke; he held her tightly.

"Kaia" she wriggled away so she could look at him, "why would you go out knowing I'm home and we have no money and I have no car, and I'm waiting for you?"

"I'm sorry, Larissa," he said. "It was thoughtless. I wasn't thinking. I lost the job at the Ski Village. They didn't have anymore work for me. I was upset, and I needed to think."

"To think or to drink?"

"To think."

"You went to a bar to think? You lost your gig, the money that comes with it, and then you went to a noisy smoky bar and spent money we don't have so you could clear your head?"

Now it was his turn to let go of her and step away.

"I thought I asked you not to fight?"

"Well, you did ask me," she said slowly. "But when there's stuff unresolved, it's hard to keep silent."

"What stuff?"

"Look, I don't want to fight either. But I think I'm going to have to get a job."

"Why are you saying it like that?" The front door wasn't closed all the way. The Ducati keys were still in his hands. He dropped them on the coffee table, went to close the door.

"Like what?"

"In that accusing tone. Are you getting a job to punish me?" He scoffed. The door slammed. "That's weird, Larissa. Get a job because we desperately need the money. Don't get a job to get back at me."

"Is there something I have to get back at you for, Kai?" asked Larissa.

"Don't be silly." He fell down on the couch, spread his legs, threw his head back. "I'm so f.u.c.king tired."

"You're drunk, not tired," she said. "Kai, why didn't you tell me that you didn't pay June's rent? Or July's?"

He didn't even lift his head. "I didn't want to worry you."

She sat down next to him. Outside was black night and the only light in the house was fluorescently flickering from the undercabinet in the kitchen. She could barely make out his features.

"Where did the money go?"

"What money? Larissa, there is no money."

"But you've been workinga"

"Yeah, paying for gas, for our fooda"

"For drinks at Balcony Bar?"

"That's not much. We go there twice a week maybe."

"We? I didn't see a we there tonight, Kai."

He squinted at her. "Oh, you weren't there tonight?"

"No thanks to you."

"We can't afford drinks for me, and you want to come to spend money we don't have?"

"You do!"

"Please don't shout. I got friends who buy me drinks."

"Mooching off your friends?" said Larissa. "Nice. Yeah, I have friends, too, who can buy me drinks."

"I'm sure you do," Kai said, letting acid creep into his voice. "Like Coty the bartender?"

"Who?"

"Don't pretend. I know he gives you drinks for free. It's pretty galling, don't you think, for me to go up there to buy drinks for you, considering that with a little flash of your smile or perhaps your b.o.o.bs, you can get all the free Jagers you want."

"What are you talking about?" said a fl.u.s.tered Larissa, jumping up. "You buy me drinks because it's the chivalrous thing to do."