"Kai, I'm not interested in Bart," Larissa said, disbelieving this conversation. "I'm not interested in Cleo." They were out of money, they had no car, she couldn't get a job because they lived so far from town, he was about to go thirty miles into the mountains to look for work at the horse stables, and they were talking about a threesome with Cleo, a foursome with Bart. Or was it a fivesome with that witch Bianca?

It wasn't dark enough. That d.a.m.n silver lake. When would the day come when she would never see it again. It was freezing Kai from the inside out.

"Let's just forget it," said Kai. "Clearly you have no interest in this."

"You think?"

"Let's just slog along, like we've been doing. That's what we should do, living in paradise, great food, great bars, nice people, lots to do, yet we have no money, we can't ski, we can't work, we can't pay our rent, we can't grow our business, and when summer starts we're going to have to spend three thousand dollars on new supplies and mechanical work on the cruiser and we have no money." He paused. "We have nothing."

"We don't have money for August rent, which is due in ten days, plus we're two months late, and you want to bring Cleo into our bed?"

"Not Cleo. Bart, too."

"Oh, Kai," Larissa whispered, "what's happening?"

"Nothing. That's the problem."

Somehow, she didn't know how, he fell asleep, just like that, on his side, still uncovered. She covered him and remained sleepless and heavy and hollowa"bodied and hearteda"staring up numbly at the ceiling, hoping once again to find the answers there, because she didn't want to seek the answers in their narrow double bed.

The next morning he went out early. She was still asleep. She slept until two in the afternoon. Maybe 2:40. What else was there to do?

He came back that eveninga"with dinner! He brought takeout from Milly's on Lakeside, linguine with white clam sauce, Larissa's favorite, a bottle of red, chocolate fudge cake and flowers.

"Wine and linguine?"

"That's right, baby!" He was in an excellent mood. The pensive despondency from yesterday had vanished. Happier herself and hopeful, Larissa lit two candles.

"I found work," he said when they sat down at the kitchen table. "Now, I want you to keep an open mind, okay? It's not ideal, or permanent, buta"

"Well, we don't want permanent," she said. "Just something to tide us over till summer."

"Exactly right. We need a break now, and I think I may have found it."

He opened the wine as she watched him, gazed at him. His faded Levi's and gray T-shirt looked so good on him. His face was animated, optimistic. She took a gla.s.s from his hands. They clinked. Raising himself up and leaning over the table, he kissed her deeply. "I love you," he said. "Listen to my idea. You know Billy-O, right? The wrangler from Mungo?"

"Well, I've heard quite a lot about Billy-O," Larissa said. "I don't know Billy-O."

"Right. Well. He needs someone to build a bigger stable and paddock with him. He asked me to help."

"Help what?"

"Build the stable. He and this other guy go on the brumbie runs, but he needs stable help, and then help selling the horses. He needs a second-hand man for that stuff."

"He has money to pay you?"

"Yup." Kai grinned and drank. "He got a small business loan."

Her smile faded. If they had been in the country legally, if they had been Australians, perhaps they could've also gotten a loan, bought a second troopie. That was one of the problems with the work she and Kai could get. It was always off the books, and the opportunities were both compet.i.tive and limited. She forced herself to smile through her stab of jealousy.

"What do you think?" Kai sounded elated. He held her hand while they ate.

"Where is this Mungo?"

"Well, actually, the stable's on the edge of Mungo National Park, outside a little river port town called Pooncarie."

"Never heard of it."

"Yeah, tiny."

"How close to here?"

"Not that close. But you know what?" He pulled out a wad of cash out of his pocket. "He gave me money upfronta""

"You already accepted?" she said, frowning.

"Larissa, what was I going to do?"

She tried to unstress herself by taking another gulp of wine. Then another. "I don't know," she finally said. "Perhaps talk to me first."

"I wasn't near a phone, and I didn't have any other offers. We had to eat tonight. And we need a plan, Larissa. For the future. Don't you feel like we're slowly running out of options?"

She didn't want to nod in a.s.sent. "Maybe we should go," she suggested carefully.

"To Pooncarie?"

"Noajustago." She raised her eyes to him. "You and me. Away from here. I think you're right. Perhaps our time here is drawing to an end." She didn't want to tell him about how sad that made her, or about her appalling conversation with Mejida; she wanted to concentrate on the great unknown. "Kai, we've never seen Perth. Cairns. Ayers Rock, Adelaide. A baby dingo. Let's blow this shanty life, and travel on down the road."

"Larissaa" Now it was Kai's turn to frown. "Are you already disillusioned in the hopes and dreams you held just yesterday?"

"Of course not," she quickly said, feeling the crestfallen mountains oppressively black and close.

"You want to be traveling on? Resume searching for the thing that's perpetually out of reach?"

She reached for him, stammering through her stunted replies. What do you mean, she thought she said. It's not out of reach. You're right here.

"You may be right," Kai said. "Perhaps it is time. But two thingsaI love our summers here. Lazy, relaxed, quietadried-out orange groves, dips in the lake, kangaroos everywhere. I'm not tired of anything yet. I like having my own thing. I like what we do. I want this to work."

"I know. But it's not working."

"And second," Kai continued, "we don't have any money. Did you forget that part? Where can we go? Into the Red Center? You want to go up to Cairns? To Darwin? Maybe I could be a busker on the streets of Perth out west, I can play my uke and the Aborigines can put quarters into my Akubra?"

"I can wait tables," she tried. "If we didn't live so far from town, I could do it here. Maybe we should move from Rainbow Drive then." She feared that part was inevitable; something felt ended, wasted.

"Look at our little bungalow." He said that so sadly. "The stuff that dreams are made onaLook at our view."

"The shades are always drawn, Kai," said Larissa. "I'd rather save what we can than have the entire dream vanish into thin air."

"Well, that's what I'm trying to do, Larissa," Kai said, "with this stable thing."

She had lost her appet.i.te and sat at the table looking at him in the dim light from the table lamp and the flickering candles.

"Where did you say Pooncarie is?" she asked with a resigned sigh.

"Well, here's the thinga" He cleared his throat. She listened intently. Why was there always a thing? "It's a little way away."

"How little?"

"I dunno. I'm not too sure."

"How long did it take Billy-O to get here?"

"He wasn't sure."

"Kai! You're being evasive. Is it forty miles? A hundred miles? What?"

"No, I thinka"

"It's more than a hundred miles?"

"You know, I'm not sure."

Taking matters into her own hands, Larissa went to get the local map out of the kitchen drawer. Pooncarie wasn't on the local map. Taking out a map of Australia, she spread it on the floor, searched for Pooncarie, couldn't find it, searched for Mungo National Park, found that, looked up the legend, measured the distance in the inches on the floor. Finally she looked up. "Kai," she said in a stunned, empty voice, "it's over twelve hundred kilometers away!"

"No. That much?"

"Yes! That's over seven hundred miles."

"Huh." He kind of slumped at the table, chewing his lip and rubbing the wine gla.s.s.

"Kai, did you really tell Billy you were going to do it?"

"Well, look, I knew it wasn't close, like commuting distance. I knowa"

"So what are you proposing?"

"I'm proposing," he said, smiling anew, trying to sell it to her like a good smooth-talking salesman, like the young guy in a white shirt and black jacket and ironed jeans, selling her a Jag with quad tailpipes to drive from the gas station to the supermarket, to drive from the cleaners to the elementary school to pick up her smallest son, who fit so nicely inside her tiny two-seater, "I'm proposing that I go live with Billy for a couple of months, through this winter, work with him, help him build the stable, help him sell the horses, make some dough, and then come back in the summer with money and resume our tour."

"What about me?"

Kai cleared his throat almost without pause. "Here's the thing. Billy-O said his place is too small for the two of us. I can crash on his couch, but we both can't. We can't put him out of his own bed, can we?"

"So you propose I stay here and pay rent on this place?" Stay here, next to Mejida, without a car, without a job and without Kai? Larissa looked up at him from the floor, her eyes shocked and wide.

"No. We can't pay rent here and try to save money for the summer. We've got to be smart about this."

"Smart, yes."

"So here's what I was thinking." There was a small pause therea"for thought, for a breath, for tactics? "What about you going to visit your friend Che?"

"Che?" Larissa said dully, something inside her melting into numbness.

"Not a bad idea, right?"

"You know Che lives in Manila, right?"

"I know. Remember how often you told me how much you wanted to go? Back in Jersey you kept talking and talking about it. This is a great time to do it."

"I'd have to get to Sydney, and then fly to Manila."

"I know. There's a bus twice a day that goes to Sydney."

"But, Kai, we don't have money for rent or food! Where are we going to get a thousand bucks for a flight to Manila? Plus I'll need money when I'm there. I can't just show up and expect Che to feed me."

"Why not? All that money you had been sending her, you don't think it's worth a little reciprocation? A little quid pro quo?"

"She was broke last time I spoke to her. She doesn't bail me out. I bail her out."

Kai said nothing.

"Also, I haven't heard from her or been in contact with her since I left. What if she's not there anymore?"

"She's lived in the same place for years. Why would she not be there?"

"I don't know. But I'm not in Summit anymore, am I? She was having so much trouble when she last wrotea" Larissa could not remember what that trouble was. Something about her boyfrienda?

"I could get a job, too," she offered, a little shrilly. "In Pooncarie. At a local bar."

"We got nowhere to live," Kai repeated impatiently, "except with Billy, and he doesn't have room."

"So we'll rent a room."

"And pay rent again. Pooncarie is a small town, perhaps only a one-bar town. What if you come and there's no work? What are we going to do then? We won't be able to save a penny."

She waited. "Why don't we cross that bridge when we get to it? I'll find work. Why can't I help you and Billy-O at the stables?"

"Help us do what? Build a barn? Tame horses?"

"Either. Both."

"Larissa, be serious. We have nowhere to live!"

"So that's your grand plan? To ship me off to Manila and move to Pooncarie?"

"Not ship you off. Let you go do the thing you've always wanted to do. And not move but migrate. Go where the work is."

"What about this house?"

"I'm too sad to speak about it," Kai said, not looking at her, "but we will have to let this one go. Nothing we can do. We can't pay for it. Next summer we'll find ourselves a new place. Closer to town, though, so we won't have this problem again."