"Yes, I know the winds are high today and the Strand is shifting, but the city controller will have the orientation back to normal very soon now."

Lee tried to translate this, but his grandmother held out a magnetic compass and pointed at it, speaking rapidly.

"Good evening."

Patricia spun, surprised. Commander Becket was standing in the hall, Patricia's jacket hanging off a shoulder-slung workstation case. He was wearing the same or similar civilian clothes that he'd worn the night before.She was wearing cutoffs, bare feet, and one of her father's old T-shirts. It was not the meeting she'd hoped for.

"Your concierge said I would find you here."

Mrs. Fong never stopped talking. Becket turned to her, smiled, and said, "Nei hou ma?"

Mrs. Fong closed her mouth with a snap.

"You speak Cantonese, Commander?"

Becket shrugged. "A bit. There are lots of Chinese refugees. I'm not fluent. What does she want a feng shui consultant for?"

"Well, her patio door normally points to the east, which is auspicious, but the Strand is rotated today because of the higher winds. They diverted OTEC output to keep us on station at the expense of keeping the orientation just so, and now Mrs. Fong says all the good energy is flowing into Ms. Carlisle's apartment instead of her own."

Becket nodded. "Doi m'jui."

Mrs. Fong turned to Becket and began another long string of Cantonese. He held up his hands and said, "M'hai. M'hai. I'm not getting this. What's the conflict here? Do you object to her having a feng shui man in?"

"Not at all," said Patricia. "I object to paying for it, which is what happened last time she wanted one. The bill was three hundred dollars for a thirty-minute visit."

Becket shook his head. "Clearly I'm in the wrong business." He turned back to Mrs. Fong, spread his hands, and said, "Hou gwai! Doi m'jui. M'hai."

"Aieeeee. Tsi leng sin gwai!"

Becket looked surprised; then he laughed out loud, wagging his finger at Mrs. Fong. "Doi m'jui. Joi kin." Aside to Patricia he said, "Time to say bye-bye."

She followed his advice, smiled, and said, "Don't worry. The weather report says the front will be past by tomorrow, and your door will face the east again.

Good-bye!"

She didn't wait for little Lee to translate this, but turned and followed Becket down the hall. When she was around the corner, she heard Mrs. Fong's door shut loudly. "Whew. What did you say to her?"

"I said, sorry, too expensive, no."

"And what did she say to you?"

He laughed again. "That I was a fucking crazy foreigner, which was rather rude but certainly gets into the Cantonese I usually hear. It also shows she accepted theanswer since she wouldn't have been so rude if she still hoped to talk you into it."

"Thanks, I think. She isn't going to do anything crazy, is she?"

"Does she normally do crazy things?"

Patricia laughed. "Depends. She set off a huge string of firecrackers on Chinese New Year that tripped most of the smoke alarms in the building. But no, not usually."

Becket spread his hands apart, palms up. "Well, there you have it." He noticed Patricia's jacket still slung in the crook of his elbow. "Oh. Your jacket." He paused in the hallway and held it out. "That's why I came. Thanks. Uh, you left it in the boat."

I didn't leave it "in the boat." "Right." She took it from him and held it awkwardly. Say something! "Thanks." Then, suddenly "Do you have a moment?"

He tilted his head to one side and raised his eyebrows.

"I wanted to ask you about my boat, but I have a fifteen-minute meeting right now."

"I can wait."

She smiled and pointed to a stairwell. "It's up a few flights."

They came out into the school courtyard. Over the railing the stretch of water was dotted with whitecaps, but the courtyard was mostly sheltered from the wind's direct effects. Patricia led Becket to her own patio and said, "Will you be all right here? I've got to talk with the teaching staff about schedule changes. Well, they're supposed to have worked them all out and I just have to approve them." I hope.

"But I should be back shortly."

He pulled out one of the white plastic chairs. "This is fine."

She flashed him a smile and ran. When she got inside the school door, she made herself pause. Her heart was beating faster than the short dash warranted.

"Hi, boss." Toni was sitting in the waiting room just inside the door, wearing a dress and makeup.

Patricia stared at her blankly for a moment, her thoughts still on Becket; then she shook herself vigorously. Get a grip! "Nice dress, Toni."

The girl was staring at Patricia's cutoffs. "Thanks. Too dressy?" The girl's anxiety was palpable.

Patricia took a deep breath and focused. "For work, perhaps. For the interview?

No. You look fine. Come on. They should all be in the teachers' lounge." She punched the combination on the keypad door, and when the release buzzed, she held the door while Toni entered.She led Toni up one flight of stairs and then across a hall to a room overlooking the playground. A cluster of women and one man were standing at the window looking across the courtyard.

Consuela turned when they came in the room.

"Sorry I'm late, Connie. I had a tenant problem."

Consuela looked back out the window. "Is that who he is? A new tenant?"

"Not him. Mrs. Fong."

"Oh, her-the firecracker lady. Is this Toni?"

"It is. Consuela Madrid. Toni Nelson. Consuela is the principal of Art of Learning."

"But I teach, too. So you want to be a teacher's aide?"

"She'd like to try it. She's one of my new employees on the salvage side, but she's out of a job while the INS still has Terminal Lorraine." And after three days in SubLorraine she's not so sure she wants to be involved in salvage anymore.

Consuela offered her hand to Toni. "Well, we definitely need some help in the afternoon and evening. We get a bunch of kids in the afternoons who go to the public school but come here for aftercare until their parents get home from work.

Then we have some second-shift childcare until midnight-if you can stand the hit to your social life."

She beckoned to Toni. "Let's pop next door to admin, and I'll get you started on the paperwork. You can do that while we do our little meeting here."

"Okay," said Toni.

As the two women went into the next room, Patricia went over to the window and stood on tiptoe to see over one of the teacher's shoulders. Becket had opened his workstation on the patio table, but he was leaning back, fingers steepled, watching one of the afternoon classes as they swarmed over the play structure.

Christopher, their one male teacher, said, "Classic figure. Tragic face. Is he gay?"

Patricia frowned. "None of your bus-. I don't know. Don't think so."

Chris sighed. "Me neither. Not the way he watched you run across the courtyard."

Patricia blushed and turned away. "Aren't we supposed to be having a meeting?"

The others came away from the window grumbling.

Consuela returned from admin and looked at Patricia's face. "I missed something, didn't I?"Christopher opened his mouth, and Patricia said, "Don't even start. After the meeting you guys can talk about me all you want. But. Not. Now."

Consuela blinked and struggled momentarily to find the proper expression. When her face stopped moving, the expression was carefully neutral. She picked up the paper in front of her. "The first order of business is the second-shift staffing schedule."

When Patricia came out of the meeting, she saw Becket crouched beside his chair, putting his eyes level with Marie.

"-well, I burned it," he was saying when Patricia got within hearing range.

Marie said, "That doesn't sound very smart."

Patricia winced but Becket laughed, a sudden surprised sound. Still chuckling, he said, "Well, no. Not as it turned out. Not very smart."

"Did it hurt too bad?"

Becket pursed his lips, considering. "No. I think it hurt just enough."

Marie looked confused. "Maybe you should have a grown-up kiss it and make it better."

Gravely he said, "I'll have to try that."

"Well, bye!" Marie turned and ran off, back toward her apartment.

"Buy you a drink, Commander?"

Becket looked up from watching Marie, his eyes unfocused, someplace else, but swiftly returning. "Oh. Ms. Beenan." He stared at his watch and then at the darkening sky.

"I'm very sorry," Patricia said. "The meeting went on longer than I thought it would." She kept herself from looking back at the school, certain she'd see faces watching from the next floor up.

Becket returned fully to himself and smiled. "It's quite all right. I got some work done and this is a very pleasant place to sit. And I had a visitor." He took a deep breath of air. "But I can't let you buy me a drink. You provided dinner and drinks last night. It's my turn."

"I didn't pay a cent for last night," Patricia protested.

"Not a cent," he agreed. "Just blood, sweat, and tears."

She looked away, discomfited. "All right. You can buy me a drink."

"Okay. Where?""I'll show you. Can you wait a few moments while I change?"

He gestured back at his workstation. "I'll be here."

She nodded, suddenly shy, then went through the patio door into her apartment.

"Right back."

She picked clothing automatically, a silk tank top, a flowered skirt, and sandals, before ducking into the bathroom. She gave her hair a quick brush, washed her face, and brushed her teeth. Why are you brushing your teeth? She looked at herself in the mirror, at the dark smudges under her eyes from troubled sleep, and thought about the stash of cosmetics buried in the back of the bottom drawer. No. She did reapply deodorant before dressing but froze before touching the knob.

Time to face the truth, girl.

She looked back at the mirror and almost didn't recognize herself. Aloud she said, "It's good to see you again."

He asked if he could leave his workstation and satphone in her apartment and she set the bag inside the door before locking up. They walked side by side, not touching, down the exterior stairs until they'd reached the public access. She turned away from the water and led him through an interior walkway, toward the center of the subdivision, past shops and shoppers pushing or pulling handcarts, through courtyards where taller units framed bits of dark blue sky far overhead, then past more residential buildings, the towers dropping in height again.

They emerged at the seawall, walking up a short flight of stairs, then walked along a cast seacrete path winding across a hex of growing soybeans and then a hex of wheat. At the far edge was a hardened concrete building facing the open gulf with a sign: Puesta del Sol.

The sun hung, suspended, just touching the far horizon, and Patricia imagined it was setting into the Texas coast, two hundred miles away, torching an already arid area of the Rio Grande Valley.

They followed the path to the far side of the building where a thin-but-long table-dotted veranda followed the outer edge of the seawall. Most of the tables were filled, their occupants watching the sunset or the slow waves breaking below on the submerged beach plates, foaming effervescently before subsiding back into the deeper water.

She stopped at a table by the railing. "Is this okay?"

"This is... truly excellent." He pulled a chair out for her.

"Good. I used to come here a lot. It's one of those places I've been avoiding."

He settled slowly across from her. "Oh? More painful memories?"She shook her head. "Painful encounters-in the present. Geoffrey really likes this place, too. But I've decided that's his problem-not mine."

Becket smiled. "More extremes putting things in perspective?"

"Yeah." She turned her chair to face the sunset and sank down into it. "Be quiet for a bit, okay?"

"Sure."

She heard him lean back and settle into silence. If he moved or even breathed, the sound of the surf covered it. Her whole world shrank to the warmth on her face, the sound of the surf, the rhythm of her breath, and the liquid merging of the sun into the far horizon.

When the last drop of molten light dropped behind the earth she looked at Becket. He was leaning back in his chair, legs crossed, watching her. She struggled to take a breath. Even so quickly may one catch the plague?

"What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?" she said. Around them, conversations increased slowly in volume.

Becket smiled. "I'll see if I can find a waiter. What do you want to drink?"