She wondered if she had gone this far because she was letting hope outweigh a sober evaluation of the risks. Was this the sign of complete desperation? Whatever she decided, tomorrow was the day, D day, decision day.

She thought again about her mom, who had been bubbling with hope when she looked in on her. Nina hadn't even been formally checked in, but already she seemed transformed. It was enough for her just to entertain the possibility that her mind could be renewed. That in itself was sufficient to convince Ally to sign the consent agreement for Van de Vliet to go forward with her procedure. He even offered to provide a car service to take Maria home to the Bronx after Nina was settled and resting.

In her own case, the special injections for her heart, she was far less sure what she thought. The part that bothered her most was having to give herself entirely over to a person she scarcely knew. It was the kind of ultimate surrender that she abhorred.

While Knickers rummaged behind the couch for the remnants of her rawhide chew toy, Ally momentarily considered calling Grant. She couldn't think of a reason why except that he was the only coherent immediate family she had left and this felt like a moment for pulling together. G.o.d, she missed Steve. Sometimes she felt so alone.

Then she considered calling Stone Aimes, but she decided that would seem pushy. The truth was, she'd enjoyed talking to him and she'd been surprised at how comfortable she'd felt. Looking back over the elapsed years, she couldn't remember exactly why they split up. There must have been a good reason, but now she could only recall the good times. A picnic in Central Park, or the time they took the Staten Island ferry at night just to see the inspiring downtown skyline.

With those jumbled thoughts cluttering her mind, she finally got around to remembering she hadn't checked her phone machine. She got up off the couch and went into the bedroom.

There were three calls and at first she thought she was too exhausted to check them.

But no, that was irresponsible. She was running a business...

"Hi, Ally, it's me." The voice was Jennifer's. "No emergency, but call when you get in and let me know how it went, okay?"

Not tonight. There was too much to explain and she was too tired. She went to the second message.

"Hi, it's me again. I need you to look over the Jameson design, that Italian-marble bath. They're having trouble getting the ocher. Some kind of strike at the quarry. What can they subst.i.tute? But remember, it's got to be absurdly overpriced or they'll a.s.sume it's c.r.a.p. If I don't hear back from you, I'll fax you some stuff in the morning."

Okay, she thought, these rich clients love to show off. I'll get them what they should have ordered in the first place, knowing them. Stone from the quarry near Agra, where they got the marble for the Taj Mahal.

That ought to be ostentatious enough. It'll take an extra couple of months, but that will impress them even more.

As she considered going to the third message, she had a feeling of misgiving, though in truth there were several people she wouldn't mind hearing from.

Or maybe the Dorian Inst.i.tute had called about Nina. Maybe she'd freaked. This whole thing was happening way too fast. In any case, she didn't really want to talk to anybody right now. What she really wanted to do was sit and think, maybe run the whole thing by Stone and get his take{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}.

She decided to check out the third message.

"Hi, it's your intrepid reporter, just checking in to see how it went today. It's just after eight, and I'm at home. I may not be able to afford this place much longer, given all the excitement I've had today, so call me while I still have an apartment and a phone."

She felt a ripple of excitement and the feeling pleased her. Maybe she did have someone stable and rational in her corner, someone who understood the risks and possible rewards of going forward with the procedure.

She'd put his number in her Palm, which was in her bag, and she went back to the living room, poured herself a gla.s.s of wine, and then retrieved it.

She heard him pick up on the second ring.

"Hi, it's Ally. Thanks for checking on me. I'm really not in the greatest shape at the moment."

"Oh yeah? So how'd it go?"

"Well, I met Dr. Miracle... ." She paused. "I don't know quite how to handle you, Stone. Are we having some kind of reunion? The affair redux. Are we friends all over again? Two days ago, all we had were memories. Then I start getting phone calls from you. I still don't know what I'm supposed to think."

"I'll tell you what I think. I think we're playing this by ear. I don't know what you've been doing for the years that I haven't seen you. I don't know what you know about me. So this is kind of like a blind date with a lot of baggage."

"I agree," she said, then hesitated. Her resolve was melting. "I might as well say this. Is it too late to come down and talk? I thought I was tough enough to handle this on my own, but I definitely could use psychological support."

"Give me the address. I could use a little support myself. I got tlhreatened today, I think, by somebody who would like to crush me like a bug. And easily could. I'll spare you the ironies, but you and I may have more in common than you think. My interest in the Gerex Corporation has just gotten extremely personal."

After she hung up, she felt energized and she decided to give Jennifer a call after all. In truth, she wanted to tell her about Stone and to get her take on whether seeing him was a good idea. Aren't these second-time-around things always doomed?

"Hi, Jen. I'm home and I'm making all kinds of fateful decisions."

"So what happened? Are you going to be a guinea pig for that clinic?"

"Is that what you think it amounts to?" She couldn't tell how serious Jennifer intended to be. "I'm still debating it Mom loved the place."

"Well, good. Good for her. But you're still not sure about you?"

"I'm leaning . . ." She paused. "Jen, somebody I used to see in college is on his way down here right now. He's a medical reporter, but the truth is, I don't know why I asked him."

"I guess if I were your shrink, I'd ask, 'How do you feel about that?'"

"If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't need you to be a one-woman support group." She bit her lip. "He's doing a book about stem cell procedures. So in a way it's a lucky break that he appeared exactly when he did."

"Yeah, Ally, if you ask me, it sounds like it was a lucky break in more than one way. An old flame reappearing can be a positive sign. It's high time something happened in your life."

You 're tighter than you know, she thought. I'm ready for this, whether I admit it to myself or not. But is there going to be any chemistry when we actually see each other? There used to be a lot.

The embarra.s.sing thing was, her first thought was to wonder if he was still terrific in bed. She remembered thinking he was very adroit back then, but back then she didn't have much experience to compare him with. Mainly, thinking about him now made her painfully aware she was overdue for some closeness.

_Tuesday, April 7

10:22 PM.

_What's she going to think of me? Stone wondered as he knocked gently on the door. She'd buzzed him up from the lobby without a word.

More to the point, he thought, what am I going to say if she wants an opinion about whether she should undergo the procedure or not? So far, the only evidence I have that the clinical trials are working is circ.u.mstantial, the patients who've been through the sequence and discharged. So how can I, in good faith, advise her one way or the other?

But, he then concluded, I'm getting way ahead of myself. She may take one look at me and decide she was right to dump me the first time.

Nice building, though. Housing for grown-ups, not like the one-bedroom starter setup I've been reduced to.

He knocked--he always hated the idea of ringing a bell on an apartment door--and a second later, it opened.

Alexa Hampton and Stone Aimes just stood awkwardly for a moment and stared, taking each other in. Finally...

"You look... great." They both said it simultaneously, and that served to make the moment even more awkward.

"Well," he said finally, into the silence, "you do." And he meant it.

There was, however, a lot of strain on her face, in her eyes. The mark the years had left seemed more psychic than physical.