He crouched down and tenderly removed one from its pot. His hands! "You want to help me bed in these lilies?"

"Okay."

"On your knees," he added, slowing down his delivery. Deeply surprised, she narrowed her eyes, trying to gauge if he'd meant to sound suggestive. She had already written him off as physically devastating but dumb as a post, on the basis that God gave only a certain amount of good fortune to any one person. But was she wrong? "Not much you can do standing up there," he added, in a voice that was now entirely innocent.

The things she did for her job, she thought, reluctantly falling to her knees in a patch of moist soil and letting him put the plant into her cupped hands.

"Scoop out a hole," he said, once again sounding like he was talking about sex; she wasn't imagining it, she was certain of it. Almost certain . . .

"Are there gloves?" She didn't want pieces of nature stuck under her nails.

"No gloves," he said. "Get your hands right in. Don't be afraid of getting dirty."

This time there was no mistaking the saucy overtones. She looked at him and they maintained a long, steady gaze, reading the smirks in each other's eyes.

He was mocking himself. Mocking the persona that Loretta and the other Pokey housewives fancied, the persona that he knew Grainne could see through. She liked him all the better for it. Even though her admiration was purely professional, she was glad he wasn't stupid. At least he'd be able to remember his lines.

"So you love being a gardener, do you?" she asked. He didn't know it but he was being interviewed for a job.

"Love it!"

"Seriously," she said. She got it that she'd underestimated him. They were both agreed on that. But now they really did need a significant talk.

"Seriously? You want me to be serious? Okay." He sighed. He could be serious too. He could be anything any woman wanted. For a short time, at least. "I couldn't imagine doing anything else."

"Why?"

"Flowers, plants . . . they're like miracles. You put a gnarly little bulb in the ground. All around it everything dies, then lo and behold, two or three or five months later, Lazarus flowers start poking up through the soil. Back from the dead."

"Go on . . ." The way his face lit up! She could just see how the camera would catch it. Televisual gold!

"And it's not just about making the world beautiful; you could grow your own food."

"I couldn't. My garden's the size of a matchbox."

"You don't need much land. This here," Fionn swept his hand around Carmine and Loretta's quarter acre, "this could be your personal garden of Eden."

Grainne almost doubled over with the painful perfection of it all: Your Personal Eden! That's what they'd call the show! Or perhaps Your Secret Garden, which had delicious sexual overtones, so handy with Fionn being astonishingly handsome. Her head began firing with ideas and when she took them back to Excellent Little Productions they argued the toss for a long time: Your Private Eden? Your Secret Garden? Garden of Eden? Days were spent searching for the best title, but they weren't wasted days because, in television, once you had the name right, the rest was easy.

"Let's get going," Mervyn Fossil said, hooshing people toward the meeting room. "We've wasted enough time waiting on . . ." He caught a warning look from Grainne: don't openly insult the talent. Reluctantly, he swallowed back the words this fool. "Come on," he said instead. "Let's get to work."

But Fionn stayed where he was, put his hand into his jacket pocket and drew out a sprig of something. "What's this? Badly squashed but it looks like . . . valerian?" He proffered it to Mervyn Fossil. "Does it look like valerian to you?"

Mervyn Fossil recoiled. "I wouldn't know valerian if it jumped up and bit me on the bollocks."

Fionn looked slightly puzzled-clearly, he hadn't had much exposure to people as unpleasant as Mervyn Fossil. But it didn't seem to rattle him. Taking his own sweet time, he reached into another pocket and produced a little book, dog-eared and very soiled. It was a herb encyclopedia, which contained both illustrations and descriptions. Leisurely, he flicked through the flimsy pages until he found valerian and compared it with the sprig in his hand. "Yip, just like I thought, valerian. Brings soothing, calming, hope, freedom from grief . . ." He passed a speculative gaze along Grainne, Mervyn, the stylist and the others, but didn't find whatever he was looking for. Then he twirled on his heel to face the desk behind him, where Alina was sitting, utterly agog.

"You," he said. "What's your name?"

"Alina."

"Alina, you might need this."

After a startled silence, she accepted the sprig of valerian, then fat dramatic tears began to flow down her face.

"What?" Mervyn snapped.

"My cat died yesterday."

"Oh dear," Grainne-a cat person-murmured.

Her wet face radiant with gratitude, Alina asked Fionn, "How did you know?"

"I didn't," he said modestly.

"But you did."

Mervyn Fossil narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Fionn and said, "What's your game, son?"

"Shut up," Grainne said sharply, so he did.

Day 58 . . .

Cycling to work, Maeve came within inches of having her back wheel clipped by a car, but the car swerved just in time and she was grand. It made her think of some line she vaguely remembered from The Great Gatsby about it being okay to be a reckless driver because everyone else would be careful. Not that she was actually driving, of course. Because she couldn't drive.

No, four years ago she'd failed her driving test, and she often wondered whether, if she had passed it instead, things would have turned out the way they did.

Four years ago . . .

"Well?" At least ten expectant people were waiting at Maeve's desk and she sensed a celebratory card, a cake, maybe even a bottle of something fizzy. All she had to do was say the magic word and they'd be whipped out from their hiding places.

Maeve dipped her chin. "I failed."

"Ohhhh!"

No one had expected that, not really. Of course, everyone had horror stories about driving tests, about all the unexpected things that could happen to even the best-prepared person, but in her soft, easy-going way, Maeve was quite the achiever.

Quickly, David rallied. "Everyone fails the first time," he said. "It's a rite of passage. We'd have thought you were a weirdo if you'd passed."

"Absolutely!"

"We got you a cake," David said and Roja produced it from behind her back. The cake was iced with a big loopy "Congratulations."

"Obviously, that's 'Congratulations on not passing,' " David said. "Renzo, will you cut it into slices?"

"We also got you a bottle of fizz," Tarik said.

Humbled, Maeve shook her head. "I work with the nicest people in the world."

But she shared a little smile with David to tell him that she knew he'd been the force behind all this love.

"Drink it now or wait until finishing work?" David asked.

"Sure, what the hell, let's have it now!"

The cork was eased off and plastic cups were passed around. "To failure!"

Fatima, distributing slices of chocolate cake on napkins, asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Sure, okay." Maeve was feeling better now. The first sting of humiliation had passed. "Well, the most important piece of advice I can give anyone hoping to pass their driving test is, do not do your practice on your dad's tractor! It was no preparation for the real thing. I felt so low on the road, it was all wrong!"

She didn't need to explain how expensive driving lessons were, everyone knew.

"But you know what's really at me? My dad has a car."

"So why didn't he let you practice in it?" Franz asked. "Did he think you'd crash it?"

"No," Maeve said gloomily. "The opposite. He says that anyone can drive a car but it takes real skill to drive a tractor. He thinks I'm brilliant, he thinks I can do anything. It's a scourge."

"He's not going to be happy when he hears." David had seen, first-hand, how her parents doted on her.

"He already knows," Maeve said. "And he's in flitters. A miscarriage of justice, he's calling it. He wants to know the name of the examiner so he can make an official complaint."

Into the laughter, interrupting Maeve as she was saying, "At least I can plow a field, no problem, beautiful straight furrows-" came Matt's voice.

"I just heard!" he said. "I was in a meeting and I just heard!"

He moved with purpose toward Maeve and a clear path leading directly to her opened up as, instinctively, people moved out of the way.

"Driving test bastards! Two-bit tyrants." Matt took Maeve into his arms, in a comforting embrace, laying her head on the shoulder of his dark suit. Everyone was touched by his humanity. It was one thing for them, Maeve's peers, to care about her, but Matt, for all his accessibility, was her boss. And the embrace was no mealy-mouthed, in-and-out quickie either; it went on for longer than the obligatory half a second. Matt was clearly sincere in his sorrow for Maeve's humiliation. How kind he was, everyone thought. What a great guy he was. Several people were smiling, their eyes suspiciously bright. Then came the first prickles of alarm. The embrace should have broken up by now. It had lasted a second longer than was acceptable. It was time for it to stop. End it. End it now! But Matt and Maeve remained locked in each other's arms. To widespread confusion, Matt actually tightened his hold and Maeve pushed her face further into Matt's neck.

Break away now and no harm will have been done. Smiles were freezing and falling from the watchers' faces. They stood like statues around the two-becomes-one figure and exchanged fearful, questioning looks-although no one looked directly at David.

Emotion radiated like heat from Matt and Maeve, moving beyond the immediate circle and out into the furthest parts of the office, where it reached Natalie. Something is wrong. She got to her feet and made her way to the cluster around Maeve's desk.

Finally, to the giddy relief of the audience, there was movement. Maeve lifted her head. Step away from each other, the collective thoughts urged. Matt, go back to your office. Maeve, sit down at your desk. And we' ll all do our best to pretend this really freaky thing never happened.

But, for the aghast witnesses, things only got worse. Matt also lifted his head, and the moment when his eyes met Maeve's, a jolt of energy passed between them with a crackle that was almost audible. With faces stunned with wonder, they gazed at each other, exchanging souls. Maeve lifted a hand to touch Matt's face, as if checking that it was real, that whatever was going on was actually taking place. Everyone around them knew that it was unseemly, being present at this moment of extreme intimacy, but no one could tear their eyes away.

It wasn't how Matt had planned to tell Nat that he no longer loved her, but she got the message anyway. Dignified as ever, she departed the compelling scene, left the office, drove into town, sat in her car in a parking garage and sobbed. Then she bought a new shower gel, got six inches cut off her hair, ate eleven macaroons, quite large ones, and felt ready to move on.

David's white face was the first thing Maeve saw when she emerged. It was the face of someone she'd known a long, long time ago. In the course of forty-seven seconds, her whole world had shifted.

She needed to produce words to shift it back but none would come. Beseechingly, she looked at David.

What happened? his eyes asked.

I don't know.

I love you.

I know.

And I thought you loved me.

I thought I did too.

You've humiliated me.

I didn't know this was going to happen . . .

Around them, everyone except Matt had melted away.

"David, I-" But Maeve could think of nothing to say. David was watching her, waiting for her to fix things. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She couldn't bear the look in his eyes, the shock, the grief, the anger. "I'm really, really sorry."

"You're not good enough to lick her boots," David said to Matt, his voice trembling. "You're nothing but . . . but a suit." He turned his fiery-eyed gaze to Maeve. "As for you, I don't know what you're doing and I don't think you do either. This isn't over yet and don't for one minute think that it is."

Day 58 . . .

Katie had had a challenging day, trying to drum up media interest in a little-known, singer-songwriter "next big thing." She'd finally got home and was half asleep on the couch, watching The Gilmore Girls, wondering if she should just get up and actually go to bed, when her landline rang. Suspiciously, she checked the number. Almost no one rang on the landline any more. Except her mum. And sure enough, that's who it was. She thought about not answering but past experience told her that the calls would just keep coming until she eventually buckled.

"Mum?"

"How did you . . .? I wish you wouldn't keep doing that. It's unnerving."

"How are you, Mum?"

"I'm ringing now to wish you happy birthday because I've a busy day tomorrow."

"Okay. Thanks. Thanks for the breadbin."

"Not as glamorous as a platinum watch, of course. But useful."

"Useful is right."

"Forty, Katie. Isn't it hard to believe? Where did the years go? Now, while I have you, you'd want to start thinking about your hair."

"What about my hair?"

"It's very long."

"It's only just past my shoulders."

"But you're forty now. You'll have to start acting it."

Penny Richmond lived her life by a rigid, fear-filled code. She had all these rules and Katie was never quite sure where she got them from. (Examples: if you didn't get the facade of your house painted every four years, the residents' association could rightly authorize a public flogging; if you heard your next-door neighbor beating his wife to a pulp every night, you would sooner nail your tongue to the wall than mention it; you went to every event you were invited to, even if you loathed the other guests, because rudeness could kill.) "And the color, Katie. You'll have to stop getting it dyed so dark."

"But it's my natural color. I'm just covering the roots."