I’d like to see her really open it up on the highway. She’s got superchargers on it that make it go as fast as a brand-new car, and she drives better than any man. Going sixty-five miles an hour on the open road, she told me she could give herself a complete change of make-up, including mascara, without even slowing down. Which is true, naturally. Whereas an ordinary man driver has trouble even lighting a cigarette at that speed, which proves that sex differences are just like age differences. Some people at sixteen are no more grown-up than a baby, for instance, and others have been all over hell and had millions of experiences, and they don’t even think anything of it. So what if I’ve been down to Key Bonita and went through a whole damn love affair, etc., plus been in and out of whorehouses, and passed up all kinds of opportunities to smoke marijuana. An ordinary person my age probably would have grabbed at the chance and got hooked, for godsake. But I just happen to have this maturity, that’s all there is to it. Even so, I’m going to take it very slow, I mean with Echo and all. Because there’s a matter of finances, and being under age. Technically, that is. And a person has to make certain concessions once in a while to the stupidity of people like Annabel who think they’re so goddam old. Which brings me to a very important point.

I really like Annabel, I really honest to God like her. I tried to feel creepy about her this morning when we were having coffee, but I don’t. And it’s not like some Oedipus business either, I just happen to like the woman. I think Berry-berry does too, way down deep, only he gets nervous around her for some reason which I haven’t figured out yet. For instance, at dinner—

Slow the hell down, will you? Back to the breakfast table.

During this pleasant music of family chatter and tinkling coffee cups, I distinctly discerned the sound of a new but not entirely foreign instrument in the symphony that assailed my eardrums. Could it have been the approach of Miss O’Brien’s big, black and august chariot? Calling no attention at all to my nonchalant movements, I rose quietly and skillfully from my position at the family board, and with serpentine speed and feline quietude, slipped out the side door.

The way I figured it, if we had just one little moment alone, Echo would have a chance to slip me a note or speak her piece about any private matter that might happen to be on her mind!

Nothing.

Not a word.