She sucked in her breath. Leslie, what about you? she wanted to ask, but she didn’t wish to know. “It’s called ‘evolving,’ ” she said, and gestured for him to go back to his dancers.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Kiss-kiss?” Jean-Claude leaned forward and kissed the air around her cheeks. “My Ginger Goddess, I’m bad.”

They had to prepare for the concert in Shanghai the day after next, plus four more. And in addition to the video shoot at the Great Wall, there would be a dozen others at sites across China. And she needed him to do the arrangement for “Flower Babies”, assigning music parts to the various instruments.

She could barely look him in the eyes. “I’m cool. Let’s get to work. I’ve written a new song.”

“Friends again?” Whipping the imaginary tails of a tuxedo behind him, he sat at the grand piano. His long fingers flexed and released in the air like a pair of graceful cranes in flight. “Take ten!” he announced to his musicians, who rose and dispersed. He took a gulp from a Coke, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said to Nola, “Let’s hear.”

Her right hand tapped the piano keys in search of the notes she heard in her head. Flower babies bloom unseen, Flower babies die unloved, she sang the repeat line. “I want it melodious, rolling, rising high to a plateau where it plays itself out, trailing into a whisper.”

He beamed at her, and his thin, sharp nostrils quivered. “Marvelous.” He offered a rendition, adding a few musical ringlets.

“Very slowly, kind of crying for love, mercy and hope,” she said. “Lamentoso?”

“A prayer. Sostenuto, sustained.”

“Give me a high key in half-notes, like the voices at the Chinese opera.”

“I love it. Love it. Love it,” he said. “How deliciously haunting.”

It was the way it had always been. The two of them tried out several possibilities. With Jean-Claude's artful facilitation, even a mediocre song could become a hit. And this one had to be as big as “Share The Feeling of Love” if she were to accomplish her new mission.

He played some more. “Got it? Lamentoso, doloroso, affetuoso. Very slowly, sorrowful, with warmth.”

“Move to allargando, slow but louder. Always ascending,” she said, relaxed again, delighting in their creative partnership. “Keep your flourishes.”

“My special smoke puffs.” His wide grin exposed gums. “Musically, I mean.”

She laughed. Jean-Claude’s genius made up for his quirks. “I want to perform this in Shanghai.”

He stopped playing. “Are you nuts?”

“We’ve already established that you were the one smoking something.”