She pressed his hand to her face. "Thanks, Michael." Her eyes filled with tears. "Mike, I've been such a bitch! All the time Ellen's been here, I've been neglecting her and Thea and not letting anybody see the damn thing...."

"You're an artist, Carla—different. You give good statue, baby."

"Thank you," she murmured.

"And we'd be dead if you didn't." He studied his Yellow Bird cocktail and looked up. "Everybody knows I'd rather play tag with fish than do an honest day's work—"

"Stop it," she said softly. "Stop it, Mike!"

"An artist"—he shrugged—"is entitled to a mood or two."

A masked dancer shuffled up, small enough to be a child. He was "rushin'," in the strange, sliding, distorted Junkanoo style, to the beat of a companion's goatskin drum. Between them he thrust a staff with a snake head atop it and shook it. It rattled.

Absently Mike brushed it aside. A strange chill came over him as he touched it. The dancer tapped him on the head, chortled, and sidled away.

"Besides," Mike said with a grin, "you're pretty. And a wonder in the sack." He swirled his drink, tasted it, and added, "As I remember."

Her eyes flared, and all at once he would have given the world to have swallowed the words. Why now, you idiot? It was too late.

"Meaning?" she asked evenly.

What in the world had gotten into him? "Meaning nothing. You've been busy."

"Last night," she said, protesting, "I wanted you, and I was trying to wake you up, and then the screaming started...."

He felt his temper rise. "Let's not blame our sex life on my mom, okay?"

"Nobody blames her. But her shark thing rubbed off on Thea so bad, it made her sick!"

"While you were in Nassau playing roulette?"

"I went to buy a welding head!" she said, furious. "Remember that next time I'm trying to pay the milkman."

"Well, whatever Thea had, it wasn't Mom's fault," he said angrily. "Of course Mom's got a 'shark thing.' She isn't over Sean!"

"And neither are you, my friend."

"No," he said, agreeing. "Why should I be? I loved that guy."

"I loved him too." Her eyes blazed. "But when you remember him, the rest of your life, do you think of a shark or him?"

"It isn't that easy," he said morosely. "For Mom. Or me."

"But she's obsessed! She even got to me!"

"Meaning?" he asked coldly.

She swallowed and looked across the street. "I think I sculpted one in steel."

He felt a shiver run up his arm. "A shark?"

She shrugged. "It turned into a shark."

"I don't believe it!" he said. "You wouldn't do that to us!"

"Not on purpose!" She tried to calm him down. "It's like all my things. You may see Christ on a cross, or yourself on a cross, who knows?"