Storm went on grinning blankly, went on waiting. Watched her laughing, his hands in his trenchcoat pockets. Life, sex, money, springtime, his own skin—he had never loved anything so much. He had never really even understood that it could happen. Like this, like a song. Like a really bad, clichéd song. One of those songs that went: I never kneeeeew—that love could be so truuuuue—until I met yoooooou … That kind of thing. And what was worse—what was potentially disastrous—was that if she went on leaning there, against the balustrade, against the background of the city, went on leaning there, laughing, red-cheeked, he was actually going to start singing that song, or one very much like it, right there, right then, out loud. Oh, that would be a bad, bad thing, he knew. But the urge was strong upon him, almost irresistible. And he suddenly realized: here he was, Richard Storm, of Hollywood, of America, of the twentieth century’s end, of the planet Earth—and there was poverty and race hatred and terrorism and those horrible nose rings girls were wearing and Western culture was probably in free fall and people said words like fart on network television—and here he was, standing in his own sad body—his own rapidly decaying body—and there was a song in his heart!

Good Christ, if he didn’t kiss this woman soon, he was going to explode.

“Oh!” said Sophia Endering finally—finally exhausted, finally tapped out. Holding her cheeks between her palms, rocking her head wearily. “Oh. I don’t know why every time I’m around you I’m reduced to such absolute imbecility!” She wiped her eyes. She stared at her feet, at the concrete under her feet. She shivered. The laughter had all blown out of her. “The very first time I saw you I spilled my wine all over the place. And the next thing you know I’m jumping off a balcony with a belt around my neck. And then I punch you, and then I’m in hospital, crying like a baby. And now I’m laughing like a complete idiot. A bad impression! You must think I’m stark, staring mad.”

She raised her face to his for an answer, but he said nothing; he could think of no verbal equivalent to lifting her in his arms and carrying her away to a castle in the clouds.