I am writing now beside an open window in Little Egypt. When this was school, Chatty said, they called the smoker Little Egypt because of all the Camels in it. They blew their smoke out the window that overlooks the circular drive and from which we can see everyone arrive and leave.

Little Egypt is to the second floor what the Hostility Suite is to the first floor, only gamier. I can write to you here on an old school desk, the kind that is desktop and chair in one. There is a vending machine Chatty swears is the same one whose lineup the girls used to memorize when they were snowed in and bored. She said nobody ever ate the Good ‘n’ Plentys because that is what they called the Trustees, the monied donors of laboratory and pool.

There is a television in here now. I’ll watch whatever is on, such as the swimsuit special that I watched with Warren. It was actually about the making of the special, and it intercut footage of the models arching their backs in the surf with segments in which the photographer described what he had had to do to get that shot. Warren became irritated by the photographer’s intrusion. He said it was like being a teenager and trying to masturbate to Petticoat Junction, moaning, “Betty Jo, Billie Jo, Bobbie Jo …” and all of a sudden there’s—Uncle Joe!

My watching whatever Warren is watching is overcompensation for Chatty telling Warren what I said about his habits—that he watches too much, and what he watches is dumb. I have done this all my life, insisting, when caught out, that, “I do want to be your partner, and I like your ideas, and let’s do many more projects together.” Karen calls this syndrome “Tour of the Lodge.” Her family bought an old fishing lodge on a scenic lake in Maine. It had been shut down for many years before they cleaned the place up and moved in. Karen said she would be riding her bike in the nearby hills and meet people on vacation who would stop their cars and ask her if the old fishing lodge was still open. No, Karen would say, the place has been shut down for years. And the disappointed travelers would begin to reminisce about the happy times there when the family was together, and Karen would wind up saying, The truth is we bought the fishing lodge, and if you’ve got the time, why don’t you come on over and take a walk through. And then forfeit half a day to give nostalgic strangers a tour of the lodge.

I have left this place only one other time, to go into town with Chatty. She took me into the jewelry store—accessories. I usually wear silver (I did the day we met, you might recall), but the earrings Chatty was urging me to buy were gold domes embedded with small fake jewels.

“They look like a gift from someone who likes me but doesn’t know me very well,” I said.