. She thought back over her friends but
couldn't come up with the match. Memory is strange, she thought. It's
all in there, but you lose the keys, the entry ways. It's like a city
that keeps growing and growing. I mean, you have to go back and back to
the old neighborhoods? Lennie Rosenbloom, Mr. Rosenbloom to her,
encouraging but firm as she struggled through that Mozart sonata, his
hurt smile directing her to feel the music--he was shorter than Martin
and his hair was sandy colored. God, the light on his neck and chest.
She was 13, so close to blushing all the time that she had to act like
a zombie to keep herself under control. Played like one, too. God. No,
it wasn't Mr. Rosenbloom. The road appeared beyond a clump of bushes.
She pushed through and turned toward AhnRee's.

She had walked farther than she thought. By the time she reached the
driveway, she was worrying about dinner. She planned as she hurried up
the hill toward the studio: first, the onions and the peppers, get them
going in the large cast iron frying pan; second, the chicken, cut in
chunks; then the chicken stock and the coconut milk, the curry and the
basil. Whoops, forgot the rice. Start that right after the onions and
the peppers; give it time to steam a little and not be so wet. She
placed the straw hat on its peg, drank a large glass of water, and
played _Highway 61 Revisited_.

"_Like a rolling stone_ . . . " she sang along as she cut up onions.
"_To be on your own_ . . . " Whack, whack. "_How does it feel? _ . . .
" Whack, whack. Amber and Art arrived in the middle of _Desolation
Row_.

"Listen to that," she said as Bob Dylan's harmonica blew out the pain
and isolation.

"Damn," Art said, "that smells good."

"Listen!" Willow said, turning up the volume.

_Don't send me no more letters, no--not unless you mail them from
Desolation Row._ Dylan's intensity, the smell of curry, Amber's perfect
body next to Art's shoulders, and her own unnamed passion coalesced
into another moment she would never forget. "Too much," she said when
the piece ended. "Want some wine?" She busied herself with dinner.
Earlier, with the chickadee on her shoulder, she was a child of the
universe. Now, she felt reborn as an adult. It was so lonely and sad,
so--terminal.

She looked at Amber and Art. They did not appear to be in crisis. Art
was lighting up a joint. Willow took a few hits out of politeness. She
didn't mind getting high once in awhile, but the smoke