“Her laugh. The way she smoked before she gave up. Smoke trickling up her nostrils. Spokes of smoke when she spoke.”

“She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims...”

“She knew that alexander was sitting on the bench by the house slightly behind her, and that he was watching her. he was doing that more and more often. Watching her as he smoked. And smoked. And smoked.”

“I spoke fire, laughed smoke, and madness spilled forth from my inspiration.”

“I looked at her without a word. She held an edge of the beach towel in each hand, pressing the edges against her cheeks. White smoke was rising from the cigarette between her fingers. With no wind to disturb it, the smoke rose straight up, like a miniature smoke signal. She was apparently having trouble deciding whether to cry or to laugh. At least she looked that way to me. She wavered atop the narrow line that divided one possibility from the other, but in the end she fell to neither side. May Kasahara pulled her expression together, put the towel on the ground, and took a drag on her cigarette. The time was nearly five o’clock, but the heat showed no sign of abating.”

“She was up and down—from fire and brimstone to smoke and ashes.”