“A devious spark lit through Al, making me smile. One way. It costs too much, he said. “There’s no inflation in the ever-after, Al.” Call it a recession then. One way.”

“Al was looking at me in disbelief. “Not your lover?”“No.”“But he is Rachel candy,” Al said, his confusion too honest to be faked.”

“I smell pancakes," Al said as he jauntily smacked Pierce's hat back on the witch's head. "Did the runt make you breakfast?" Al said, leaning over the stove. "Quickest way to a woman's crotch is through her gullet, eh?" he said, leering at Pierce, who was now rinsing out the percolator. "Is it working? I'd be curious to know. I'd buy her a cake or something.”

“I pause a second. He doesn't look at me the way Will, Christina, and Al sometimes do - like I am too small and too weak to be of any use, and they pity me for it.”

“The quickest way to a woman's crotch is through her gullet. Can I make you a cake?" Big Al to Pierce, then Rachel.”

“One picks one's way about through the glass and aluminum doors, the receptionists' smiles, the lunches with too much alcohol, the openings with more, the mobs of people desperately trying to define good taste in such loud voices one can hardly hear oneself giggle, while the shebang is lit by flashes and flares through the paint-stained window, glimmers under the police-locked door, or, if one is taking a rare walk outside that day, by a light suffusing the whole sky, complex as the northern aurora.”