"There shouldn't be a direction attached to Christianity

"There shouldn't be a direction attached to Christianity. One is a religion and the other is politics. It infuriates me that they ever got mixed up." Jamie took in a big breath. "You shouldn't get me so riled up when I actually have the opportunity to kick some of these old geezers in the shins."

"It certainly wasn't the main reason, but one of my many reasons for not wanting to come with you was that I'm so down on the whole political system. You know how I feel about the president, but even so, to impeach him for something so unrelated to his job just disgusts me. I don't think I could look at anybody who voted to impeach him and have even a hint of respect for them. I need a good long break from politics. I just want eight more quiet years of Democratic pragmatism. It's not great, but it's better than the alternative."

"I'm with you. But it's pretty cool to be here and be reminded of the founding of the country and the ideals that it was built on. It seems that the system is a long way from that idealism now, but I'm still enjoying myself."

"How does your dad seem? Is he happy?"

"He has shown himself to be quite adaptable to any level of luxury," Jamie said, laughing. "He's surrounded by people all day. They handle his schedule; they tell him who he's talking to next; they remind him of everyone's names; they bring him his favorite snacks in the afternoon; they schedule time for him to go to the gym and play basketball with the other senators. It's like the Bohemian Club, but with a lot more money."

"I can see him liking that. He's gonna have a rough reentry when he comes back home."

"I think that's true, especially if he's not named managing partner again. He told me today there's no guarantee that he'll get his old job back."

"But wouldn't his having been a senator be a good thing?"

"Oh sure, but they might prefer he spend his time ﬁnding new clients rather than managing the ﬁrm. I guess we'll just have to wait and see in January."

"I hope he enjoys his ﬁnal months."

"Oh, he will. I'm conﬁdent in his abilities to grab every perk he can get his hands on."

* * *

Jamie had convinced her father that she was able to handle her own transportation to the Capitol, so Ken was back doing whatever job he did when he wasn't playing tour guide. She arrived at her father's oﬃce well before eleven. The oﬃce was more casual and seemed more lively than it had been the day before. There was a hum of excitement that was impossible to miss. She spent a few moments talking to her father's secretary, who clued her in. "We're having our goodbye party for all of the interns. This is their last day."

"Interns? I didn't know that my father had interns."

"Oh, yes. We have twenty-two this term."

"Twenty-two!" Jamie almost shouted.

Her father's oﬃce door opened and four of his aides brushed past her. One of them was Kayla, who, even though she was engaged in a heated conversation, turned and met Jamie's eyes, giving her a discreet wave. Jim came out and put his arm around Jamie, urging her into his oﬃce.

"I'm glad you got here in time for the party."

"What do you do with twenty-two interns?" She was trying to process such a large number.

"Oh, a number of things. I let them ﬁgure out whether the''re interested in the drafting of legislation or the political side. Then I let them work with an aide to learn how whatever they're interested in gets done. Because of the upcoming election, a lot of them worked with my polling team."

"You're not running for oﬃce, Dad. Why would you have a polling team?"

"Someone's gonna be in this oﬃce in January, and if he's a Democrat, he's going to want to know how people in California feel about all of the issues that he's going to face the minute he takes his oath of oﬃce. If he's a Republican," he picked up a sheaf of papers and acted like he was ripping them into pieces, "he's on his own."

"How do you keep all of your interns busy? You run around like you're on ﬁre."

"I don't do it. I have people to manage every part of this operation. Many of them have been attached to this oﬃce for twenty-ﬁve years. Senators may come and go, but a good staﬀ member can hang around for decades." He checked his watch. "We've got about twenty minutes. Is there anything you want to do?"

Jamie sat down on one of his comfortable lounge chairs. "No, not really."

"Great. We'll just talk. How are you and Ryan spending all of your free time?"

She smiled. "It's easier for me than it is for her, but she's keeping busy. Did I tell you that we all went together to buy a good-sized apartment building in the city?"

"Who is 'we all'?"

"All of Ryan's cousins and her brothers and me."

He raised an eyebrow. "I think I can guess what your role is."

Slightly stung, but not surprised by his guess, she said, "Most of the money came from Ryan's cousin Niall, but I did make them a loan. We're all working to ﬁx it up, then we're going to rent out the apartments. We think it's a good way to generate a little income."

He shrugged. "Real estate was never my thing. Th at's more your mother's bailiwick. Historically I've done pretty well with the stock market." He closed his eyes and rubbed his hand

over them for a minute. "Of course, I was bludgeoned by the tech stock collapse over the last couple of months. How Ryan guessed that is still one of the great mysteries of life."

Bristling, Jamie said, "Ryan spent a tremendous amount of time and energy coming up with that theory. I don't understand hardly any part of it, but it's more and more common for stock pickers to use mathematical models to predict trends."

"There are a lot of people with a lot more education and a lot more experience than Ryan O'Flaherty, and they all assured me that we were nowhere near the peak."

Grinning unrepentantly, Jamie said, "I guess they were wrong."

"I assume you acted on Ryan's recommendations."

"I did, and so did Mom. She actually tried to share some of her gains, but Ryan wouldn't hear of it."

He made a face, then said, "Well, you can't argue with the results. Maybe she is a mathematical genius."

"Well," Jamie said, drawing out the word. "If you want the real truth, she was conﬁdent at ﬁrst, but she started to lose conﬁdence when the market was still high past the date she thought it would fall. Her father is the one who convinced her to follow her assessment."

"A ﬁreman is now your stock picker?"

"No, he's not interested in the stock market," Jamie said, knowing that would get under her father's skin. "He's just a sensible guy. He reminded Ryan that the tech stocks were all based on nothing but ideas, and that eventually other investors would realize that."

"The whole stock market is based on ideas!"

"Maybe, but once in a while people wake up and realize that and it scares them."

Jim started mumbling to himself, making Jamie shamelessly pleased.

* * *

Jamie stayed up late that night to be awake enough to talk to Ryan. "Guess how many interns my father has?" Jamie asked.

"Uh-oh. Are we going to have another impeachment trial?"

"Ooo, that didn't occur to me. Well, the answer is that he has twenty-two. And it turns out that these aren't hard-working young government students. These are kids of donors and bigwigs in California Democratic circles. They come to Washington for a semester and the senator gets to be a hero. I saw two or three people who weren't white and wealthy. I assume those are the ones who will be on any publicity about the program."

"It sounds like somebody poked her head in the room and watched how they make the sausage."

Jamie chuckled. "I like that expression. It's kind of true, too. I think I like our government a lot more when I know less about it."

"I'm sure that's true for every government. Government and religion and the family are all wonderful concepts, but when you get down below the façade they're all made up of human beings. And human beings come in many variations of quality."

"I suppose that's true. I remember looking at some of the contemporary political commentary about George Washington. You would have thought he was Satan's brother."

"What's that they say? It's a horrible system, but the best one we've come up with."

"Well, I'm glad to see my father, and I'm glad that he's ﬁtting in so well here, but I'm ready to come home tomorrow night."

"I'm ready to have you come home tonight. In the next ten minutes would be really nice."

"Where are you? Still at my mother's?"

Ryan chuckled and Jamie could hear a little embarrassment in her laugh. "I decided to mix it up. I'm at my Aunt Maeve's tonight."

"I'll be home tomorrow night, and we'll be together in our snug little bed."

"That sounds better than you can imagine."

* * *

The next morning Jamie showed up at her father's oﬃce not long after eight. When his secretary showed her in, Jim was already busy, talking on the phone and taking copious notes. Jamie picked up the brieﬁng book he'd showed her the day before and started to peruse it. This was a new one, of course, since it was updated every morning. She was only on the tenth page when he hung up the phone.

Hefting the book in her hand, she said, "Do you read this whole thing every day?"

"I try to. I don't always get to everything, but I make sure to read anything that could aﬀect California."

"And you say this job is easier than running the law ﬁrm?" Her eyes with wide with amazement.

He grinned. "You didn't realize how hard running that law ﬁrm was." He got up and stretched. "This work is more important, of course." He went over and sat by her. "Like this." He thumbed forward a few pages. "We get constant updates about what's going on in the Congo. What we're supposed to do about it is anyone's guess. But having this information at least lets us know how ridiculously complicated the whole situation is."

"Well, you clearly can't have another genocide," Jamie said, her voice rising. "They think close to a million people were killed in Rwanda just a couple of years ago."

"I know. And we should have stepped in. I think most people agree with that now. But we're talking about a centuries old struggle between tribes that switch alliances at a moment's notice. I don't know anything about Tutsi and Hutu factions, but we're supposed to make decisions about humanitarian aid and perhaps even sending troops. People in the DRC aren't sure what kind of help they want-if any." He shook his head gravely. "It's enough to make you lose sleep at night."

"Do you?" she asked gently.

Shyly, he nodded. "Yes, sometimes I do. I think being in the House would be easier. They only have to contend with America. But we have to be internationalists. It's such a complex world, and no matter how big we are, we're just one country."

"It didn't dawn on me how much you had to know about the world."

"And not just to keep the peace. In a couple of weeks I'm going to the Netherlands to investigate the advances they've made in wind power."

"Ooo, Ryan will be jealous. She's a big advocate of wind power. She wants turbines up on Twin Peaks."

Jim smiled. "Everyone in the city wants clean energy, but I can guarantee you that no one wants their view ruined. Luckily, I'm just doing some fact ﬁnding, not trying to convince my constituents to lose their postcard-pretty view."

"How does that work? Fact ﬁnding, I mean."

He got up and went to the credenza behind his desk, picking up a notebook and bringing it to Jamie. "Here's our itinerary." She started to page through it, amazed at how many places her father was going.

"How long will you be gone?"

"Ten days."

"There must be ﬁfty stops in here. How will you do it?"

He chuckled. "I'm not going alone. I'll have twelve aides and assistants, and congressmen from Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. There are about ﬁfty of us going."

"Fifty? That's a huge group."

"It's big, but we'll spread out."

"You'll take up a whole plane." She thought for a few seconds. "Who handles your travel?"

"For something like this we use a plane provided by the Air Force. There's a travel oﬃce, of course, and they handle most things. My staﬀ arranges for anything I want to see. It takes a lot of prep, that's for sure."

"That's pretty cool." Jamie handed the binder back. "Expensive, but cool. I hope you learn something that helps us out."

"I was down in Texas a couple of weeks ago seeing a wind farm down there." He grinned boyishly. "That was a nice trip. They sent a private jet for me and I stayed at a ranch that must have been as big as Rhode Island."

"Who owned that?"

"One of the principals in the wind farm. It's a big company, a division of Metrocorp."

"And they had you down there just for fun?" Jamie's suspicions were aroused.

"No, of course not. They're lobbying us for a piece of the energy bill. They wanted to show me what they'd do with the money they'll receive if the bill passes."

"And that's legal?"

He looked completely confused. "What?"

"To accept a private jet and a stay at a great place before you vote on whether they get money?"

Blinking a couple of times, he said, "I'm not inﬂuenced by things like that. I'm just doing my job."

"What about little companies that want money? What if they can't hire lobbyists?"

"Well, they'd better join a trade association or something to represent them. They'll get lost if they don't."

Testily, Jamie said, "I thought their congressmen were supposed to represent them."

"Uh-huh." He patted her shoulder like he did when she was a child. "There are hundreds of millions of small businesses. Should we go door to door to meet all of them?"

"But you can't be impartial if the rich companies are loading you up with perks."

He waved a hand dismissively. "With the kind of pampered life I led with your mother, I could have had ten times what these Texans showed me. They might be able to buy some votes, but not mine."

Jim's phone rang and he jumped up to answer it. Jamie sat there for a long time, thinking of how she might stop the obvious opportunities for corruption. She had a hard time thinking of a solution.

* * *

When his phone call was over, Jim stood and said, "I've got to go talk to Jason. Be right back. Then we're going to have a treat." He smiled, his eyes lighting up, and she felt a spark of excitement. He didn't herald any old thing, so it had to be good.

He was gone for a few minutes when Kayla strode it, stopping abruptly when she saw Jamie. "Oh, I…sorry. I thought the senator was…I guess he is gone," she ﬁnished, blushing.

"Come on in if you have a minute."

Kayla approached tentatively. She leaned on the arm of the sofa and said, "How are you enjoying your trip?"

"I'm having a good time. I wish Ryan had been able to come, but despite missing her, it's been good."

"I hear you're getting married. Congratulations."

Clearing her throat, Jamie said, "We weren't able to pull it all together for August, so we're going to have it next August."

"Oh." Kayla looked surprised. "I didn't know."

"Yeah, it's not what we want, but we want to have a nice party and that takes longer to plan than we thought."

"So I've heard. Some of the weddings my friends have had seemed like coronations for minor potentates." She laughed wryly.

"We're not going crazy like that. We're just having a tough time ﬁnding a venue."

"If your father was going to be in oﬃce, you could have it here. I wonder if your father has done enough favors for the VP to get you onto the White House lawn." Now her laugh was happier, and she looked more like her own age.

"No thanks. It's hard enough to get Ryan into a restaurant."

Her features softening, Kayla said, "It must be nice to know she loves you for the right reasons."

Knowing just what she meant, Jamie nodded. "I'm a very lucky woman. I never have to question her motives."

"Then you deﬁnitely don't want to come to Washington." Once again, a coldness edged her voice.

"How are you liking it here? It's awfully diﬀerent from home, isn't it?"

Kayla kicked oﬀ a shoe and rubbed her instep across her shin. "Yeah. But I've got the bug. I'm going to stay if I can."

"Which bug?" She smiled, ﬁnally facing Jamie who saw her vivid green eyes and warm grin. Jamie was struck for a moment by her loveliness.

"I love helping to craft policy. I think that's the only way to make a diﬀerence in the world."

"Goodbye to the law ﬁrm?"

"God, I hope so," she said, letting out a dramatic breath. "I've burned my bridges…" She trailed oﬀ, sneaking a quick look at Jamie before she started again. "Corporate law isn't very rewarding. I want to do something with my life. I'm not sure what cause I'll take up, but I'm going to ﬁnd one and become an expert it in."

"What are the contenders?"

"Oh, there are quite a few. I want to pick something that I think I can push." She made eye contact again. "Let's say I choose family planning. This isn't the environment for that. I could be spinning my wheels for years. I want something that isn't dead on arrival."

"Very pragmatic."

"You have to be. That much I've learned." She reached down to put her shoe back on, wincing when she did.

"How do you wear those heels all day?"

"You have to." She stood and squared her shoulders. "To succeed in politics you have to look good, but not too good. It's ﬁne if a man thinks you look sexy, but if his wife does, you're toast."

Jamie made a face. "That's probably true everywhere."

"Worse here. The wives are always around. If you're too plain you'll be stuck in a back oﬃce, but if you're too sexy, you're ﬁred." She shrugged and then dropped her shoulders. "I can't tell you how many women that's happened to here."

"Maybe that should be your project," Jamie said, smirking.

"I think I'll do something safe like try to rid the world of land-mines or try to get girls educated. Those would be easy compared to battling sexism."

"What's this about sexism?" Jim asked, barreling into the room.

"I was just talking to Jamie about some of the programs I'm interested in working on," Kayla said, heading for the door.

"That would be a good one," Jim said. He stood at his desk, paging through a pile of notes.

Kayla caught Jamie's eye and waved goodbye, stealing out before Jim noticed she was gone.

* * *

Late that night, Jamie lay in Ryan's arms, regaling her with details of the rest of her day. "And then we went to the White House," she said, the excitement still evident in her voice.

"Did you see the president?"

"No. I don't know if he was even in town. It's not like at Windsor Castle where they ﬂy the ﬂag if the Queen's there."

"Did you take a tour or something?"

"Much better than that. The head usher took us on a private tour. The regular tours were done for the day and we got to go to all sorts of places. Not the family quarters, but just about everywhere else. It was so cool!"

"Damn, I should have gone," Ryan said, pouting.

"I know you should have. You would have loved it."

"Yeah, I would have. But I should have gone mostly to make myself do something I'm not comfortable doing. I need the training."

"Next time, baby."

Sighing, Ryan said, "There won't be a next time to see your dad strutting around Washington."

"No, but he'll be strutting around here soon enough. You can catch him then."

* * *

It was a warm, bright summer day in San Francisco, the kind of day that most tourists expect to ﬁnd on their visit to the city. Sadly, the reality rarely met the expectation. But when the day was in fact summery, it was the natives who basked in the sun. People left work early, took long lunch hours, called in sick, and did whatever they could to enjoy each drop of sunshine.

After spending an hour tutoring Jennie at Catherine's house, they stepped outside and both breathed in the clean, clear air. Jamie said, "Let's walk over to the Marina and hang out for a while. It's too nice a day to be inside."

"I was itching to be outside the whole time Jen and I were going over her algebra," Ryan said. "Don't think I didn't know you were upstairs on that fantastic balcony."

Jamie grinned unrepentantly. "I've got nothing to add to the math discussion, and she doesn't need help with her art class." She patted the small canvas shoulder bag she carried. "I've got a good book with me, so you can plunk me down anywhere and I'm happy."

"You know," Ryan said, "I've gotta admit I'm a little surprised by how much you read. You're really a bookworm."

"Yeah, I am, but it goes in spurts. I didn't get to read much this past year so I'm making up for lost time." She took Ryan's hand and did a stutter step to synch their strides. "I'm surprised by how little you read, but I'm taking my acceptance of that as proof of how much I love you. I could never have imagined partnering with someone who doesn't read for fun, but it's working out pretty darned well."

Ryan turned and grinned at her. "No complaints here."

They walked on, cresting a good-sized hill before the Bay opened up in front of them, making both of them sigh with pleasure. "Could this be any prettier?" Jamie asked rhetorically.

"Why would anyone choose to live anywhere else? When we traveled for Cal, I'd be on the bus looking around and thinking 'How can people live here? No hills, no water, cold weather.' Why bother?"

Jamie smiled at her, thinking that Ryan's list of comparison cities was woefully small, but she decided not to comment on that. "It's crowded enough. If every summer day was like this, we'd have a million more people trying to cram in."

"Too true."

As they went down the hill towards the Marina, Jamie said, "How's the enforced relaxation going? You haven't been complaining."

"How long has it been? A month?"

"Next week will be seven weeks."

"No!"

"Yep."

"Hmm." Ryan's gaze settled on the Bay, its calm blue serenity letting her mind wander to consider the past few weeks. "I'm surprised by how fast it's gone. I thought I'd be hellishly bored."

"How could you be bored? You're up running every morning with Duﬀy. You swing by and see Caitlin almost every day. Then you drag me over to the apartment building to do something simple that the boys graciously left for me." She squeezed Ryan's hand and chuckled when Ryan tried to look like she didn't know what Jamie was talking about. "Then it's oﬀ to my mom's to work with Jennie for an hour or two."

"You forgot our long walks. We've put a lot of miles under our belts."

"I haven't forgotten." She laughed. "Well, I've forgotten all of the early morning walks. You know I don't function until eight a.m."

"You like the evening walks better, don't you."

"Yep. Much, much better. I like to walk in the dark with just you." She leaned heavily against Ryan's side, making her tilt to the left.

"I like that too, but my aunt's in bed by the time you really like to go out."

"True. But I'm in bed when she really wants to go. Why does she win so often?"

It was obvious she was teasing, but Ryan commented anyway. "You know you can sleep in and have me go with you at night."

"I know, but I like to hang out with the group. And I know it's better for me to get up early and get going."

"We like having you."

"Does your aunt know you go running most mornings before we walk?"

"Not sure. I'm not gonna make a point of telling her." She tapped Jamie's head. "Don't go volunteering the info."

"Not a word. I know that's your time to think."

"Yep. Time to clean out the pipes. So, are you happy with your time oﬀ?"

"I'm happier than I've ever been in my life," Jamie said, smiling so contentedly that Ryan almost choked up just looking at her. "Lots of time with you, time with my mom, not running from one house to the other, no practices, matches, games, studying. It's sweet!" she exclaimed at high volume.

"Nothing you need to tweak?"

"Not really. Eventually I'd like to make some friends over here, but that's about it."

"Friends?" Ryan asked as though Jamie had said "toasters". "Why do you want friends?"

They were near the wide swath of Marina green and Jamie led the way, stepping around or over dozens of sunbathers-parents with their kids and other assorted humans. She found a decent sized space and plopped down on the ground. When Ryan joined her she said, "You've got more friends than anyone I've ever known. We rarely go out that you don't run into someone who acts like you're their best friend!"

"Yeah. I know a lot of people."

"But you never see them," Jamie said pointedly. "You never call anyone, you never invite anyone over. What's up with that?"

Ryan lay back on the short grass, shifting around until she got comfortable. "Hmm. Why don't I call anyone?"

Her feet were on the ground and she crossed an ankle over a knee then put her hands behind her head. Jamie could see her eyes follow one of the more colorful kites that was skittering across the sky.

"I'm not sure why I don't. I guess I've never had the kind of free time to want to commit to doing something at a certain time." She turned her head and made eye contact. "Know what I mean?"

Jamie lay down perpendicular to Ryan and rested her head on her partner's hip. "I guess I do. You didn't have a minute to yourself last year."

Ryan shifted her hip, making Jamie's head bounce. "I was busier before I met you. I was working twenty hours a week when I was playing a sport at USF."

"Well, you have some free time now. Do you want to reconnect with some of your friends?"

"Mmm." Ryan was speaking slowly, and Jamie could tell this topic wasn't really reaching her. "Maybe."

"Just maybe?"

Threading her ﬁngers through Jamie's hair, Ryan started to give her a light head rub. "I'm not sure my old friends are the right people to hang with."

"Because?"

"Oh, you know…they're kinda…mmm…"

"People to sleep with?" Jamie teased.

"Ha. Funny. No, not really. But they're all pretty speciﬁc. I have AIDS Ride friends, I have workout friends, I have friends from USF, obviously I have people I used to sleep with. They're all…you know…speciﬁc."

"So you never had any couple friends?"

"Not many. I mean, I do, but no one I've ever done anything with other than the thing I knew them from."

Jamie sat up. "Are you speaking English?"

"Yeah." Ryan smiled at her. "I knew couples from the AIDS Ride, but I never had dinner with them or anything. And I trained some couples, but I didn't hang out with them."

Lying down again, Jamie said, "Then I guess we'll have to make some new ones."

"Do we hafta?"

Sitting up again, Jamie looked at her partner carefully. "Why don't you want to?"

"We've got the lads and your mom. Isn't that enough? Any night you want to go out, someone'll go."

Jamie let the thought of having dinner at a nice restaurant with ﬁve or six cousins roll through her head. She couldn't get the image to focus properly, probably because none of the boyos liked anything more formal than tacos. And taking her mother to a lesbian club was just as jarring. "Wouldn't you like to go dancing sometime?"

"Dancing?" Ryan was quiet for a minute. "I was just thinking about dancing with you at the bar in Berkeley. I've had serious foreplay that wasn't that hot." She chuckled, making her belly move up and down. "I'm in. Any time."

"I'd like to go with other people. That's a lot more fun, isn't it?"

Ryan resumed her lazy head rub. "I guess. But I'm really content to just be with you. Dancing, moving against you, feeling how warm your body gets, how you smell." She let out a sigh. "I don't need another soul."

"You're very sweet, but I'd like to hang out with people we're not related to once in a while. Any objections?"

"No. Whatever you want, babe, I'm up for it."

"Hey, how about Sara and Ally?"

It took even longer for Ryan to reply this time, and her response was less than enthusiastic. "Sure. Whatever. Just tell me where to be and I'll be there."

"I'm happy to try to make some friends at church. You're the one who says she wants Sara and Ally in her life."

"I know." Ryan's shoulders rose and fell. "I do."

"You could show a little more enthusiasm, honey."

She smiled wanly. "I'd rather see Sara and Ally than any of the people from our marriage class." Her lip twitched, nearly curling with distain. "They're not my type."

* * *

Jamie decided it was too nice an evening to go home and cook so they walked over to the Greens Restaurant, a landmark vegetarian restaurant in Fort Mason. Ryan had never been there and she didn't want to be indoors, so Jamie went in and got carry-outs. They sat on a nearby bench to watch the water while they ate.

Ryan poked around in the big bag, looking suspicious. "I can't tell what anything is. What should I eat ﬁrst?"

"Whatever you want. It's all locally grown vegetables. Good for you."

Taking out the cartons, Ryan opened each and set it between them. "Just vegetables, huh?"

Smiling at her reticence, Jamie said, "Yep. I'll go get more if you're still hungry."

"No, this should be enough," Ryan said as she looked carefully at the four and a half pounds of local bounty. "We can get ice cream on the way home."

Jamie smirked at the serious look on Ryan's face, then started to eat a tart beet salad. "Mmm, yummy. Try this." She loaded the fork and held it in front of Ryan's mouth.

"Good." She chewed thoughtfully. "Really good. Goat cheese?"

"Yeah. Goat cheese, orange segments, onion, chives. Tasty."

Ryan took a bite of a crisp pizza with tomatoes and roasted potatoes, nodding her head as her eyes closed. "Terriﬁc. You have superb ideas."

* * *

The next afternoon, while Ryan and Jennie were belaboring a math problem, Jamie and her mother were sitting on the balcony. They were both wrapped in blankets and the heat lamps were blazing. "Nice day," Jamie said, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. "I think I prefer yesterday."

"Wait until October. We'll have many days like that."

"True. Sometimes I miss the South Bay. How about you?"

"Not too often. After three or four days of fog, I sometimes go down to Hillsborough just to warm up, but I like the city much more than I expected to."

"I'm glad you're here. And I'm especially glad that we're able to see each other so often."

"How was your visit with your father? You didn't have much to say when you got home."

"It was good. I wish Ryan had gone with me, but I can't let her stop me."

"Does she try?"

"No, not really. But I can't give in to those big blue eyes that stare at me while she pouts."

"What's the issue? Does she want you to stay home?"

"Yeah, that's about it. For some reason, she hates to travel for fun, but she didn't ever complain about taking a bus across Oregon to play softball. She's an eternal conundrum."

"Does she actually refuse to go? That doesn't sound like her."

"No, she's not the type to refuse. She puts me oﬀ. She said she'd go later in the year, after she has time to plan."

"Plan?" Catherine blinked. "Plan what?"

"Nothing!" Jamie's frustration showed clearly. "She doesn't want to go and she thinks I'll give up asking if she delays long enough. So I'm going to make my plans and let her decide whether or not to come. By the way, if you go to Rhode Island in August, I'll go with you. Ryan won't like it, but I can't be a homebody like she is."

Looking slightly worried, Catherine said, "I can't see you staying in one place for long, but I also can't see Ryan traveling as often as you'd like."

"She doesn't need to go as often as I'd like. I've been nowhere…absolutely nowhere since we've been together. Going on two or three trips a year isn't asking for too much in my opinion. I'll give up the ten trips that I'd like to take. She only has to go on two or three she doesn't want to make. That's fair," she said with certainty. "We've both got to give."

* * *

Early the next morning, Ryan slipped out of bed and went into the bath, spending a few quick minutes washing her face and putting her hair into a braid. She quietly found some roomy jeans, then added a snug tank top, a t-shirt and a ﬂannel shirt. She was sitting on her loveseat, lacing up her work boots, when she noticed Jamie get up and shuﬄe into the bath. The door closed quietly, making Ryan smile at her partner's unchanging need for privacy.

A minute later the toilet ﬂushed and the door opened again. "Morning," Jamie said, her bare feet scarcely leaving the ﬂoor, her eyes open only a slit as she approached Ryan and plopped onto her lap.

Ryan wrapped her arms around her lover and cuddled her tightly, wedging her face into the space between Jamie's torso and her legs. "I love you," she said, her voice muﬄed by Jamie's body.

"Are you excited about helping Conor out today?"

"Yeah. I haven't done it in over two years, and he said he could really use some help with demolition today. I like lending him a hand when I have the time."

"You don't mind if I don't help, do you? I feel a little guilty, doing nothing while you work."

"No, of course not. It's gonna be messy and dirty, and really hard work. Feel free to come bring me lunch if you're out and about, but don't make a special trip."

"Every time I see you, it's special." Jamie kissed her cheek and squirmed out of her hold, heading back to bed. Ryan patted her butt as she departed, and Jamie shook it playfully.

"See you later, sweet cheeks."

A quick wave was the best Jamie could manage, and by the time Ryan reached the landing, she could hear Jamie's breathing signal that sleep was far from elusive this morning.

* * *

Conor was working on a rundown Victorian that was being renovated in the Castro, just a few blocks from the O'Flaherty home. A gay couple had bought the building, and had decided to convert it back into a single-family home from its current incarnation as a three-ﬂat apartment building. One of the new owners was an architect, and he had planned some very ambitious projects for the renovation. Conor had been talking about building often, making Ryan more interested than usual in helping out.

Conor was already gone by the time Ryan got upstairs, but he had left a note asking her to stop and buy breakfast. She rolled her eyes, knowing the lowest ranking person always got to do the scut work. She paged him and he called back almost immediately.

"What's the order?" she asked over the sounds of hammering.

"Hold on." He held the phone to his chest and asked his crew for their orders, coming back on to say, "How much money do you have on you?"

"I can get as much as I need; there's an ATM on every corner. Hit me."

"Okay, we want six breakfast burritos, three orders of menudo, two orders of huevos rancheros, two chicken tortas, and as many horchatas as you can carry."

"How many guys do you have there today, twenty?"

"Guys? What guys?" he teased.

"I'll be there in about a half hour. Do you need anything else?"

"Nope. Just you," he said brightly. "And the food, of course."

She decided to go to the Mission District to El Farrolito, one of her favorite spots. Assuming that the other carpenters and laborers ate as much as Conor, she did a little math and guessed that there were ﬁve or six guys on the site. She ﬁgured the menudo would not be a complete entrée, so that left ten main dishes. Doing workman's math, she assumed each man would want two entrees, meaning there were 5 guys. She ordered seven Horchatas, just in case, and a few minutes later she started carting the stuﬀ out to the BMW in the boxes the restaurant provided.

When she pulled up in front of the house, she heard a call go out all over the building. Within seconds every sound stopped as the workers started coming out to help her carry the food.

Conor came out rubbing his hands with a big smile on his face. "Nothing I like better than a breakfast burrito," he said with delight. "I was running late today and I didn't get much to eat, so you're a lifesaver. What did this all cost you?"

She ﬁshed in her jeans for the receipt. "$78.50. Not my treat."

"I'll collect for you. I'll hit everybody for $15 and that will almost pay for yours."

"Thanks, bro," she said, glad that he was one person in her life that she didn't have to do math for. "What's up for today?" She took a big bite of her egg and chorizo burrito.

"Big stuﬀ," he said around a mouthful of his own breakfast. "We're ripping out two staircases and starting to frame in the new staircase that will replace them."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Do you feel destructive or creative?"

"I guess I feel like destroying today."

"Did you bring your safety glasses?"

"Yep. And I brought earplugs and my work gloves. I'm all set."

"Okay. Carlos is in charge of taking the back staircase apart. I'll ask him to get you started when you've ﬁnished eating."

"Cool. So tell me about this house. It looks like crap," she joked.

"Yeah, it is crap. But it'll be fantastic when we're done. The guys are cool. A couple of gay guys. One of them's an architect and he's remarkably easy to work with."

"Architects aren't usually your best friends."

"Right-o. But when the architect is his own general contractor and actually has to pay the bills, that seems to make them more realistic."

Part 10

What's Ya Poison?