Patrick wasn't used to the company of so many sharp people in one room. Gino Canzoni came in, the foreman of Parker's other, larger, crew. He was tall and ironic. He had a rep on the crew for fearlessness at great heights. "My wife, Cree," he said to Patrick. She was dark with slender intelligent features. She had a blinding smile. The charm and pain and hint of wildness in her smile obliterated Patrick's defenses. "Hi," he said. She accepted his surrender. "Welcome to town," she said gaily. He felt included. Gino and Joe had grown up in Woodstock and were old friends. The group stood around telling stories. "Before Gino took me to meet his family," Cree said, "he told his mother that he had fallen for an older woman from the Midwest." "Give her something to worry about," Gino said. "Six months," she laughed. "Funny thing was," Gino went on, "the same week that Cree was meeting everybody, Vassar degree and all that, she was on display at the checkout counter in the Grand Union--on the cover of Modern Detective." "A gun to my head," Cree said. "Forced to open a safe." "Leg shot," Gino said proudly. Sally Daffodil smiled patiently. Joe looked a bit restless. "Are you a model?" Patrick asked. "Was," Cree said and led Sally away. Parker put on a Dixieland album. Vassar? Gino was a Dartmouth graduate. Joe Burke was doing carpentry work but had dropped out of Hamilton College. He and Gino were writers of some kind. Patrick felt that he had stumbled into an alternative world; the more educated you were, the less money you made, or something. He didn't understand this world. It attracted him and put him off. It was free in a way that seemed good. But it was threatening, somehow. There was something overripe about it. He went outside and had a non-alternative hamburger, served to him by the older boy. The smell of meat cooking on the grill was delicious. Smoke rose, drawing Patrick's eyes up the dark green mountain to the ridge line, an hour's walk above them. "So, how do you like our fair town?" Hildy asked. "Very fair it is," Patrick said. "Good burger!" "Plenty more where that came from." Patrick heard a trace of Europe in her voice. "Are you from Woodstock?" "I was born in the Netherlands," she said. "We came over not long after the war." "I used to live in Germany," Patrick said. "Very different." "Ja," Hildy said and yelled at Alden, the youngest, to get away from the road. She turned back to Patrick. "What brings you to Woodstock?" "I heard it was an interesting place. My father lived here for a couple of years, once." "There are a lot of artists," Hildy said. "Musicians, too. And writers. They're all artists, I guess. Parker likes having people on his crew he can talk to. Are you a painter?" "Nope. I'm not anything yet." Hildy looked at him. "Hmmm," she said. "I'm a mother. And a cook." "I think I could learn to cook," Patrick said.