Lester ate thoughtfully, then reached over and hit a key on her computer, replaying the call. "He sounds, what, giddy?" "That's right, he does, doesn't he. Maybe it's good news." Lester laughed and took away her dishes, and when he came back in, he was naked, stripped and ready for the shower. He was a very handsome man, and he had a devilish grin as he whisked the blanket off of her. He stopped at the foot of the bed and stared at her, his grin quirking in a way she recognized instantly. She didn't have to look down to know that he was getting hard. In the mirror of his eyes, she was beautiful. She could see it plainly. When she looked into the real mirror at the foot of the bed, draped with gauzy sun-scarves and crusted around the edges with kitschy tourist magnets Lester brought home, she saw a saggy, middle-aged woman with cottage-cheese cellulite and saddle-bags. Lester had slept with more fatkins girls than she could count, women made into doll-like mannequins by surgery and chemical enhancements, women who read sex manuals in public places and boasted about their Kegel weight-lifting scores. But when he looked at her like that, she knew that she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever loved, that he would do anything for her. That he loved her as much as he could ever love anyone. *What the hell was I complaining about?* she thought as he fell on her like a starving man. # She met Sammy in their favorite tea-room, the one perched up on a crow's nest four storeys up a corkscrew building whose supplies came up on a series of dumbwaiters and winches that shrouded its balconies like vines. She staked out the best table, the one with the panoramic view of the whole shantytown, and ordered a plate of the tiny shortbread cakes that were the house specialty, along with a gigantic mug of nonfat decaf cappuccino. Sammy came up the steps red-faced and sweaty, wearing a Hawai'ian shirt and Bermuda shorts, like some kind of tourist. Or like he was on holidays? Behind him came a younger man, with severe little designer glasses, dressed in the conventional polo-shirt and slacks uniform of the corporate exec on a non-suit day. Suzanne sprinkled an ironic wave at them and gestured to the mismatched school-room chairs at her table. The waitress -- Shayna -- came over with two glasses of water and a paper napkin dispenser. The men thanked her and mopped their faces and drank their water. "Good drive?" Sammy nodded. His friend looked nervous, like he was wondering what might have been swimming in his water glass. "This is some place." "We like it here." "Is there, you know, a bathroom?" the companion asked. "Through there." Suzanne pointed. "How do you deal with the sewage around here?"