One morning, Alan threw a clatter of toonies down on the Greek's counter and walked around the Market, smelling the last night's staggering pissers and the morning's blossoms. Here were his neighbors, multicolored heads at the windows of their sagging house adjoining his, Link and Natalie in the adjacent windows farthest from his front door, Mimi's face suspicious at her window, and was that Krishna behind her, watching over her shoulder, hand between her wings, fingers tracing the scars depending from the muscles there? He waved at them. The reluctant winter made every day feel like the day before a holiday weekend. The bankers and the retail slaves coming into and out of the Market had a festive air. He waved at the neighbors, and Link waved back, and then so did Natalie, and he hefted his sack of coffees from the Greek's suggestively, and Mimi shut her curtains with a snap, but Natalie and Link smiled, and a moment later they were sitting in twig chairs on his porch in their jammies, watching the world go past as the sun began to boil the air and the coffee tasted as good as it smelled. "Beautiful day," Natalie said rubbing the duckling fuzz on her scalp and closing her eyes. "Found any work yet?" Alan said remembering his promise to put her in touch with one of his fashionista protégés. She made a face. "In a video store. Bo-ring." Link made a rude noise. "You are *so* spoiled. Not just any video store, she's working at Martian Signal on Queen Street." Alan knew it, a great shop with a huge selection of cult movies and a brisk trade in zines, transgressive literature, action figures and T-shirts. "It must be great there," he said. She smiled and looked away. "It's okay." She bit her lip. "I don't think I like working retail," she said. "Ah, retail!" he said. "Retail would be fantastic if it wasn't for the fucking customers." She giggled. "Don't let them get to you," he said. "Get to be really smart about the stock, so that there's always something you know more about than they do, and when that isn't true, get them to *teach you* more so you'll be in control the next time." She nodded. "And have fun with the computer when it's slow," he said. "What?" "A store like that, it's got the home phone number of about seventy percent of the people in Toronto you'd want to ever hang out with. Most of your school friends, even the ones you've lost track of. All the things they've rented. All their old addresses -- you can figure out who's living together, who gave their apartment to whom, all of that stuff. That kind of database is way more fun than you realize. You can get lost in it for months." She was nodding slowly. "I can see that," she said. She upended her coffee and set it down. "Listen, Arbus --" she began, then bit her lip again. She looked at Link, who tugged at his fading pink shock of hair.