However, since their pre-dawn departure from the Bridgehampton beach house, Melissa's conversation had been focused exclusively on Melissa. At the moment, she was wondering whether Corsica, where she was going on assignment in two weeks, would be as nice as Guadeloupe, where she had been on a previous job.

"Because both islands are French, aren't they?"

Logan wanted to ask if she knew that one place was in the Mediterranean and the other in the Caribbean, but her question was apparently rhetorical and she continued,

"And while I'm gone, I'm going to have the kitchen in my new co-op renovated. It's like all black enamel and halogen. Hi-tech, so 80's, don't you think? I want oak and brass. I told you I just bought a co-op, didn't I? Park and 77th. Pre-war, of course. There's no view, it's like only on the sixth floor, but it faces south so the light's good."

She shifted to contemplate the toes of her other foot.

"And my grandmother, she died last Spring, and she lived in this farmhouse in Ohio, and had all these wonderful antiques, not Victorian, which is what you'd expect, but much older, like Revolutionary, you know? Anyway, my mother doesn't want them, not her style, so I'm going to get them, they'll be perfect. I sent my decorator out to look at them and he was just thrilled. He could never find pieces like those for me here, he said. They'd be in museums."