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“For godssakes, it’s just a magazine article, Terry! You could have a broken heart and still write a freaking article, couldn’t you!”

He looked up at her with quiet incredulity.

“I mean, it’s not like a book or something!”

“No, it’s not like a book,” he said tonelessly.

“What’s that look for?”

“What look?”

“That look.”

“I am probing for the source of your feral cunning.”

“Meaning what? What does feral mean?”

“Anything relating to the national government.”

Glaring, he turned back to the canvas and painted.

“Oh, was that some kind of faggoty joke?”

“As you like it.”

“Come on, Terry, quit kidding around and do the piece.”

“I would love to but it’s simply not possible.”

“Even though this freaking deal means the world to me?”

“Yes.”

“And all because of some weight-lifting wannabe model you picked up in the park feeding steroids to the pigeons? I’m not getting this, Terry; I’m not getting this at all.”

“My dear Joanie, there is more to this matter than Robert,” sighed the author. Freeboard watched him intently, frowning; there was something evasive in his manner and his voice. “In fact, there’s a great deal more,” Dare asserted.

“Yeah, like what?”

“Well, just more.”

“What more? Come on, what? Be specific.”

“It’s just writing itself.”

“What about it?”

“I’ve given it up forever.”

Freeboard clutched at her forehead and cried out, “Fyook!”

“It’s too hard, love,” Dare told her, “too many decisions. ‘Had a wonderful day,’ it says in Oscar Wilde’s diary: ‘I inserted a comma, removed it, then decided to reinsert it.’ Joanie, writing is dross.”

“I’m not believing this, Terry!”

“It is mental manual labor. As of now, I consider myself a painter.”

Freeboard’s frustrated glance darted over to the canvas, swiftly taking in its spiraling yellow meanderings. Her eyes narrowed in dismal surmise.

“What the hell is this supposed to be, Terry?”

“Lemons Resting.”

She reached out and grabbed the brush from his hand, looking worried. “Are you dropping LSD again, Terry?”

“Oh, don’t be so silly,” Dare sniffed.

“No more camels in cheap orange taffeta dresses who swear they’re Jehovah’s Witnesses sneaking in the house at night to talk about your books?”

“You haven’t even a shred of common decency, have you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“And all of this because I’ve given up writing?”

“Yeah yeah yeah: first it’s Robert and a broken heart and then writing is a pain in the ass and you’re Picasso. This is sounding like bullshit to me, Terry. Are you scared? You believe in stupid ghosts, for chrissakes?”

“That’s absurd!”

Dare’s cheeks glowed pink. He recovered the brush and turned back to his canvas. “Look, the fact of the matter, if you really want to know, is that I simply couldn’t bear to go away and leave the dogs.”

“Now I know this is bullshit.”

“It isn’t,” Dare insisted.

“You’d ruin my life for those two little fucks?”

Dare turned and glared down at her stonily. “Am I to presume that by ‘those two little fucks’ you are referring to those sweetest, most refined toy poodles, Pompette and Maria-Hidalgo LaBlanche?”

Freeboard glared back, her face inches from his chest.

“So bring them with us.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Bring them with us. Bring the dogs.”

“Bring the dogs?”

Something faintly like panic edged his voice.

“Yeah, we’ll bring ‘em.”

“No, it simply wouldn’t work.”

“It wouldn’t work?”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“Why not?” Freeboard asked him.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You’re scared shidess, you literary asshole! Do you sleep with a nightlight, you flaming fyook?”

“Fyook has never been a noun,” Dare said coldly.

“Yes, it is,” shot back Freeboard.

“Poor usage. Furthermore, your vile and repellent accusations, Miss Whoever You Are, are absurd if not pathetic.”

“Are they true?”

The author flushed.

“Why don’t you find some other writer, for heaven’s sakes!” he whined. “My God, Joanie, Vanities can get you your pick!”

“Well, they picked.”

“’They picked’? What on earth do you mean?”

They were sitting at a window table