er 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.

"Sure you could; it just takes practice--and you have to love it.
That's the secret ingredient. You have to love it. ALDEN!"

Patrick finished his burger, thanked Parker and Hildy, and walked down
the road. As the