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was so adrenalinized and trembly she had to sit right down next to Suzanne.
    Suzanne said, “You chicken.” She was all for Valerie having a romance with Nasir—partly, Valerie suspected, because then the responsibility for Valerie’s continued presence would no longer be just Suzanne’s. Last week, when they were alone in the house, Suzanne told Valerie that she and Nasir would be good together, they both had great bone structure. It was something a fifteen-year-old would say, but Valerie couldn’t help asking, “Really?” or being embarrassed by how happy it made her.
    Based on her own little fling with Nasir, Suzanne has warned Valerie not to expect too much, so Valerie could hardly tell her that what held her back, what kept her from even taking a lobster claw she might have liked, was that she expected the world , she had a sense that what happened with her and Nasir could be serious. She could imagine a life with Nasir, or anyway, time enough to find out who he was.
    Dutifully, Suzanne asked if Valerie wanted a bite of her lobster, and Valerie said no, she didn’t want to spoil her high, and showed Suzanne her little plastic bag of kavakava. Suzanne made a face. Up and down the table, they were talking about food. Roy was going on about lobsters, information he’d picked up from the man at the fish store, many incredibly boring facts about water temperature and seasons. Then Nasir said that when he first came to this country, he’d worked briefly at a restaurant with a fresh water tank in which there was one lobster no one would touch, a forty-eight-pounder named Captain Hank.
    Someone asked Nasir where he’d been today, and he said, “I ran away with Valerie.” Valerie was so shocked she laughed idiotically and said, “No, he didn’t!” And where was Valerie? Valerie described the beach she’d been to as if she’d headed there on purpose, and when Roy asked how it was, she said, “Oh great, just like Carnival in Rio! You would have loved it, Roy!” Then she asked how their day at the beach had been, and after a funny silence, everyone said fine.
    Valerie said, “What are you guys not telling me?” Suzanne whispered, “Hey, be quiet, okay?” But before anyone could answer, Valerie stood up—the kavakava was making her thirsty and unable to sit still. There was only wine and beer on the table; it would have been okay pharmacologically, but mixing alcohol and the root left a bad taste in her mouth. As she filled a glass at the kitchen sink, she heard someone behind her.
    Nasir came close and said, “Wait till you see what’s on today’s tape. I’m gone a few hours and all hell breaks loose.”
    One custom of the house was that they videotaped the whole day—breakfast, grocery shopping, the beach—and watched it after dinner on TV. The only event left undocumented was dinner, which they were too busy eating to shoot. Mostly Nasir did the taping, the equipment was his, but he had shown everyone how to use it, and in his absence, Iris generally took over.
    “Don’t tell me—an orgy,” said Valerie. Nasir just laughed, as did Valerie, thrilled by their apparent agreement that an orgy without the two of them seemed truly beneath contempt. “Then what?” she said. “A murder?”
    “Believe me,” said Nasir, “a murder would look healthy. Fun. Compared to what they’ve got taped, a murder would look like nursery school.”
    “Wow,” said Valerie. But Nasir wouldn’t say more. He said he hadn’t seen it, only heard, and now it was hard for Valerie to insist, with ten people carrying in dirty lobster plates while ten more came in debating the best way to unmold crème caramel.
    After dessert and the coffee, which took forever because the cappuccino machine could only make four cups at a time, they settled around the living room in front of the TV and turned off all the lights. Nearly everyone sat near the small screen, except for Valerie, who was chewing kavakava and pacing, and Nasir,