"I remember all the times I saw Christian and Lissa together, how jealous it used to make me feel," Dimitri remarked after Rose had hung up the telephone.

"It did?" Rose's voice held a note of surprise as she opened the refrigerator and began to put the groceries away. "Have you been in touch with him lately?"

"I haven't spoken to the man in five years," Dimitri told her. "Not since..." He and Christian had been very close at one time. The KGB agent had been grooming the young political hopeful the entire time, preparing him for a role of leadership in a country which Dimitri had envisioned as decidedly leaning toward the left, assuaging the tiny pricks of his conscience by persuading himself that he was, after all, helping the United States to become a better country; therefore, the ends justified the means, didn't they?

"Why not?" asked Rose.

"What would I possibly have in common with him now?" Dimitri asked bitterly.

"On the surface, Lissa and I didn't seem to have much in common, either," Rose replied. "To be honest, it really surprised me how quickly she and I became close." A wave of sadness washed over Rose. For the first time since coming to California, she realized how keenly she missed her friends back in Montana.

"How are the kids?" asked Dimitri.

"Jacy's going into psychiatry. She hopes that someday she'll be able to help Justin." Mason Ashford's nephew, Justin, had been arrested for disorderly conduct and vandalism five years before. As a consequence, he'd been diagnosed as mentally unstable and committed to a mental hospital, where he'd been subjected to unscrupulous practices that had rendered him little more than a vegetable. Jacy Ozera, his high school sweetheart, had never stopped loving him, had never given up hope for his recovery. Although he'd seemed to have gained a minimum amount of awareness since his release, he remained in a wheelchair and still needed help with eating and getting dressed.

"What about Seth?" asked Dimitri. Rose noticed the way he pointedly ignored the subject of Justin and knew the reason for it. In the days of his political involvement, he'd supported the mental hospital to which Justin had been committed, as had Christian. It had been one of the primary issues that had led to the breakdown of the Ozera marriage. Every time she thought about it, Rose had to shake her head at the irony of the whole situation.

"He's still in college. Doing well, as far as I know."

"That's good." The awkwardness that always settled in when the folks in Montana were mentioned returned, and was promptly broken by Marina.

"Hey Mommy, can we go to the park when you're finished with the groceries?"

Rose wanted to give the little girl a giant hug and kiss. "Sure. I don't see why not."

However, by the time the final purchase had been put away, dark, threatening clouds loomed in the sky.

"No worries," said Dimitri. "There's an ice skating rink in Pasadena. It's about time she learned."

"She's only four!" Rose exclaimed.

"That's how old my cousin Milena was when she first learned to skate," Dimitri replied. "By the time she was a teenager, she'd already won many competitions and had even tried out for the Olympics. I'd also like to get her into gymnastics training and ballet lessons soon as well."

"My God!" Rose exclaimed. "Why can't she just be a kid for now?"

"You're the one who started her auditioning for commercials." Dimitri's brown eyes were cold. "Without consulting me, I might add. How old was she when she started doing that?"

"I wanted her to have all the chances I never got, Dimitri."

"Was your childhood that deprived? I was always led to believe that American children were raised with all the privilege and decadence Capitalism could afford."

"Money and material possessions aren't everything," Rose replied. "I wanted to be an actress for as long as I can remember, but my parents wouldn't let me take acting lessons. They always told me that Hollywood was the devil's playground."

"So running away to New York was your way of rebelling." Dimitri's eyes twinkled with amusement.

Rose laughed. "I guess so."

She went with Dimitri and Marina to the ice skating rink. As she could have predicted, Marina proved to be a natural on the ice and was soon keeping up with the other children. Rose wore darkly tinted sunglasses, and nobody recognized her. Maybe everything will be all right, after all, she told herself on the way home.

"No, we haven't set a date yet." Several days had passed, and Rose was talking to Lissa on the telephone. "We want a small, private ceremony, with a minimum of paparazzi. We may just end up going before a justice of the peace."

"No!" Lissa exclaimed, recalling the extravagance of her own long-ago wedding. All of her and Christian's family members and close friends had been there to witness the young man in his two thousand dollar tuxedo and the woman in her seven hundred dollar gown exchanging their vows. The wedding cake itself had had four tiers and had cost several hundred dollars.

"Why not? We'll be just as married," Rose replied.

"But it's the first wedding for both of you, isn't it?"

"Yes..."

"So it should be special!"

"It will be special, Lissa. However it happens, it will still be the most special thing in the world to me, Dimitri, and Marina."