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"It's just as addicting as any terrible drug." "Is it so bad to be addicted to nice things?"

"You confuse me. Thatcher. Sometimes you're so negative about this world, and yet..."

"Yet I'm in it? I participate?" "Yes, exactly,"

He nodded. "Walt Whitman wrote. Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself I am large. I contradict multitudes. We're all

complicated. You're full of contradictions. too. Willow. And secrets," he added. "Right?"

I looked away,

"Just be careful," he said. "Secrets have a way of twisting themselves around your heart like a python and choking the joy out of vou."

He started to eat again. The music grew louder. I nibbled on my food without any enthusiasm.

"You want to go?" he said suddenly.

"Where?"

"Let's just walk on Worth Avenue or

something."

"You want to be here. Thatcher. There are people you want to see and talk to. I know."

"I'm fine with it." he said. "Let's go. We can get ice cream sundaes or something."

"We're going to go walking in the streets dressed like this and stop at an ice cream parlor?"

"Here it's no big deal. We won't even attract a second look."

"What about Hope Farris? Won't she be insulted if you and I run out this early?"

"She won't even know we've left," he said, rising. "Come on." he urged.

I smiled and got up. We made our way back through the boisterous crowd and hurried down the gangplank to his car. Shortly after. we were cruising down Worth Avenue, Maybe Thatcher's right, I thought. Maybe we are all full of contradictions, and maybe there's nothing strange about being

complicated to each other and even to ourselves. It's even good. Who wants to be predictable?

Yes, that's the thing about most of the people I've met so far, I thought, They're all so predictable.

No wonder Thatcher was in love with Mai Stone. and no wonder he was heartbroken, no matter how he tried to hide it.

.

Once we were away from the rich and the famous, Thatcher seemed more relaxed and himself We parked and then walked the street holding hands, stopping at store windows. He pointed out what he called the doggie bar, a halfmoon-shaped tiled trough with a silver spigot that provided fresh water for the expensive dogs whose owners bought them Chanel collars and Gucci dog beds. He showed me one in a window. It sold for fifteen hundred dollars.

"Most people don't treat their children as well." I said.

To these people. the dogs are their children. Don't knock the pet industry. either. It's big

everywhere. not just here."' Thatcher said. once again offering some defense to what I believed was indefensible.

Eventually, we stopped at an ice cream parlor on Peruvian Avenue, and no matter what Thatcher had told me. I still thought people looked at us oddly, sitting there and ordering sundaes in our formal evening wear. However, somehow, I enjoyed this far more than I enjoyed or would have enjoyed anything at the yacht party. I told Thatcher so.

"Maybe you're just anti--rich people," he said.

"I'm neither poor nor angry at rich people." I told him. "I'm not on any social crusade here."