Despite herself, Lexie had to laugh. "How do you know you've got a green splotch on your face?"

"Because last night I saw it and I didn't wipe it off."

"I mean, how do you know it's green? Maybe it's purple, as you say."

"No. No, Lexie. If it's greon to me it's green to you, too. I know. Even warmth. Yes. If it's warm for me, for instance, it's warm for you."

Lexie turned to her. How naive and uncomplicated Barby seemed. The look of her disordered hair touched Lexie. "Barby," she said gently, the name ensconced in a small whispered chuckle. "Baby."

"Lexie, I'm not kidding now. It's that I get bored and disgruntled. Dammit, sometimes I feel as cramped as the colors must feel on the spectrum. And then I feel like we're milleniums apart."

"I take back what I said before," Lexie said. black to you is white to me. And bright."

"See? See what I mean about being milleniums?"

"What's

"Look at the sky out there," Lexie said testily. "It's blue."

"Me, too," Barbara said. "But I love you: green with envy or purple with rage or blue. I love you very much, You're my whole world, Lexie."

Lexie turned on her side, facing Barbara squarely. "You crazy damn little fool," she said. Her arm went around the girl's nude waist. "That's all I needed to hear."

Tenderly she kissed Barbara's lips; thon spoke into them. "I love you, too," she said. "I love you."

A lattice of saft, susurrant tones climbed that morning into the room. Both had forgotten the percolator coffee throbbing hot into the crystal tip of domo. The porking

19