Hard News

coffeehouses and ATM machines and the Antique Clothes Boutique.”
    Rune shook her head. “Oh, you’re just so sitcom, it’s disgusting.”
    Claire said, “So—Boston … You mind if I spend some time there?”
    Mind? Rune felt as if she’d just gotten a package in a turquoise Tiffany’s box. “I’d say: Do it.”
    “Then I will,” Claire said lethargically. She yawned and pulled a vial out of her purse. “You want some coke?”
    “Coke,” said Courtney.
    Rune took Claire by the arm roughly, whispering viciously: “Are you crazy? Look what you’re teaching her.” She snatched the vial and spoon away from Claire and tossed them back into the purse.
    Claire pulled away angrily. “Coke is real. Dragons and goddesses aren’t.”
    “You keep your reality.” Rune stood up and took Courtney by the hand and led her up onto the outer deck. “Come on, honey, I’ll read you a story.”
    AN HOUR LATER COURTNEY ASKED, “ONE MORE, PLEASE.”
    Rune debated, flipping through the book of fairy stories. She glanced down into the galley and saw Claire doing a small line of coke off her compact mirror.
    “Okay,” Rune said. “One more, then off to bed.”
    She looked at the story the book had fallen open to and laughed. “The Snow Princess.” Which seemed like a good choice since Claire had a nose blizzard going at the moment.
    “‘Once upon a time—’”
    “In a land far away,” Courtney yawned and lay down with her head in Rune’s lap.
    “That’s right. ‘… in a land far away, there lived an old couple who never had any children.’”
    “I’m a children.”
    “‘The man and woman loved each other dearly but dreamed about how happy they would be if only they had a daughter to share their life with. Then one winter, as the husband was walking home through the forest, he saw a snowman that some children had built and he had an idea. He went home and together, with his wife, they built a little princess out of snow.’”
    “What’s snow?”
    “Last winter, that white stuff.”
    “I don’t remember,” the girl said, frowning.
    “It comes out of the sky and it’s white.”
    “Feathers.”
    “No, it’s like wet.”
    “Milk.”
    “Never mind. Anyway, the couple went to bed and all night long they wished and wished real hard and what do you think happened?”
    “They got a little girl?”
    Rune nodded. “‘In the morning when they woke up there was the most beautiful little princess, who looked just like the girl the couple had made out of snow the night before. They hugged her and kissed her, and they spent all their time playing with her and taking the little girl for walks in the forest. The couple was so happy….
    “‘Then one day a handsome prince came riding along through the snow, and saw the snow princess playing in a snow-filled field beside the couple’s house. They looked at each other and fell in love.’”
    “What’s—?” Courtney began.
    “Never mind that. The thing is he wanted the snow princess to come live with him in his castle at the foot of the mountain. The snow princess’s parents were very sad and begged her not to go but she married the prince and went off to live with him in the castle.
    “‘They were very happy throughout the winter, then one day in early spring the sun came out, strong and hot, as the snow princess was walking with her husband….’”
    Rune paused and read ahead in the story—to the part where the sun gets hotter and hotter and the princess melts, the water running through her husband’s fingers into the ground until there’s nothing left of her. She looked up at the girl’s expectant face and thought: We’ve got a problem here.
    “Go on,” Courtney said.
    Pretending to read, Rune said, “Well, the sun was so hot that the snow princess remembered how much she missed her parents and she kissed her husband good-bye and climbed back up to the mountain village, where she moved back in with her parents, and got a job and met a neat guy, who was also made out of snow, and they lived happily ever after.”
    “I like that story,” Courtney said in her tone of an official pronouncement.
    Claire came out on deck. “Time for bed.”
    Courtney didn’t complain much. Rune kissed her good night then helped Claire put her pajamas on her and get her into bed.
    “You know, if you’re interested,” Claire said, “it’s much easier to meet men in Boston.”
    “You want me to go to Boston with you? Just to meet