The Ties That Bind

evening. I know you didn't get the chance last weekend because you went to San Jose. Surely you're not going to pass up her masterpiece. Verna would be crushed."
    Shannon laughed. "I wouldn't want to be responsible for injuring Verna's artistic ego. Are you and Dan both going?"
    "Are you kidding? Every time I mention going to one of Verna's plays, Dan laughs his head off."
    "I have to admit Garth wasn't too impressed with her version of The Taming of the Shrew. Verna is clearly ahead of her time, or at least ahead of most men. Okay, what time shall I pick you up?"
    "Hmm. How about seven-thirty? That will give us time to park and find a good seat."
    "See you then." Shannon hung up the phone thinking that it would be good to get out of the house that evening. She didn't want to sit by the phone and find herself waiting for Garth to call. Furthermore, if he did call, it might be good for Garth to find her out.
    She was going to have to set the tone of this affair, Shannon told herself as she headed back to the studio. If she didn't, Garth would control it completely. If he had his way, he would tie her up in a nice neat package labeled Wife, and keep her firmly tucked away in a safe place where she couldn't get into any trouble. Then, on the weekends, he would take her out and play with her as if she were a toy.
    Shannon frowned to herself. No, it wasn't fair to say he treated her as if she were a toy. You didn't go out of your way to prove to toys that you trusted them. Garth really was trying, she decided. But he had a long way to go. They were in the same situation they had been in before last weekend's fiasco. She was involved in a weekend affair with a man who still didn't want her sharing the major part of his life.
    And knowing herself, Shannon thought grimly, she wouldn't take long to try once more to push her way into his other world. She would never be content to love a man who wouldn't share himself completely with her. It was just as it had been that first day on the beach. She was driven by a compulsion to know him and understand him. The present situation was only a temporary lull after a storm. Soon there would be another storm, and another after that. She would just keep pushing until Garth finally exploded and decided the relationship had no chance at all of working.
    When that final day came. Shannon thought sadly, perhaps he would be grateful to her for not having taken him up on his proposal of marriage. At least he wouldn't be able to accuse her of having tricked him into a wedding on top of everything else.

* * *
    VERNA MONTANA'S ALLEGORY of modern society as mirrored in a vegetable garden had a certain measure of originality going for it, but Annie and Shannon decided that, on the whole, it was just as well the men hadn't come with them to the play. The two women sat eating ice-cream sundaes at the parlor after the theatrical production had ended and tried to restrain their giggles.
    "Dan would have had a fit. I'm sure he would have walked out during the first fifteen minutes. He has no patience with Verna's homemade plays. He thought The Taming of the Shrew was screwed up so badly he vowed he'd never sit through another production of hers," Annie confided.
    "I have to admit Garth wasn't terribly impressed, either." Shannon concentrated on her ice cream, remembering how that evening had ended. "But on the whole I think Verna is better off sticking to the classics. She mangles them, but at least there's something to mangle. When she writes her own stuff, it's almost impossible to tell what's going on."
    "Ah, well, who can define artistic vision?" Annie asked rhetorically. "Perhaps a hundred years from now her Yuppie Vegies will be considered a classic."
    Shannon grinned. "I can just see some theatrical critic in the next century trying to analyze exactly what rutabagas had to do with twentieth-century culture.
    Verna may be on the cutting edge of artistic creation, but as far as I'm concerned, she can have the frontier all to herself. I'll be happy just to make a living with my silk screen."
    Annie dug into the third scoop of ice cream in her bowl. "Speaking of which, when do you want me to sew up another batch of totes?"
    "I can bring them over tomorrow, if that's all right. I'm sending the buyer twenty next Wednesday."
    "You've signed the contract?" Annie asked with interest.
    "Umm. After having it pointed out to me that I had almost signed away most of my rights."
    "Uh-oh. Garth found something