The Caryatids

Toddy Montgomery had placed the gymnasium in the basement of the mansion, for a lady did not show her public that she had to sweat. Obviously, in the modern Los Angeles star system, where stars were physically dominant, swaggering street presences, the gym had to become the lady's power base.

So: Radmila moved the gymnasium into the former Situation Room. Radmila hired-not Frank Osbourne, he was too much the seasoned establishment starchitect-but one of Osbourne's best disciples, a younger woman freshly gone into her own practice. This young architect was ambitious, modish, and contemporary, and she badly needed a leg-up.

Grateful for her big break, the new decorator didn't dawdle. Radmila's new gym was transformed. It was no longer a dusty place of clanking iron and steroidal machismo. No, it was the "Transformation Spa," a gleaming balletic wonderland of Zen river pebbles embedded in clear Perspex, reactive areogel yoga mats, sunlight-friendly, semitranslucent, ultra-high-strength oxide ceramic roof panels, with a one-way treatment that repelled passing spyplanes...

Furthermore-lest the Family-Firm feel neglected-the newly emptied basement was swiftly transmuted into the new Situation Room, or rather, the Montgomery-Montalban Situation Bunker.

If California was facing a looming supervolcano, then the revived and vigorous Family-Firm would not wring their hands about that challenge. Their new Situation Bunker was entirely mounted on tremor-proof springs, and fully sealable against volcanic, seismic, atomic, biological, and chemical mishaps.

The Situation Bunker was soberly traditional in its design philosophy-American Superpower traditional. It was a bunker fit for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Planning for D-Day: pragmatic, sleek, no-nonsense, efficient, incorruptible, and continental in scale. Very Bell System, very Westinghouse, very General Motors.

There was some mild grumbling about Radmila's ambitious reforms, but Glyn held up her end, Uncle Jack was with her all the way, Lionel was infallibly enthusiastic, and there were no Family arguments at all about the new nursery.

Furthermore, no one could deny that a young matriarch was much more fun than an elderly matriarch. For all Toddy's wisdom and street smarts, Toddy's last years had had a Hapsburg Empire feeling, an over-wrought, enfeebled system tottering toward its grave on a baroquely gilt walker. With Radmila in charge, the Family-Firm had a spring in its step again. There was a clear dynamic visible. There was forward motion.

Since the house was not finished, the Family could not die.

Radmila moved more of the star budget into the coming generation: Lionel and Mary. Let it not be said of her that she was personally hogging the limelight and eating the Family's seed corn. No: she aspired to be steady, dutiful, fully professional, an engine of production.

Radmila still went to her gym, but not with the fanatical intensity of a front-line diva. A woman planning for motherhood needed some body fat. Even if Radmila didn't bear the biblical horde of kids that Glyn demanded, there would have to be one. One or two. Three. There would have to be children, no matter how one felt about one's husband: any Queen of England knew that. That was a dynast's reality.

Early October arrived. Soon John would return from his meanderings in the Adriatic. The Family-Firm would be watching that reunion with care; it was a crucial performance for Radmila. She was determined to ace it.

Radmila performed her gym routine-"the worst thing that would happen all day"-and retired into her new oneiric pod for beauty sleep. This brand-new gym pod-oblate, speckled, seamed, it looked like a giant hemp seed-was said to feature all kinds of exotic benefits to neural well-being. It was like a Zen spa with a hinge.

As far as Radmila could tell, there was little more to this pricey dream machine than Californian hype. The pleasant flashing lights, the droning swoony ambient noises, and the so-called aroma "therapy" had done nothing much for her, or to her. Still, given that she was one of the product's sponsors and it was quite a handsome little earner, she saw no harm in using it.

Radmila climbed into the pod and clicked it shut. This time, as she fell into a pleasant doze, something about the pod's routine touched her brain-not with the harshness of an Acquis neural intrusion, but in a civilized, consumer-friendly fashion.

Radmila tumbled into a lucid, prophetic dream.

She dreamed that John had come home. John was not the gloomy, burdened, and apologetic philanderer whose company she dreaded. No, he was the younger John, the daring swain who had discovered her. In Los Angeles, Radmila had tried so hard to be a skulking stateless nameless thing, and yet John had located her, and John knew who she was and where she came from. He even cared about her and what happened to her.