‘Ooh, that sounds nice.’

‘Yeah, and—’

Bette stopped at the sound of a door closing. Both women turned, saw Angie, and disentangled themselves.

‘Oh, hey, honey!’ Tina waved.

Angie smiled at her parents wryly, indulgently; in a way that was inconceivable a week ago, to all of them.

‘Coffee?’ asked Bette.

‘Thanks,’ said Angie, sitting at the island.

Voices floated in from the courtyard, laughter, the baby’s chatter, Joan Didion’s little wuffs.

‘Mom, can I talk to you later about something?’

This was directed at Tina. She glanced at Bette before replying, ‘Sure.’

‘It’s just about the hydro,’ Angie went on. ‘I had an idea.’

‘What’s the idea?’ Bette asked, placing Angie’s coffee in front of her.

‘Well, I was just thinking that, if my advisor agreed, I could ask to take research leave this year. Stay here and use the hydro as a base to help me shape a better proposal.’

Tina’s jaw slackened in surprise. Bette’s eyes sparkled with pride.

‘I think I need to go a different route for a while,’ said Angie. 

‘You’d be here for a whole year?’ 

Tina was overjoyed.

‘If I get it,’ Angie cautioned.

‘You’ll get it,’ said Bette. And she went round the island and drew her daughter into her arms. ‘Smart move, boo. Very smart move.’

Tina went round the other side and hugged them both. Then they went outside and joined the others in discussing all their various schemes and plans.

Dani, Artie and Alice were returning to LA after breakfast. Alice had one more week leave-of-absence and she wanted to get settled in to her rental before she went back to work, and contacted Joyce about her rights. Shane was hanging around till lunch then heading up to Idyllwild. Bette knew she had a tough decision to make about Hannah, and a move to BC, and Shane had promised to keep in close touch about it.

Peggy, meanwhile, had not got her hour with Bette yesterday.

‘Bette, darling,’ she said. ‘Come walk with me to the pavilion.’

Helena raised her eyebrows; Bette pulled a ‘search me’ face, kissed Tina, then followed Peggy.

‘How much longer are you staying?’ she asked.

‘Trying to get rid of me?’

‘Of course not.’

Peggy leaned into the slope. She was in her eighties but she had several people who kept her limber and strong. 

‘I’m shaking things up,’ she said. ‘You know the Swedes have this thing they call “death cleaning”?’

‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘I had a man explain it to me. I don’t think he knew who I was.’ Peggy chuckled. ‘He came to my suite at the Plaza and thought I had some crockery and the odd necklace to dispose of.’

Presently, they reached the pavilion entrance and Bette put her pass code into the lock. Inside, the space was warm and still. The atrium, through which the olive tree received the sun, flooded the space with bright yellow light.

‘I love this,’ said Peggy, touching a leaf. 

‘It works better than even I had hoped,’ said Bette.

Peggy walked around the tree, examining its grey, gnarled trunk, more than a century old.

‘Peabodys began collecting art in the 1700s,’ she said, almost absently. ‘A few Canalettos, from someone’s Great Tour, no doubt. Then, after the Revolution, it was all Copley and West, anything in the Grand Manner. Gilbert Stuart, was he one around then?’

‘Yes,’ said Bette.

‘Yes. And then the Gilded Age. Europe was looted!’

‘Shall we skip over that?’

Peggy laughed. ‘No, dear, you can’t, but . . .’ She turned to Bette, her incredible sky-blue eyes filmed with tears. ‘You can give it away.’

When Bette and Peggy came back to the courtyard, Tina could see something huge had gone down. 

‘I’ll tell you later,’ Bette said, kissing her wife’s hand.

‘Mom,’ said Angie, coming out of House 2, ‘this has been going off.’ 

She handed Bette her phone, then went to talk to Dani. A minute later, Alice crouched down beside Tina’s chair and leaned into her space.

‘Hey,’ she said quietly. ‘Look.’

Tina looked where Alice was indicating – at Helena, Dylan, Bette, Shane, Dani, Angie and Peggy all sitting around talking, laughing, drinking coffee. Then she laughed.

‘It’s a Monday morning check-in!’

Alice beamed. Monday did indeed get a bad rap.