“Hi, Kathy. I’m Kinsey. Nice meeting you,” I said. “Your timing’s perfect. I just arrived.”

We shook hands and then she turned and unlocked the front door. “I switched to an earlier Jazzercise class, but got caught in traffic coming home. You want ice water? I need to rehydrate.”

“I’m fine, thanks. You like Jazzercise?”

“I should. I’m taking six to eight classes a week.” She dropped her bag on a console table just inside the front door. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be back in a sec.”

She disappeared down the hallway, moving toward the kitchen, her rubber soles squeaking on the gray ceramic tile. I turned right and went down two stairs into the sunken living room. The walls were painted a dazzling white, and the only artwork in sight was an oversize painting from a chain of commercial galleries devoted to one man’s work. The autumnal scene was of a mare and foal in a gauzy-looking pasture at dawn.

There were no window coverings and the light spilled in through a haze of construction dust. The powder blue wall-to-wall shag carpeting had been installed recently, because I could still see bits and pieces-tufts and scraps-left behind by the flooring guys. The couch and two matching chairs were upholstered in a cream-colored chenille. On the coffee table, she’d arranged a stack of decorator magazines, a centerpiece of pale blue silk flowers, and a cluster of color photographs in silver frames. The three girls portrayed were variations of their mother-same eyes, same smile, and the same thick blond hair. Their ages seemed to fall within a six-year range. The oldest was probably thirteen, braces gleaming on her teeth. The other two girls stair-stepped down from eleven to nine. The middle girl was decked out in a majorette’s uniform, a baton held aloft.

Kathy returned to the living room with a tumbler of ice water in hand. She found a coaster and moved toward a conversational grouping of navy blue club chairs with a glass-topped table in the center as though for a conference of some kind. I pictured a meeting of the neighborhood association during which other people’s tacky yard ornaments would come under fire. She took one chair and I sat across from her, taking a mental snapshot without having to stare. I pegged her at a youthful forty-eight or forty-nine. She was thin in a way that suggested strict attention to her weight. She seemed high-strung, but having caught her on the back end of a workout, I knew her energy level might have been the result of an hour of strenuous exercise. She looked as though she’d spent the summer working on her tan, and I imagined an above-ground pool in the backyard of the house she’d just left.

“Those are your daughters?” I asked.

“Yes, but the pictures are out of date. Tiffany was twelve when that was taken. She’s twenty-five now and getting married June of next year.”

“Nice fellow?”

“A doll. He’s in law school at UCLA, so they’ll be living down there.”

“And the other two?”

“Amber’s twenty-three; she was a majorette in her junior high school band. She’s technically in her senior year of college, but she’s taking a year off to travel. Brittany turns twenty next month. She’s at Allan Hancock,” she said, naming the local community college.

“They look just like you. Must be quite a crew.”

“Oh, they’re great. We have a good time together. You want to see the rest of the house?”

“I’d love to.”

She got up and I followed her.

“ When did you move in?”

“A week ago. The place is still a mess,” she said, talking over her shoulder as we moved down the hall. “I’ve got half the boxes unpacked and most things in place, but some of the rooms won’t be furnished until god knows when. I need to find a decorator I can get along with. Most are so pushy. Have you ever noticed that?”

“I’ve never worked with one.”

“Well, don’t if you can help it.”

She walked me through the house, pointing out the obvious: the empty dining room, butler’s pantry, eat-in kitchen, mud room, and laundry room. Through the kitchen windows I could see the backyard, which consisted of a poured concrete patio sitting like an island in a sea of raw dirt. Upstairs there were five bedrooms-a master suite, a bedroom for each of the girls, and a guest room, devoid of furniture. She chattered on and on, her prime interest focused on her decorating schemes. I found myself making chirpy, insincere remarks. “Oh, I’ve always been crazy about Louie the Fourteenth. That’ll look great in here.”

“You think?”