She knew them, in her way: Paul, Benedetta, Marcel, Niko, Bouboule, Eugene, Lars, Julie, Eva, Max, Renée, Fernande, Pablo, Lunia, Jeanne, Victor, Berthe, Enheduanna-generally-known-as-Hedda, Berthe’s weird boyfriend what’s-his-face, Lodewijk, the new guy from Copenhagen, Yvonne, who’d been more or less officially Max’s girl until about ten seconds ago, that intense young Russian sculptor with twelve fingers, the cute Indonesian teenager who’d been hanging out a lot lately and was supposedly having the affair with Bouboule’s brother...Her friends were wonderful. She had been very lucky to catch them during the brief larval phase in which they were more or less human. They loved her, and they loved one another, but they loved one another like friends and lovers should and did, and they loved her in the way that one might love a very rare and compelling set of antique portrait photographs.