At least, Channing thought as he brought his copter down for an excellent landing on the asphalt airstrip around which his and a dozen other houses were situated in suburban Center Moriches, he could retain his sanity at home. It was decidedly upper middle class, this Center Moriches community, with half an acre of landscaped grounds for each house, a copter and a surface car for each family, and enough money floating around to keep everything, including the marble-walled swimming pools, in good repair.
There was something warm and secure about upper middle, anyway. The lower strata might need some of Qui Dor's goods, the highest might play with them extensively to show that it could but didn't need to, really. But upper middle was neither needy nor had the time for such conspicuous consumption. Mindful of its bootstrap beginnings, upper middle would ape what was above in such things as marble swimming pools and over-generous charity donations and hardly leave time for what Qui Dor had to offer. An occasional food cabinet and a little family squabble, Channing admitted to himself, could be tolerated. But when he remembered Ellen's thorough knowledge of Qui Dor and his Targoffian theories, it unnerved him.
The crabapple trees had shed most of their fruit on the back lawn, dotting the blue-green carpet of grass with brilliant red. The roses were out of bloom but protected next year's blossoms with thorny security. And best of all, thought Channing, breathing deep of everything, there was the chill of autumn on the air and the brittle gold of it in the fast-fading sunlight and the leaf-burning smell of it, so piquant he could almost taste it.
Ellen was not on the back lawn, not in the den, the living room, the basement, or the kitchen. Ellen was in one of the spare bedrooms.
Ellen had a baby.
"You're minding it until one of the neighbors returns," Channing suggested hopefully.
"Uh-uh. It's mine."
"Now wait a minute!"