“So, Piffy told me your name is John,” she said, while they were waiting for their food. “May I call you John?”

“Of course. What else did she tell you?”

“Oh, everything. Women tell each other everything. We talk all the time, the four of us even more so.”

“Really? I was not aware of that.” He rubbed his chin. “I really don’t know about this. I mean about today. You seem very nice and all. I had this connection with Piffy and I was looking forward to finding out where it led. I wasn’t planning to sex my way through the entire tour company.”

“Of course you weren’t. And maybe we won’t even like each other. But maybe we will and maybe you’ll like Penny and Steffie too. We’re all really close, closer than we were back when we were starting out. Maybe we needed a few years apart to mature. I know Penny’s already planning on moving back to Thatch Cay, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Steffie brought her boy to live with her there too at least part of the year.”

“That’s great, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Sure it does. Since we’re all so close, it would be much easier to have the four of us as wives rather than trying to make it work with strangers.”

“Wives? I don’t want wives. I’m not sure I want even one wife.”

“You told Steffie that she could be a poster child for mothering a boy. Well, for better or worse, multi-marriage is going to be the type of marriage that most women have for the foreseeable future.”

“Polygamy. You think most women will approve of that?”

“With one man on Earth for every two hundred fifty women? I would imagine so.”

“Well that’s fine for women everywhere, but I don’t know that it’s for me.”

They stopped talking while the waitress set their food on the table, then continued between bites.

“You seem like you’re all ready to get married and aren’t too picky about to whom.”

“I’m thirty-one next month,” said Ruth. “So I can’t afford to wait too long unless I want a vat baby, and none of us can afford to be too picky. But you are a very pretty man. And I remember how happy my parents were.”

After breakfast, Andrews ordered a