Natasha Wagstaffe stepped out of the taxi in front of the hospital where Cleo worked. She sniffed. It was hot. After the coolness of the cab the heat hit her hard. She could feel a dribble of sweat run down her spine.

Dallas, a city in a desert.

Her brother, David and his band, Artwork, were due to play there the following day. It would be the last show on their current tour.

She remembered the previous year when she had been persuaded to play on a number of their dates while they recruited a replacement keyboard player. Staring out upon thousands of faces. She had nearly frozen the first nights. But with practise and the encouragement of the others she had had learned to enjoy it.

The hardest part was getting rid of the tension that built up inside her during each show. Most of the others had used the never-ending string of young girls who seemed only too willing to let the band members and any other members of their entourage have them.
She couldn't do that. Take a different man every night? That was unthinkable. So she had been left to her own devices in the toilet or beneath her blanket as they moved from show to show.

That had been quite some summer. She had met some friends of her father's. A girl called Laurie and her two friends Amanda and Taylor. She should look her up while she was there. And Frankie, the daughter of Len and Stephanie who ran the pub in her village back in Somerset. She wondered how she was getting on her exchange year at university in Dallas.

"Hello Nat." She heard Cleo's soft New England accent.

"Hello Cleo." She replied embracing and then kissing her.

There was a group of about eight other people all in white coats standing behind her. Natasha thought they looked like chicks following a mother hen.

"I'm showing a group of prospective doctors around today." Cleo answered her unasked question.

"Sounds like fun." Nat replied looking over the group.

They all looked the same. Young, fresh faced, keen. Well, apart from one. A small girl. From the Indian sub-continent Nat guessed. Her long black hair shone.

She looked like the others in many ways. She was certainly young and she was fresh faced. But she didn't look keen. She had the look on her face that Nat remembered being on her own so many times in the past when she had been dragged away from her piano to look at some old building or visit some historic site she hadn't the slightest interest in.

Those had been times when she had resented Cleo's visits from America. David she knew had had a crush on her. She remembered the Christmas three years before when the police had been on the phone and visited their house. Cleo had gone missing in America and they were trying to trace her. How she had been found eventually at the cottage of a schoolteacher then, strangely had refused offers of either a lift to their house by the police or her father's offer to pick her up. Nat had discovered later that the schoolteacher lived with a woman who hadn't been in the cottage that night. That had all been very strange.

"Have you got the tickets for the show tomorrow?" Cleo asked as they walked towards the security desk. "We need you to sign in."

"I'm hoping to see David in the morning. He knows I'm here."

"Will you be going to the party?" Cleo smiled.

"I expect so. If only to keep Marianne company."

"When's the baby due?"

"Not for three months yet."

Nat pinned on her visitors badge and turned to face the group of prospective doctors. Were they standing a little bit closer than before? They all had excited, expectant looks upon their faces.

"This is my friend Natasha Wagstaffe." Cleo made the pronouncement. "Some of you may have heard of her brother."

"You know David Wagstaffe?" The Indian girl spoke first.

She seemed keen now, Nat thought.

"Quite well." Nat confirmed.

"Sorry." The Indian girl said. "Of course you would. You played on some concerts last year."

"They were desperate."

Nat turned to Cleo.

"Where are we going for lunch?"

"I thought here." Cleo said apologetically. "See I'm a little stuck today now."

Cleo looked about her then pressed the button for the lift.

"Well I don't think anybody is likely to have died from eating here." Nat smiled.

"You haven't tasted it yet." A tall blond boy quipped.

"You will soon."

"What's your name?" Nat asked the Indian girl as the doors closed behind them.

"My name is Pranoo." She replied.