"That's a feisty one," Pris said."Yeah, but we love her," Millie told her.I asked Ab if he could tell us anything about the valleys we would probably ...be settling in."Well," he said. "There are three valleys that are fairly close together. I chose the one I did because it is the first one you come to. All three have good sized streams running through them. The valley floors are mostly clear and grassy. There is a lot of timber in the foothills. Mostly live oak, mountain mahogany, and a couple of. Not that life at university was all work. Luke joined the Drama Club andhad a great deal of fun designing and making costumes for a wide varietyof productions. Fortunately, with the agreement of his tutors, much ofhis drama work was able to be included in the practical assessment partof his course.Anyway that was all now in the past as Luke prepared to enter the bigwide world of commercial fashion design.During his time at university Luke had developed a very personal andidiosyncratic dress. I wanted to load up on nicotine anyway since you can't smoke in bars in California. Finally, I went downstairs.I wasn't prepared for how crowded and loud it would be. It wasn't what I expected. I expected a fairly quiet hotel bar and that I'd find Mary sitting alone nursing a drink. It wasn't like that all. A band was playing loudly, it was dark, and the bar was jammed with people. It took me almost 15 minutes to spot her; she was on the dance floor wildly swinging her body and dancing up a. She was a drop-dead gorgeous raven-haired Australian with an over-the-top accent that made her sound like a reject from Neighbours, but with a body like hers, who cared about her voice? She had been very forward about her sexuality, wearing a low-cut outfit and leaning forward far more than strictly necessary and tossing her head sexily to keep that long black hair from falling across her face. I had thought at first she was there merely by way of eye candy but as the meeting progressed it had.