In Houston, new money is just as good as old. No matter who you are or where you came from, you're welcome to the dance as long as you can afford the ticket. There are tales of legendar\' Houston society hostesses who came from relatively humble backgrounds, including one who was once a furniture salesman's daughter and another who had gotten her start in party-planning. If you have money and you value quiet good taste, you'll be appreciated in Dallas. But if you have money and you like to throw it around like fire-ant bait, you belong in Houston.

On the surface it's a lazy city filled with slow-talking, slow-moving people. Most of the time it's too hot to get stirred up about anything. But power in Houston is wielded with an economy of motion, just like good bass fishing. The city is built on energy, you can see it in the skyline, all those buildings reaching up as if they intend to keep on growing.

I found an apartment for Carrington and me inside the 610 loop, not far from my job at Salon One. People who live inside 610 are regarded as somewhat cosmopolitan, the kind who might sometimes see an art house movie or drink lattes. Outside the loop, latte-drinking is seen as suspicious evidence of possible liberal leanings.

The apartment was in an older complex, with a swimming pool and a jogging trail. "Are we rich now?" Carrington had asked in wonder, awed by the size of the main building and the fact that we rode up to our apartment in an elevator.

As an apprentice at Salon One. I would earn about eighteen thousand dollars a year. After taxes and a monthly rent of five hundred dollars, there wasn't much left over, especially since the cost of living was much higher in the city than in Welcome. However, after the first year of training I would be promoted to junior stylist, and my salary would be bumped up to the low twenties.

For the first time in my life I was filled with a sense of possibility. I had a degree and a license, and a job that might turn into a career. I had a six-hundred-and-fourteen-square-foot apartment with beige carpeting and a used Honda that still ran. And most of all I had a piece of paper that said Carrington was mine, and no one could take her away from me.

I enrolled Carrington in preschool and bought her a Little Mermaid lunch box and sneakers with flashing lights embedded in the sides. The first day of school I walked her to her classroom and fought to hold back my own tears as my sister sobbed and clutched at me and begged me not to leave her. Withdrawing to the side of the doorway, away from the gaze of the sympathetic teacher, I crouched on the floor and wiped Carrington's streaming face with a tissue. "Baby, it's just for a little while. Just a few hours. You're going to play and make new friends—"

"I don't wanna make friends!"

"You're going to do artwork and paint and draw—"

"I don't wanna paint!" She buried her face in my chest. Her voice was muffled in my shirt. "I wanna go home with you."

I cupped the back of her small head, holding her securely against my damp shirt. "I'm not going home, baby. We both have our jobs, remember? Mine is to go fix people's hair, and yours is to go to school."

"I don't like my job!"

I eased her head back and applied a tissue to her runny nose. "Carrington, I have an idea. Here, look—" I took her arm and gently turned it wrist up. "I'm going to give you a kiss you can carry with you all day. Watch." Bending my head, I pressed my lips to the pale skin right below her elbow. My lipstick left a perfect imprint. "There. Now if you start to miss me, that will remind you that I love you and I'm coming soon to pick you up."

Carrington regarded the waxy pink mark dubiously, but I was relieved to see her tears had stopped. "I wish it was a red kiss," she said after a long moment.

"Tomorrow I'll wear red lipstick," I promised. I stood and took her hand. "Come on, baby. Go make some new friends and draw me a picture. The day will be over before you know it."

Carrington approached preschool in a soldierly manner, regarding it as a duty that had to be performed. The ritual of the goodbye kiss persisted, however. The first day I forgot about it, I received a call at the salon from the teacher, who said apologetically that Carrington was so distraught she was disrupting the class. I raced to the school on my break and met my swollen-eyed sister at the classroom door.

I was rattled and out of breath, and thoroughly exasperated. "Carrington, did you have to make such a fuss? Can't you go one day without a kiss on your arm?"

"No." She extended her ami stubbornly, her face tear-streaked and mulish.

I sighed and made the lipstick mark on her skin. "Are you going to behave now?"

"Okay!" She bounced and skipped back into the classroom while I hurried back to work.

People always noticed Carrington when we went out. They stopped to admire her and asked questions, and said what a pretty little girl she was. No one ever guessed I was related to her—they assumed I was the nanny, and they said things like '"How long have you been taking care of her?" or "Her parents must be so proud." Even the receptionist in our new pediatrician's office insisted I would have to bring Carrington1 s forms home to be signed by a parent or legal guardian, and she treated me with open skepticism when I said I was Carrington's sister. I understood why our link seemed questionable: our coloring was too dissimilar. We were like a brown hen with a white egg.

Not long after Carrington turned four, I got a glimpse of what dating was going to be like—and it wasn't pretty. One of the stylists at the salon, Angie Keeney, arranged a blind date for me with her brother Mike. He had been divorced recently, two years after marrying his college sweetheart. According to Angie, Mike wanted to find someone completely different from his wife.