Aoede

Her husband was in international finance. They lived the high life in London and Paris but he was gone most of the time. She had to raise the kids alone. After ten years, she accidentally found out that he was really with the CIA. In college, he'd said that he wanted to experience everything, to "murder and create." At the time, Eliot's phrase sounded like a metaphor but she guessed that he'd found a way to do exactly that in the real world. When he transferred to Southeast Asia, as she put it, to "start another war," she stayed in Paris.

She took the name "Aoede" after the Greek muse for song and opened an interior design firm dedicated to designing, "art to live in." The business did very well and she raised her kids in comfort, sending them on to whatever college or university they wanted. Her only commands were that they should live life to the fullest, do no harm and be as creative as they could. When the last girl graduated, Aoede closed shop and headed to San Francisco to paint and drive a cab.

She often told her customers that taxi driving was so much fun she couldn't imagine why she'd ever done anything else. She didn't have to worry about meeting a payroll or pleasing a picky client. She now had time to travel and "paint for myself."

"Everybody's so interesting," she says about the people she meets in her job. "They all live such interesting lives. They've all got a great song. All you have to do is listen."