She started out small. She made Styrofoam peanuts in her bedroom. She sold them by the case to her next-door neighbor’s shipping company. She knew that he had only agreed to buy them because he had a crush on her, but she had confidence in them. They were high-quality peanuts.

Sure enough, one day he approached her and said, "Your product is of a superior quality, honey. We’ve had forty-percent fewer breakages in packages packed with yours than with standard commercial polystyrene peanuts. What would you say if I offered to finance your taking your business to the next level? I want to see you in the big time, hon."

"Mr. Burland," she said, "that would be a dream come true for me."

And it was. How it was!

She had machinery custom built to mold peanuts just like her hand-made ones. She added a module to paint eyes on them so they’d look like strange albino animals: squirrels, maybe, or mice, if you squinted. She built extension after extension onto her house, until Mr. Burland’s little home was surrounded by her factory. (He had moved out by then, to a yacht in the bay.) She made a name for herself and within a couple of years she was the third largest producer of packing peanuts in the country.

Then she expanded. She made polystyrene sculptures of celebrities and cartoon characters. She made polystyrene dishes and polystyrene earplugs.

Folks around the neighborhood started calling her The Baroness. She was a hero and a superstar.

Mr. Burland came to visit her once a month and always brought a rare, expensive bottle of wine for them to share.

One day, he said, "You know, honey, I’m starting to feel a little guilty. Why don’t you try producing cornstarch peanuts instead? They’re more eco-friendly. It would really ease my conscience."

"Yeah," she said, "all right. I’ll talk to my vice presidents."

"Wow," he said. "You know, with every day and every month and every year that’s passed by, I’ve fallen more and more in love with you. It was a puppy crush at first, but now it’s turned into something real."

"Mr. Burland," said The Baroness, "you’re too old for me. Besides, business is business and we’re business partners now."

Five years later, all her peanuts were made of cornstarch, but the sculptures and the dishes and the earplugs were still foam.

"They’d all melt," The Baroness explained to Mr. Burland one afternoon. "Cornstarch dishes wouldn’t do."

"Of course," said Mr. Burland, as he poured a glass of wine. "Do you think you’ll ever marry?"

"I don’t think so," said The Baroness, "but I’d like to adopt a kid."

On his deathbed, Mr. Burland asked his nephew to ensure that his coffin was filled with peanuts made at The Baroness’s factory.

"It’s not that I’m worried about being bounced around too much," he said. "It’s that those peanuts somehow seem to make me happy in my toes."

It was humid on the day of Mr. Burland’s funeral and the peanuts in his casket melted slightly. They became a little sticky and not a little gooey and some of the cornstarch soaked into his suit.

The Baroness stood over the open casket solemnly. She smelled the starchy smell that her nose had come to love. She said to her son, who stood by her side, "Say goodbye to Mr. Burland, John. I know you didn’t know him well, but he’s always thought of himself as your daddy."

The Baroness fashioned a polystyrene statue of Mr. Burland and erected it without ceremony in her factory’s lobby. Every evening when she left work for home, she placed cornstarch-peanut squirrel-mice on each of its shoulders. Every morning, by the time she came in, they were gone.

She never knew where they went exactly, but she told her son stories of a Styrofoam city somewhere, well-lit and beautifully painted, where the squirrel-mice could live peacefully, safe and happy and dry.

"And someday, John," she said, "when you are the Baron, you’ll get to that city and it will be all yours."