"Not intimately. But I wasn't lyingwhen I told you my father was a policeman." A gray pinched expressiontouched her face. She covered it over with another smile. "We do havethings in common. Why don't you come along?"

"All right. I'll follow you. It will save youdriving me back."

"Wonderful."

She drove as rapidly as she operated, witha jerky nervousness and a total disregard for the rules of the road.Fortunately the campus was almost empty of cars and people. Diminished by thefoothills and by their own long shadows, the buildings resembled a movie lotwhich had shut down for the night.

She lived back of Foothill Drive in ahillside house made out of aluminum and glass and black enameled steel. Thenearest rooftop floated among the scrub oaks a quarter of a mile down theslope. You could stand in the living room by the central fireplace and see theblue mountains rising up on one side, the gray ocean falling away on the other.The offshore fog was pushing in to the land.

"Do you like my little eyrie?"

"Very much,"

"It isn't really mine, alas. I'm onlyrenting at present, though I have hopes. Sit down. What will you drink? I'mgoing to have a tonic."

"That will do nicely."

The polished tile floor was almost bare offurniture. I strolled around the large room, pausing by one of the glass wallsto look out. A wild pigeon lay on the patio with its iridescent neck broken.Its faint spreadeagled image outlined in dust showed where it had flown againstthe glass.

I sat on a rope chair which probablybelonged on the patio. Helen Haggerty brought our drinks and disposed herselfon a canvas chaise, where the sunlight would catch her hair again, and shine onher polished brown legs.

"I'm really just camping fornow," she said. "I haven't sent for my furniture, because I don'tknow if I want it around me any more. I may just leave it in storage and startall over, and to hell with the history. Do you think that's a good idea,Curveball Lefty Lew?"

"Call me anything, I don't mind. I'dhave to know the history."

"Ha. You never will." She lookedat me sternly for a minute, and sipped her drink. "You might as well callme Helen."

"All right, Helen."

"You make it sound so formal. I'm nota formal person, and neither are you. Why should we be formal with eachother?"

"You live in a glass house, for onething," I said smiling. "I take it you haven't been in it long."

"A month. Less than a month. It seemslonger. You're the first really interesting man I've met since I arrivedhere."

I dodged the compliment. "Where didyou live before?"

"Here and there. There and here. Weacademic people are such nomads. It doesn't suit me. I'd like to settle downpermanently. I'm getting old."

"It doesn't show."

"You're being gallant. Old for a woman, I mean.Men never grow old."

Now that she had me where she apparentlywanted me, she wasn't crowding so hard, but she was working. I wished that shewould stop, because I liked her. I downed my drink. She brought me a secondtonic with all the speed and efficiency of a cocktail waitress. I couldn't getrid of the dismal feeling that each of us was there to use the other.

With the second tonic she let me look downher dress. She was smooth and brown as far as I could see. She arranged herselfon the chaise with one hip up, so that I could admire the curve. The sun, inits final yellow fiareup before setting, took possession of the room.

"Shall I pull the drapes?" she said.

"Don't bother for me. It'll be down soon. Youwere going to tell me about Dolly Kincaid alias Dorothy Smith."

"Was I?"

"You brought the subject of her up. I understandyou're her academic counselor."

"And that's why you're interested in me, n'est-cepas7' Her tone was mocking.

"I was interested in you before I knew of yourconnection with Dolly."

"Really?"

"Really. Here I am to prove it."

"Here you are because I lured youwith the magic words Dorothy Smith. What's she doing on this campusanyway?" She sounded almost jealous of the girl.

"I was sort of hoping you knew the answer tothat."

"Don't you?"

"Dolly gives confficting stories, probablyderived from romantic fiction—"

"I don't think so," she said."She's a romantic all right—one of these romantic idealists who are alwaysa jump or two behind her unconscious mind. I ought to know, I used to be onemyself. But I also think she has some real trouble—appalling trouble."

"What was her story to you?"

"It was no story. It was the lousytruth. We'll come to it later on, if you're a good boy." She stirred likean odalisque in the dying light, and recrossed her polished legs. "Howbrave are you, Mr. Lew?"

"Men don't talk about how brave they are."

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009