“I’ll bet whole greenhouses burst into bloom when she passes through. She’s probably an absolute Flora. I can see tulips sprouting in her footsteps, breaking right through concrete. What an enviable talent—to be able to bend your wrist just right as you tip the watering can.”

“Don’t belittle something you can’t do. And someone you don’t know.” He didn’t bother to look up.

“I don’t think I can bear going through life now being responsible for the death of a philodendron.”

He smiled incredulously. “You’re unbelievable. Unbelievable.”

“And you’re being redundant. Redundant.”

“If Irene Rutledge can’t do something, then it’s not worth doing. It’s much more comfortable to look down your nose at it.”

“Don’t lecture me. I’m not one of your students.”

“And don’t bother to listen, either, because there’s not the slightest chance someone else knows something you don’t. Or if they do, it can’t be very important. Besides, if it’s not in a book, it’s not worth knowing.”

“Oh, go play with your jumper cables.”

“Right now, they’d be better company.”

I turned and walked out. I flounced down the steps and threw open the door to the parking lot, only to run smack into Gloria.

“Jesus!” she gasped, staggering backward.

This was all I needed, to have her see me angry at Frank. “I’m sorry. Are you all right?” She had dropped a folder full of travel fliers from the agency she worked at. I stooped and picked them up. “I left a book in the library; now I have to go all the way over and pick it up.”

“It’s after ten,” she said. “The library’s closed.”

She was right. During the summer term the library closed early. It was a stupid lie. Still, I couldn’t go back upstairs. I thrust the folder into her hand and said I’d call her sometime.

I walked ten blocks to the student union, but in the grill the custodian was already putting the chairs on top of the tables. There was still time for a quick cup of coffee, but I didn’t feel much like sitting in a place that was closing up around me.

The campus was quiet, dismally so, and that was fine with me. One strolling couple, hand in hand, passed by. I muttered some obscenity under my breath, but apparently loud enough to turn their heads.

I ended up at the botanical gardens, sitting on a bench and smoking one cigarette after another. The lamppost globes lit up only the first few rows of flowers. The rest of the garden was a shadowy arrangement of spikes and clumps. What I couldn’t see didn’t matter. I didn’t know a peony from a petunia. I had never bothered to learn flowers, since I had no plans for becoming a gardener or a Southern writer.

If it’s not in a book, it’s not worth knowing.

That remark kept crawling around in my mind. I couldn’t dismiss it in my usual fashion because I couldn’t dismiss the certainty in his voice, the authority on his face. I couldn’t even keep a grip on my self-righteous anger, my only source of protection.