**Well, never mind," Sally said breezily. "It's too late, now, anyway." She sipped her juice and smiled. "Let's get back to David. Do you like him? Does he like you?"

"Sure. I mean, I guess," Jenny said. "It's too soon to tell." She could see that wasn't going to satisfy Sally, so she held up her hand. "Let's forget David for a minute," she said. "I think he likes me, but there's somebody else who I know likes me. Come on." She led Sally into the living room. "Listen to this and tell me what you think," she said, turning on the message tape.

First the painters, then Sally herself, then the mystery voice. Jenny watched Sally's eyes widen in surprise, then narrow in concentration, her mouth curving into a gleeful smile. 'Well?" Jenny

asked, when the message was over. "I have no idea who it is. Do you?"

"Somebody with an extremely sexy voice/* Sally said dreamily.

"I already know that," Jenny told her. "But who?"

"Play it again," Sally directed. When it was over, she shook her head. "It's weird. You'd think I'd be able to tell, but I can't. Somebody's doing a really good job of disguising his voice."

"Take a guess."

"David, I suppose," she said, "even though he's not the type to make a call like that. At least I don't think he is." She gave Jenny a curious smile. "I can tell you think it's impossible for it to be him. What happened with you two on the hunt, anyway? You keep avoiding the subject."

"Oh, we had an argument about something," Jenny said, still reluctant to give a blow-by-blow account. "It was dumb. But he's probably decided I'm a real pain, so I don't think he'd leave me a message like that."

Sally nodded, as if she understood, and it was Jenny's turn to smile curiously. "There's something I want to ask you," she said. "You seem to think David's terrific, and you haven't mentioned a boy-Mend, so I wondered ..."

"Do I want David?" Sally finished for her.

"To be perfectly nosy, yes," Jenny admitted.

Sally's brown eyes clouded over for a second,

then she gave a short laugh. 'Well, I did, let's put it that way," she said. "But he's . . . I'm ... oh, I don't know, it's hard to say." She sighed and twisted her hair around a finger. "He's kind of quiet and thinks a lot. Not that I don't think, but you must have noticed that I tend to run off at the mouth."

Jenny couldn't argue with that, but she decided not to say so.

"I think it really bothered David," Sally said. "The couple of times we went out, I think I drove him crazy. I thought opposites were supposed to attract, but I guess it doesn't always work out that way." She sighed again, and then gave herself a little shake. "Anyway, I'm all over that, so let's figure out who's crazy about you."