He accepted it and ate it because he could think of nothing charming to say. It was embarrassingly juicy. He felt grimy and at a disadvantage and he wanted to impress this girl but he realized suddenly that while he had been aching to see her again, her roommate had been absolutely right, he didn’t know her at all; in fact he had been with her only three hours, one of which was spent in the middle of a very crowded party in Herb Shafer’s sister’s living room in Atlanta.

“I’m sorry you missed Symphony,” she said. “Is this the kind of thing that happens a lot?”

“Not a whole lot,” he said, unwilling to frighten her off.

He lay back on the blanket and later he remembered discussing music with her and her graduate program in psychology and then he closed his eyes and when he opened them again he realized he had been sleeping but he didn’t know for how long. She was sitting, looking out at the river, just patiently waiting. He wondered how he could have forgotten that face. If the nose had been a plastic job she would have received a hairline more than her money’s worth. The eyes were brown, quiet now, but very alive. Her mouth was maybe a bit wide, upper lip thin, hinting at bitchiness, lower lip generously full. The dark blonde hair, glossy in the overhead lamp light, had sunstreaks in it. The mole was beneath the left eye, accentuating the cheekbones. Her features were not regular enough to make her a really pretty girl. She was small enough but too sexually attractive to be called cute. A little too thin, he decided.

“That’s the deepest tan I’ve seen in a long time. You must live on the beach,” he said.

“I have a sun lamp. Three minutes a day, all year round.”

“Even in the summer?”

“Sure. More privacy in my bedroom.”

There would be no white patches or strap marks. He felt a weakness in the knees.

“One of the boys at school says I have such a passion for physical warmth because I come from a broken home. I love hot days.”

“You analyze each other in psychology class?”

She smiled. “After class. All the time.” She lay back beside him on the blanket. “You smell of strong male juices,” she said, “and as if you’ve been to a fire.”

“God, is it that bad? I planned to come to you smelling like a flower.”

“Who wants a man to smell like a flower?”

Their heads were very close on the blanket and it took little effort for him to kiss her.

He kissed the mole.

Her portable radio softly gave them the theme music from Never on Sunday.

“Can you hasapiko?”

“I’d like to learn,” he said lecherously.

“The Greek dance.”

“Oh, that. No.”

He got up with regret when she insisted and she showed him. He had a good diver’s natural rhythm and he picked up the basic step. Holding hands, they danced to the languid beat and then more wildly as the music from the radio rose to crescendo, Zorba and his woman on the soft grass of the Esplanade, but of course he made a mistake and they collapsed, laughing and out of breath, and he kissed her again and felt the warmth of her under his mouth, in his arms.