She shook her head. “Talking is the best thing I can do. I’ll sleep tonight. I won’t worry about something I’ve held back.”

“How do you feel?”

“Tired, genuinely, but I’m all right. I want to go on. I found out during lunch that he wasn’t married, but it didn’t help a whole lot. I was feeling all the things I had felt as a kid. I was just that attracted to him. We had lunch again the following day, and the day after that, and that evening he took me to dinner. He was reserved and very, very gentle. He talked about what he was doing and what he thought, rather than what he had done. He wasn’t keeping anything secret; it was just that the conversation stayed in the present. I mentioned that I had been in therapy and he seemed interested, but not avidly curious. He asked about the next night, which was Saturday night, but I already had a date. ‘Then I guess I’ll see you Monday,’ he said.

“Sunday I looked him up in the phone book. He lived in one of the white sections in Bay Slope and I wondered if he had lied to me about being married, because that isn’t an area where single men with money live. I wanted to call, or go over and check, but I didn’t. That was a rough day for me.

“Monday was going to be his last day, but we went to lunch just as if he were going to be there for weeks to come. He asked if I was busy that night, and I had one of my classes until ten o’clock. He offered to pick me up afterward and I said yes. We went for coffee and a ride. We drove for an hour or more, west and south—his driving was perfect, by the way—and I remember that we passed the government arsenal at Holly Hills. Finally we pulled into one of those roadside rests.”

They had a cigarette. The car was a big one, a Buick or Oldsmobile hardtop; she couldn’t tell. The night was mild, and the window on her side was part-way down.

“I hadn’t planned to come so far,” he said. “You’ll be home late. Tomorrow you’ll be tired.”

“I wanted to see you, Colin.”

“These aren’t the terms you would have set,” he said.

“Don’t be sure.” She told about looking him up in the telephone book. “I’m not a baby. I know what I’m doing here.”

“There’s no such thing as an uncomplicated lay,” he said. It was as if he thought she was a virgin and he wanted to shock her.

“I’d want to see you again, of course,” she said.

He looked at her. “I’d want to see you, too. Tomorrow. It’s the way I am.”