“Too clean-cut?” he asked her, grinning.

“Too white,” she said shortly, and then was quiet for a moment, looking sternly out at the sea. Eddie was quiet, too. If there was a comeback to something like that, he didn’t know what it was.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was very unkind, very unfair, and very unlike me.”

“It’s all right.”

“It’s not. It’s like a white person saying something like ‘Jeez, I never would have guessed you were a nigger’ to someone with a very light skin.”

“You like to think of yourself as more fair-minded,” Eddie said.

“What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common, I should think, but yes—I like to think of myself as more fair-minded. So please accept my apology, Eddie.”

“On one condition.”

“What’s that?” she was smiling a little again. That was good. He liked it when he was able to make her smile.

“Give this a fair chance. That’s the condition.”

“Give what a fair chance?” She sounded slightly amused. Eddie might have bristled at that tone in someone else’s voice, might have felt he was getting boned, but with her it was different. With her it was all right. He supposed with her just about anything would have been.

“That there’s a third alternative. That this really is happening. I mean . . .” Eddie cleared his throat. “I’m not very good at this philosophical shit, or, you know, metamorphosis or whatever the hell you call it—”

“Do you mean metaphysics?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I think so. But I know you can’t go around disbelieving what your senses tell you. Why, if your idea about this all being a dream is right—”

“I didn’t say a dream—”

“Whatever you said, that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? A false reality?”

If there had been something faintly condescending in her voice a moment ago, it was gone now. “Philosophy and metaphysics may not be your bag, Eddie, but you must have been a hell of a debater in school.”

“I was never in debate. That was for gays and hags and wimps. Like chess club. What do you mean, my bag? What’s a bag?”

“Just something you like. What do you mean, gays? What are gays?”

He looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Homos. Fags. Never mind. We could swap slang all day. It’s not getting us anyplace. What I’m trying to say is that if it’s all a dream, it could be mine, not yours. You could be a figment of my imagination.”

Her smile faltered. “You . . . nobody bopped you.”

“Nobody bopped you, either.”

Now her smile was entirely gone. “No one that I remember,” she corrected with some sharpness.

“Me either!” he said. “You told me they’re rough in Oxford. Well, those Customs guys weren’t exactly cheery joy when they couldn’t find the dope they were after. One of them could have head-bopped me with the butt of his gun. I could be lying in a Bellevue ward right now, dreaming you and Roland while they write their reports, explaining how, while they were interrogating me, I became violent and had to be subdued.”