The images were freeze frames perfectly captured and imprinted on my mind. Like her eyes the first time we made love. Silver light through my apartment window had crossed her face. Her hair, soft and thick and clean smelling, fell back on the pillow. Just before it happened, she stiffened and then touched my face, eyes large with questions. Slowly, her arms closed tight around me.

It was sweet and intense.

Afterward we lay damp against each other, content to say nothing. Suddenly she grinned. She couldn’t stop. I buried my face in her hair and we began laughing together out of pure crazy happiness.

When we had stopped, she said, “You’re beautiful.”

“And you.” I was serious now.

She drew some strands of hair over her lip in an absurd mustache. “And if I weren’t?”

I brushed it away. “Then you’d have to make your own clothes.”

She smiled, knowing how I felt. The newness of things imposed its own wisdom. We didn’t talk about it.

Later she was looking around the apartment, not shy. Her walk was lithe and gliding, and I thought then that she carried the South inside her, and in her eyes and the brownness of her skin.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I was reaching in the closet for a shirt. “Laying out clothes for tomorrow.”

She looked intrigued. “Can’t you just get up and dress?”

“You’re spoiled,” I grinned. “In the morning you can stumble out to hunt through that mess in your closet for something to wear, and cut English Lit if you can’t find it. But my job starts at seven and nine’s my first class.”

“Prrretty compulsive.”

“Gets me an extra fifteen minutes sleep.” I turned to see her leaning over my bureau. “You okay?”

“Uh-huh. Just taking out my contacts.”

She finished and began walking toward me in the semidarkness with short, myopic steps. I smiled and reached toward her. “Don’t you have glasses?”

“A naked lady in glasses? That’s obscene.” Our hands clasped. “Besides, they’re thick.”

I laughed, pulling her to me. “I think I can live with it.”

I felt her smile against my shoulder. “I’m not scared now,” she murmured. “It was good for me, Adam. Gentle. I needed it gentle.”

“I know.”

We went together to the bed, and lay down again.…

The phone rang. Kris Ann rose from the kitchen table to get it.

“Hello, Daddy. Yes, he’s here.” She listened, taut, then asked, “Can you stay for dinner?” She paused, answered, “It’s fine, really. See you then,” and hung up.

She turned to me. “He sounds upset.”

“So I gather. Nice you invited him to beard me in our own home.”

“Which he bought us.”