They stayed a long time at the Greek’s, long after the diners had left, after the red-headed man had been led to the door by one of the waitresses, until there was only a solitary drinker at the bar talking quietly with the Greek, who was picking his teeth thoughtfully, one huge hand grasping a glass of beer.

Jake was telling her about himself. At first she listened without much interest, content to observe him as though he were a pleasing landscape, noting the small shifts of his body, the expressions which gave unexpected life to his face. Then, as she nodded sympathetically at the somewhat halting narrative, she realized its ordinariness, full of a triviality of event inconsonant with the intensity of his voice.

She felt a thrill of anticipation, of fear too, at the thought of what he’d say if she told him a few things about herself. He probably imagined she came from some Sears, Roebuck life like his. There’d be disbelief, indignation perhaps. He might even dare to pity her! At the very idea of such a thing, she glared at him scornfully!

But how could he have noticed when there were tears in his eyes? He was speaking about a girl named Wendy.

Wendy! From some half-remembered conversation among forgotten adults, Annie dredged up the memory of a voice, her father’s?—someone’s—saying that certain names were a dead giveaway of low-class origins—names like Wendy, April, Dawn.

And Jake was crying! Over a Wendy. Annie’s sense of possessing a personal saga of dramatic superiority collapsed.

The girl had married his best friend a month after high-school graduation. She’d met him down near the spring where the cows drank, given him back his high-school ring. That’s really why he’d left and come to California, and he’d been out here for years, but, “I’m still not over it. I still think about her and how she could ever have done that to me.”

She felt her heart would stop with envy. She coveted that girl’s life, wanted to be that girl, already a mother with two children, living in a small town with a husband who had his own secondhand car, and a little house, and Sunday dinners with—

“Hey, what’s the matter with you?”

“What?”

“You’re scowling so!”

“No, no. I’m fine, just listening to you—” Why, her life had been shameful! She might as well tell Jake the story of the man on the streetcar who had exposed himself!

“Would you like to go see Ivan?” he asked in a subdued voice. He looked at her worriedly.

“No, not now,” she said. And then, her voice cracking with dismay, she cried, “I’m a freak myself!” He turned pale and looked hurriedly around the restaurant. She took his hand instantly. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s only the job, the dog, everything…”