The plan was, Angie would leave first and walk back to Ivy House while John went his usual route to campus. Standing in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, she listened to him talk about the day ahead, things that might happen when Caroline came back, how he would deal with each possibility. She was oddly calm, at ease with him and herself, though the potential for disaster was tremendous.

She was putting on her shoes when John said, “You know what I said about difficult women?”

“That you’re drawn to them, sure.”

He said, “You’re worth whatever trouble comes my way.”

She relaxed a little, and then happiness made her sloppy and she said what she was thinking. “Not that there’s any such thing as an easy woman.”

“Sure there is,” John said, and a small line appeared between his brows. Normally Angie liked arguing with him about this kind of thing, but it would be foolish to let the conversation move in that direction just now.

“Okay,” she said.

“I would call Rivera … not easy, but straightforward. You don’t have to guess what she’s thinking.”

“Hmmmm,” Angie said.

“I don’t know Jude Parris very well, but I’d say the same of her.”

“I better get gone,” Angie said, but she could see that it was hopeless, because he was pacing now.

“Even Meg, if you think about it—”

Let it go, Angie prayed. Let it go, let it go.

“Of course all three of them are—well, maybe not all three are lesbians, but almost.”

She waited, breathless, to see if he could dig himself out.

“Okay, so that’s a generalization that deserves to be shot down,” John said, as if she had objected aloud. “But there’s something there. Maybe it’s just that women who are openly gay don’t worry about impressing men. Meg sure wasn’t worried about what the men at the table thought of her last night.”

“Wow,” Angie said. “Look at the time, it’s getting—”

“Though she went over the line when she got going about Miss Zula,” John finished.

“—late,” Angie said. She took an imaginary sip from her empty cup. When she looked up, John was watching her.

“Come on,” he said slowly. “You don’t buy into that garbage Meg was spouting.”

“That Miss Zula is a lesbian?” Angie shrugged. “I don’t know one way or the other, not for sure. Does it matter?”

John blinked at her. “Of course it doesn’t matter,” he said. “But it isn’t true.”

“And if it were true, would you be upset if we pursued the subject with her?”

“The question is moot,” John said. “Because she isn’t.”

Angie closed her eyes briefly, and then opened them. “This is something we have to talk about,” she said. “But not just now. We don’t have time.”

John said, “There are things you don’t know.”