Whatever the cause, I was saving my ass experimentally and displaying my cheerful fortitude all the way up to my room. We dropped the chaise beneath the skylight and fell giggling and puffing against it. His smile had only tightened a little on the stairs. He even talked through it.

“When you move,” he was saying, “put an ad in the paper to sell it. Take the first offer you get but tell them they have to move it themselves.” I was trying to appear sinuous while rummaging under the bed for the bottle of grape soda and the bag of chocolate cream cookies that were intended for my supper.

“It will be a new divorcée and her boyfriend who sells motorcycles. The moment they get it down to the sidewalk, I’ll come out screaming, say I’m the manager of the rooming house and where are they going with my furniture.” I took a slug of purple soda and passed the bottle to him. He brandished it at me.

“There’ll be great protests! A lot of ‘See here, misters,’ a lot of ‘The little lady only…’ talk. I’ll tell them you’re behind on your rent and being tricky with my furniture and I’m going to have you thrown in jail. You come down and give them their money back and confess with tears and moans. They drive off in a rage. And, quite magically, the pink monster is safe on the sidewalk.” He tips up the bottle and pours soda in through his smile.

I lay on the chaise and twisted my legs around each other seductively. Sam sat on the chair and talked. His totem animal was the fly, but a polite and hilarious fly. He was a second-year student at the local prestige college and was taking flamenco guitar lessons from the cough-syrup addict on the ground floor of my house. Sam was from New York.

“But why did you come to Portland?”

“To get away from my mother. Ninety percent of the students out here are from New York. New York mothers are really awful!” Our laughter exploded in the small room. Our cigarettes spewed toward the skylight. He played a one-handed chord on the guitar.

“My teacher is acknowledged as the best left hand in Oregon. He admits his right hand isn’t so good so he’s only showing me left-handed work. One at a time is plenty!”

He moved consciously, proudly, but not gracefully. A fly, on flower or dung heap, avid in the sweat-filled navel. He had me flummoxed. I couldn’t yet sprawl comfortably, in case he was seducible after all, but I wanted to give up the effort and be friends. I didn’t want to fail and have to look at myself all depressed later. He never stopped smiling.