“Sam?”

“You were very young and afraid of Charlie’s hugeness and physical strength. He could have ripped your head off with one hand. One reason you fell for him was that he was so mysterious and scary. With Sam, the ropes would be different. But I don’t think he would ever ask you. He would rather continue doing it with Lilac.”

“Maybe I’ll ask him. Shock him out of his shorts.”

“That’s the spirit. He would never harm you.” The image crossed and uncrossed its legs, actually looking nervous. “Marianne. Be realistic. So far in this life you’ve fallen in love with two giant foreigners, two alcoholic intellectuals, and an Irish hunchbacked philosopher. So Sam is an introverted Jewish polymath who sometimes likes to combine restraints with oral sex. He’s probably the most normal person you’ll ever be interested in.”

ONE PART HARMONY

The harp was easy to play, though of course it would take years to be able to play it well. Sam had put a daub of color at the top of each string, linking major triads, so O’Hara was able to strum simple melodies after only a few minutes’ experimentation. There were knobs on the base that gave the instrument an electronic dimension, so you could add vibrato and echo effects, but O’Hara liked it better plain, unplugged. It was just the right size for her to set the base in her lap and rest her chin on top of the vertical arm, so the chords sang inside her head, amplified by bone conduction.

She was sitting on the bed she shared with Daniel, playing a blues progression over and over, eyes closed, memorizing and didn’t hear the quiet door slide open.

“Taking up the harp?” Daniel said.

She started; almost dropped it. “Scared me!”

“Sounds pretty.”

“Yeah.” She strummed across the strings. “Sam made it for me.”

“Sam?”

“Wasserman. The historian. Remember? We were lovers, back in the New York rescue thing.”

He nodded silently and stepped over to the sink for a glass. Looking at her in the mirror: “Lovers again, then?”

“No.” She watched his face give away nothing. “It’s more serious than that.”

Daniel poured two centimeters of boo into the glass and diluted it with an equal amount of water. “Go on.”

“Why don’t you guess.”

“No games, Marianne. It’s been a bad day.” He took a sip and leaned against the wall. “Eliot had a real hair up his ass about TE&S allocations. I’m gonna get TE&S’ed out of existence.”

“Sam wants to marry me. Us.”

“Join the line.”

“Of course.”

Dan put the drink down and sat on the bed, his back to O’Hara. “Jesus. Everything happens at once, doesn’t it?”

“I’m sorry about the timing. Could I have some of that?”