A Measure of Blood by Kathleen George Page B

night worker who is logging out, gives him a high five. “Got good classes this term?” he asks.
    Nadal has only the one class, but he answers, “They’re looking okay. You?”
    â€œTerrible,” Josh says cheerily. “I’m going to flunk three of them, I’m sure.”
    Nadal sits and tinkers. He checks his email to see if there’s anything about his Pitt News ad. Yep, it didn’t bounce back. Hopefully it will be in the paper tomorrow, Wednesday.
    He is looking up notaries in the area so that he can do the sale as quickly and painlessly as possible, when a woman approaches the desk. “Could you help me?” She dips her head a little. “My computer just froze on me. I don’t know what I did.”
    He guesses she is about forty. Her hair is long and straight, kept in place by a thin scarf tied at the back of the neck. She has a very Anglo face, not at all bad looking. Is she flirting? He can’t tell.
    He stands. “Show me what the problem is.”
    They walk to one of the computers where he can take a look at her screen. It’s frozen but it’s not her fault. Beginning of the term—always always problems with the new setups. “Ah,” he says. “I’ll have to work on this one later. Let’s try another.”
    They move to the next one over. It behaves much better, giving her a log-in screen that then gets her into some Internet choices. She logs on with ALA21 . “There you go.”
    â€œAnd if I, say, want to buy some of my books online, do you know the best sources? I’m sorry. I’m new to this. Just coming back to school.”
    He instructs her how to choose search words that will get her to used textbooks. She works on this while he fiddles with the machine that won’t unfreeze, eventually taking his own advice and restarting—which works. He looks like a genius.
    â€œYou’re just starting college?” he asks.
    â€œWell, more or less. I finished freshman year a while back. Then I ran off and got married.”
    He tinkers for a while at the computer he got working, pretending to test various applications. When he looks up, she smiles at him.
    â€œSo that’s romantic, to run away to get married.”
    She looks amused. “It was for a while. Then it went stale. Then it was over. And now I’m trying to make up for lost time.” She shakes her head at her predicament. “I’m going to stick out in every class.”
    â€œNo, no, it’s okay. There are others.”
    â€œLike me?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat’s good news. I feel very awkward.”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    â€œWhere do you come from?”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œI hear a little bit of an accent.”
    â€œBrazil.”
    â€œHow totally exciting. São Paulo or Rio or where?”
    â€œRio. But a long time ago.”
    â€œDo you go back?”
    â€œNo. Not yet.”
    â€œI love Rio.”
    Well, now he can’t talk to her until he researches Rio. There’s always something to catch up on. But he needed this, her. She smiles at him as if he’s somebody. “You’re an undergrad?”
    â€œGraduate school,” he says.
    â€œIn what?”
    â€œComputer science.”
    â€œWell, I certainly knew who to come to. Thanks.” Her smile is quite beautiful.
    COLLEEN SITS WITH ARTIE DOLAN sorting through folders full of bills or other papers at a small table in Potocki’s cubicle while Potocki works on the computer. This way they all have company today. Conversation. She didn’t much like her stint with the surveillance tapes yesterday.
    â€œAnything?” Potocki asks after thirty minutes.
    â€œNot so far,” Dolan says. “Only thing is she kept decent records. So why would the records from the year she got pregnant not be here?”
    â€œExactly what I keep thinking,” Potocki says. He’s now looking at domestic abuse