luck?â
âNo, Iâve just been driving.â She did not feel like knitting together the explanation in her mind. She drank her scotch.
âWe havenât been here long,â the man said. âStill finishing the dissertation. Weâre out from New York. Thatâs where my wife is now. That faraway galaxy called New York . . . â He peered dolefully into his drink.
âIâm from the East too.â
He did not seem to hear her. âSo youâre really just driving? No obligations, no appointments? Sounds lawless.â
She fidgeted. Some of the papers from the couch fell onto the floor. She bent to pick them up.
âDonât bother about those. No point.â
âDoes your wife like it out here?â
âOh, sheâs busy enough keeping me in line, you know.â He laughed but it was not cheery. He fiddled with a thread on the arm of his chair. âItâs been an adjustment for her, cooking more, keeping up a house instead of an apartment. I mean, she paints and sketches too, of course.â He pointed at the charcoals.
The drawings troubled B. She tried to find them modern, but the nipples were out of proportion, bellicose. âTheyâre very interesting,â she said.
âHow old are you?â
Suddenly a chorus of drunk voices crowded in through the windows. âWell, helloooo, Professor! Helloooo, helloooo! Another one of your âconferencesâ?â Howls of laughter, catcalls.
The man raised his hand in embarrassed greeting. It was impossible with all the lights to make out any faces in the dark.
âDonât give that grade âtil she earns it!â someone yelled, then more howls of laughter. The manâs face looked like it would turn red if it werenât so mellowed. A few more mutterings and hoots and the commotion faded out.
âThe frats stay here all summer,â he explained. âAmazing they survive to fall.â
âThirty.â
âPardon?â
âIâm thirty years old.â
He looked her up and down. âWell. What a nice change. Iâm usually in the company of nubile student-girlsâseverely off-limits, of courseâor mommies and widows.â He got up and went into the kitchen. She heard the slamming of cabinets and the suction of a freezer door, ice clinking.
When he came back, he held a refilled drink in one hand and the bottle in the other. He sat back across from her in the slouchy arm chair, tearing more thread out of the upholstery, widening the hole. â I saw pale kings, and princes too,/Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;/They criedââLa belle Dame sans merci/Hath thee in thrall!â You made me think of that. Keats. My dissertation.â
âWell, thank you . . . I think . . . Itâs lovely.â
âWhat I find lovely, and fascinating, is exactly what a thirty-year-old woman is doing driving around the valley for no reason.â
âItâs not for no reason.â
âNo?â
The lights felt momentarily blinding. She drank more scotch. âCan you turn some of the lights off, please? I have a bit of a headache.â
âWhatever the lady wants.â He walked around the room and hallway until all the lights were off except a small lamp on an end table. She picked at a stain on her dress, hoping he would drop the subject.
âItâs funny,â he went on, âI find I can talk more easily to single women of a certain age. I tend to go out of bounds. Not always appreciated in normal, civilized speak. Iâve found that mature-yet-not-coarsened sensibilities appreciate the out-of-bounds from time to time.â
âI canât talk to people easily,â she said. The dimmed room relaxed her; it might be the alcohol, she realized. âIn college I was passable at it, but not anymore . . .
âWhat do you and your wife talk about, usually?â she asked.
âHa! Thatâs funny.â
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
John O'Riley
Brenda Sinclair
Christopher George
Stephen Lloyd Jones
Karl Iagnemma
Celya Bowers
Jill Gregory
Aria Cunningham