would have made the other models in the magazine look like horses-was in repose. Her full 
lips were slightly parted as she sang softly with the music; and this bit of animation, 
this parting of the lips had more sensual impact than a heavy-eyed, full-faced leer from 
Elizabeth Taylor. As she leaned against him, her dark hair fanned across his shoulder, 
and her scent-clean and soapy-rose to him.
  In Bexford, he parked across the street from the tavern.
  She switched off the radio and kissed him once, quickly, as a sister might. "You're a 
nice man."
  "What did I do?"
  "I didn't want to talk, and you didn't make me."
  "It wasn't any hardship," he said. "You and me. . . we communicate with silence as well 
as with words. Hadn't you noticed?"
  She smiled. "I've noticed."
  "But maybe you don't put enough value on that. Not as much as you should."
  "I put a great deal of value on it," she said.
  "Jenny, what we have is-"
  She put one hand on his lips. "I didn't mean for the conversation to take such a 
serious turn," she said.
  "But I think we should talk seriously. We're long overdue for that."
  "No," she said. "I don't want to talk about us, not seriously. And because you're such 
a nice man, you're going to do what I want." She kissed him again, opened her door, and 
got out of the car.
  The tavern was a warm, cozy place. There was a rustic bar along the left-hand wall, 
about fifteen tables in the center of the room, and a row of maroon leatherette booths 
along the right wall. The shelves behind the bar were lit with soft blue bulbs. Each of 
the tables in the center of the room held a tall candle in a red glass lantern, and an 
imitation stained-glass Tiffany lamp hung over each of the booths. The jukebox was 
playing a soulful country ballad by Charlie Rich. The bartender, a heavyset man with a 
walrus mustache, joked continuously with the customers. Without trying for it, without 
being aware of it, he sounded like W. C. Fields. There were four men at the bar, half a 
dozen couples at the tables, and other couples in the booths. The last booth was open, 
and they took it.
  When they had ordered and received their drinks from a perky red-headed waitress-Scotch 
for him and a dry vodka martini for her-Paul said, "Why don't you come up and spend a few 
days with us at camp? We have an extra sleeping bag."
  "I'd like that," she said.
  "When?"
  "Maybe next week."
  "I'll tell the kids. Once they're expecting you, you won't be able to back out of it."
  She laughed. "Those two are something else," she said.
  "How true."
  "Do you know what Rya said to me when she was helping me pour the coffee after dinner?" 
Jenny took a sip of her drink. "She asked if I had divorced my first husband because he 
was a lousy lover."
  "Oh, no! She didn't really."
  "Oh, yes, she did."
  "I know that girl's only eleven. But sometimes I wonder..
  "Reincarnation?" Jenny asked.
  "Maybe that's it. She's only eleven years old in this life, but maybe she lived to be 
seventy in another life. What did you say to her when she asked?"
  Jenny shook her head as if she were amazed at her gullibility. Her black hair swung 
away from her face. "Well, when she saw that I was about to tell her it was none of her 
business whether or not my first husband was a lousy lover, she told me I mustn't be 
cross with her. She said she wasn't just being nosy. She said she was just a growing 
girl, a bit mature for her age, who had a perfectly understandable curiosity about 
adults, love and marriage. Then she really began to con me."
  Paul grimaced. "I can tell you the line she used: Poor little orphan girl. Confused by 
her own pubescence. Bewildered by a new set of emotions and body chemistry."
  "So she's used it on you."
  "Many times."
  "And you fell for it?"
  "Everyone falls for it."
  "I sure did. I felt so sorry for her. She had a hundred questions-"
  "All of them intimate," Paul said.
  "-and I answered all of them. And then I found out the whole conversation was meant to 
lead up to one line. After she had learned more about my husband than she could ever want 
to know, she told me that she and her mother had had long talks a year or so before Annie 
died, and that her mother told her you were just a fantastic lover."
  Paul groaned.
  "I said to her, 'Rya, I believe you're trying to sell your father to me.' She got 
indignant and said that was a terrible thing to think. I said, 'Well, I can't believe 
that your mother ever said anything of the sort to you. How old would you have been then? 
Six?' And she said, 'Six, that's right. But even when I was six, I was very mature for my 
age.'"
  \Vhen he was done laughing, Paul said, "Well, you can't
  blame her. She's only playing the matchmaker because she likes you. So does Mark." He 
leaned toward her and lowered his voice slightly. "So do I."
  She looked down at her drink. "Read any good books lately?" He stirred his Scotch and 
sighed. "Since I'm such a nice man, I'm supposed to let you change the subject that 
easily."
  "That's right."
  Jenny Leigh Edison distrusted romance and feared marriage. Her ex-husband, whose name 
she had gladly surrendered, was one of those men who despise education, work, and 
sacrifice, but who nonetheless think they deserve fame and fortune. Because, year after 
year, he achieved neither goal, he needed some excuse for failure. She made a good one. 
He said he hadn't been able to put together a successful band because of her. He hadn't 
been able to get a recording contract with a major company because of her. She was 
holding him back, he said. She was getting in his way, he said. After seven years of 
supporting him by playing cocktail-bar piano, she suggested that they would both be 
happier if the marriage were dissolved. At first, he accused her of deserting him, and 
then he threatened to kill her if she left. She divorced him. "Love and romance aren't 
enough to make a marriage work," she had once told Paul. "You need something else. Maybe 
it's respect. Until I do know what it is, I'm in no hurry to get back to the altar."
  Like the nice man that he was, he had changed the subject at her request. They were 
talking about music when Bob and Emma Thorp came over to the booth and said hello.
  Bob Thorp was chief of the four-man police force in Black River. Ordinarily, a town so 
small would have boasted no more than a single constable. But in Black River, more than a 
constable was needed to maintain order when the logging camp men came into town for some 
relaxation; therefore, Big Union Supply Company paid for the four-man force. Bob was a 
six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound ex-MP with martial arts training. With his square face,