“Ah. There he is now. Your knight in shin­ing ar­mor,” Mrs. Lat­timer said as we came around the cor­ner.

I don't know about the knight part, but there was def­inite­ly shin­ing ar­mor in­volved. Idling at the curb on the cir­cle was a sleek sil­ver sports car that was so slim and com­pact I had no idea how Whit­tak­er might ac­tu­al­ly fit in­to it. The mo­ment he saw us ar­rive, he stepped out from the driv­er's side and closed the door with a qui­et pop. No clang, no bang, no shim­my. It was an ex­pen­sive car's door slam, muf­fled by sol­id con­struc­tion and what looked like a creamy leather in­te­ri­or.

“Good evening, Mrs. Lat­timer,” Whit­tak­er said, walk­ing over to us. He car­ried a huge bou­quet of red ros­es and wore a black suit with a white shirt and a tie with tiny crests all over it. He ac­tu­al­ly looked quite hand­some. Big and burly and hand­some. The re­vul­sion I had felt the oth­er morn­ing had, mer­ci­ful­ly, passed--or at least put it­self on hold in the face of more im­por­tant things.

'Wal­ter," Mrs. Lat­timer said with a sober nod.

“Reed,” he said. 'You're stun­ning."

“Thanks,” I replied light­ly, try­ing to keep it ca­su­al.

He hand­ed me the bou­quet of ros­es, which smelled un­be­liev­able. “These are for you.”

“Thanks,” I said again. Mrs. Lat­timer cleared her throat- some sort of in­di­ca­tion to me. “They're uh . . . love­ly.”

Whit­tak­er smiled. “Shall we?”

184

He of­fered me his arm, as I had seen done in count­less movies, and I al­most laughed. Mrs. Lat­timer nod­ded to me in a nudg­ing way and I moved the bou­quet to the crook of my left arm and slipped my right hand around his fore­arm. How I man­aged to do this with­out fid­get­ing or drop­ping any­thing, I have no idea. Ap­par­ent­ly, watch­ing all those movies had paid off.

Whit­tak­er walked me over to the car and opened the door for me with a slight bow. I dropped in­to the buck­et seat, tuck­ing my jack­et un­der my legs. When I looked out at Mrs. Lat­timer again, she closed her eyes and shook her head.

Ap­par­ent­ly there was a more grace­ful way to do that. At least Whit­tak­er didn't seem to no­tice. He closed the door and turned to say a few words to Lat­timer. I went to put the ros­es at my feet, but there was no room. They would have stuck up be­tween my legs. I tried the back­seat, but there was none. Fi­nal­ly I just laid them in my lap and buck­led my seat belt be­neath them.

I took a deep breath, in­hal­ing the new-?leather-?and-?ros­es scent, and sat back, at­tempt­ing to keep this gray cloud that had been fol­low­ing me around all night at bay. Try­ing to keep from giv­ing it a name. I ran my hand over the chrome dash­board and tried to be ex­cit­ed. This was amaz­ing, re­al­ly. This car, the dress, the flow­ers. Be­ing whisked off cam­pus to some swank restau­rant while the rest of the school was back in the cafe­te­ria eat­ing Fri­day night pot roast. I was lucky. I re­al­ly was.

My eyes filled with tears.

Too bad I was with the wrong guy.

185

The gray cloud en­veloped me. Thomas was its name. This ro­man­tic evening should have been planned by him. I should have been with him. But in­stead he was out there who knew where, and I was here on a date with an­oth­er guy.

The driv­er's-?side door opened and Whit­tak­er fold­ed him­self in be­hind the wheel. “I'm hon­ored that you de­cid­ed to come with me tonight, Reed,” he said.

I took a deep breath and made my­self smile. This was a means to an end. That was all it was. And if all went well here tonight, I'd be see­ing Thomas soon enough.

“I'm hon­ored you asked me.”

186

BIRTH­DAY BOY

On our ap­proach to Boston I spot­ted the huge neon Cit­go sign near the wa­ter and mark­ers di­rect­ing traf­fic to Fen­way and Har­vard. I stared out the win­dows at all the his­toric build­ings, the domes and spires lit by the soft glow of strate­gi­cal­ly placed lights. On the wa­ter dozens of beau­ti­ful, pris­tine sail­boats bobbed, tied up to docks, the wa­ter lap­ping at their bows. Tall apart­ment build­ings hov­ered over them, af­ford­ing what must have been amaz­ing views of the har­bor and killer sun­ris­es each and ev­ery morn­ing.

I had al­ways won­dered what it would be like to live near the wa­ter. Grow­ing up in cen­tral Penn­syl­va­nia, I had nev­er even been to the ocean. Now, see­ing the At­lantic for the first time--even if it was just a tame in­let--I was hooked. It was all so peace­ful and beau­ti­ful and serene.

“You look star struck,” Whit­tak­er said to me as he turned the car and put the har­bor in the rearview mir­ror.

“It's just re­al­ly nice,” I said. “Thanks for bring­ing me.”

Whit­tak­er smiled. “Any­time.”

We zipped along the wa­ter past huge ho­tels and the state-?of-

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