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wants to be a lawyer when she grows up. I have something awful to admit. I was a cheerleader in high school. Hope
that
doesn’t come out.
    I’d see him on the campus a lot and I had this . . . it was a notion — but it didn’t turn out to be so wrong — that he was stalking me. You know? Not like everywhere I go he’s on my heels, but sort of Hi, there, mind if I bring my coffee over?
    At some point we finally got onto the subject of the diamond ring that I kept waving in front of his face. So I told him about Remy. Told him what a special person he is. Invited him to the wedding — by the way, it’s this fall, Patricia, and you must come, you can do your impersonations. Anyway, he never lost a beat. Kept coming on with those bedroom eyes.
    So, getting to November twenty-seventh, the Law Students’ Association, the LSA — I’m chair of the social committee — planned to have a dance. Okay, strike against me: I did personally ask Jonathan if he’d like to come. But you know, it was a money-raiser; we were asking all the faculty, selling them tickets.
    Remy had gone away for a few days to South America with his father — the family has some investments there — and wasn’t coming back until late that night. So I went alone — I can just see his lawyer making hay with
that.
O’Donnell’s defence has got to be that I was a willing party, right? Is he going to deny tying me up? The lying bastard, I want you to tear him apart on the stand, Patricia. So I danced a bit — we had a live band — and when Professor O’Donnell came in, he made his usual beeline, and he bought me a drink and I … well, I asked him to dance. It wasn’t like a waltz where he’d be climbing all over me.
    I assume there’s going to be a great hue and cry about what I had to drink that night, so let me get my two bits in right now. I had exactly two rye and 7Ups at the dance. Don’t you love that drink? It’s so
common.
Now, the one he got me may have been a double, but I did
not
get loaded. Didn’t touch any of the pot that was going around, either. I don’t do drugs. Marijuana especially, I get too scrambled.
    So, back to the dance. Well, Jonathan and I chatted a little. I was sort of interested in his background, how his father became a knight, or whatever he is. A viscount. Don’t think he cares much for him. As his son, he’s entitled to be called Honourable Jonathan O’Donnell, did you know that? Right.
Honourable.
I mean, he wasn’tputting on the dog or anything — but it’s sort of impressive, isn’t it? To us commoners.
    Anyway, I was about to leave before the last number and I was on my way to get my coat when he magically materialized right in front of me. So we do the last set of dances, slow rock, uh-oh, I’m thinking, here’s the old high-school rub dance. But, you know, he was okay, kept a gentlemanly distance. He told me that the lecture theatre — these were almost his exact words — seemed to fill with a brilliant light every time I walked into it. That’s what he said. I remember thinking, maybe he’s not such a bad guy. Maybe a little crush on me, that’s all.
    Then he asked me if I was going to the after-party.…
    After a period of rain, a reluctant Apollo has finally spurred his fiery horses beyond the fleeing clouds, and today I have donned my coveralls. Steeling myself for the tasks ahead — a row of beans, a plot of potatoes (the carrots are in, the radishes are up!) — I light a cigarette and lean on my spade and contemplate my coming bounty, picturing it as the sylvan fields Virgil sang of.
Fortunatus et ille deos qui novit agrestis. Happy is he who knows the rural gods.
But my green reveries are interrupted by the noisy, belated arrival of Stoney and Dog, who show up — one month late — in a grunting rusted flatbed. My visitors look no