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television station," Valerie said lightly. "At least not so far. And I like to watch you work, Sybille; you're so good."
    "I'll expect you, then," Sybille said to Nick, and he was aware that it was the second time she had talked past Valerie, just to him. "If you want to see anything special, let me know in advance." She walked away and Nick watched her, admiring the decisiveness of her stride; she walked as if she were determined to make up in assertiveness what she lacked in stature. She was striking, with a face one would not forget; about Valerie's age, he thought, with heavy black hair held with an elastic band, a firm mouth, and rounded cheeks. But it was her eyes that Nick remembered: startlingly pale blue against her olive complexion, close together, heavy-lidded, guileless-looking, but alert, a combi-

    nation that made it impossible to guess what she was thinking.
    "Have you known her long?" he asked Valerie as they drove in her car toward the campus.
    "Most of my life. She's from Baltimore, and when we're at the farm her mother is my mother's dressmaker. She comes down from Baltimore one day a week, early morning to midnight, or later, doing fittings, because that's where the wealthy clients live, and Sybille's always tagged along, ever since she was a baby. Am I buying dinner or are we splitting it?"
    "It's already made at home. If you don't mind. How come she came all this way to school?"
    "She told my mother she wanted Stanford and nothing else, because if I chose it it must be the best. Can you imagine me as a role model? Anyway, she was so wild to come here my parents loaned her money for four years' tuition; I think she barely makes it by working at the station."
    "Where's her father?"
    "Dead, I think." She swerved to the curb. "I want to stop here for a minute, and buy some wine."
    "I have wine."
    "I know, but I want to contribute something and wine seems to be your weak point. The only one I've found. So far."
    He laughed. "Make it white, then; we're having veal."
    She bought four bottles of Chablis and he was silent until they left the store. "How are we dividing up four bottles of wine?"
    "We're having some left for next time."
    He smiled as he put the wine in the car. "Can you make a salad?"
    "I never have. \Vhy?"
    "I like the idea of our making dinner together."
    "I don't think you really want me in your kitchen, but I'll try."
    "Good enough."
    In the kitchen, he poured two glasses of wine, put the rest in the refrigerator and took out salad ingredients. Valerie stood beside him and began tearing the greens into pieces. "Did your mother teach you to cook?"
    "No, my father." He was measuring wild rice but glanced at her in time to see her quick look of surprise. "My mother is a secretary in a real estate office; she used to cook when she got home from work, but after awhile my father took over. She still cooks on weekends."
    "So your father cooks after work?"
    "During it, is more like it. He has a workshop in the garage and he's

    in and out of the house all day long." He put a pot of water on the stove and turned on the gas. "He's an inventor."
    "An inventor! Of what? Something I've heard of)"
    "Probably not. He's patented some tools that are used in automobile manufacture, and a new method for emulsifying paint—" He met her eyes. "Nothing you'd be likely to hear about."
    "Nope," she said cheerfully. "But I'm impressed."
    "He is impressive." Nick stared unseeing at the pot, waiting for it to boil. "He never gives up, he swallows a thousand discouragements and keeps going, he loves to share his successes but he keeps his failures to himself He's very smart and endlessly optimistic and he's a realist with a sense of humor. I've always wondered how he manages to be all those things at once."
    "You love him very much," Valerie said.
    Nick turned at the wistful note in her voice, but she was looking down, at the red pepper she was slowly cutting into tiny dice. He started to tell her to stop, that the