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gathered at a long table speaking French. Entering with Michael, Lara stopped to chat. She did not introduce him.
    They stood in line for their paper cups of cappuccino and carried them to a table at the back.
    "I gather," Michael said, "you haven't agreed yet to serve on Phyllis's committee. And that I'm supposed to persuade you."
    "She's sweet," said Lara. "She seems to have done her work. But I don't want any tears. I don't rubber-stamp the language requirement. And I expect a capable defense conducted in standard English."
    "Phyllis is quite articulate. I can't speak for her fluency in French. She's intellectually curious. And of course she has a social conscience."
    The professor looked over Michael's shoulder to throw a backhanded farewell to one of their colleagues.
    "Her social conscience worries me," she said to Michael. "Please assure me. Will I hear pious prattle in American kiddie-speak? If I do, you see, she'll be out on her little bum."
    Michael made a note to warn poor Phyllis of what awaited her.
    "I'll vouch for her. I think we'll survive your scrutiny."
    "On your head be it," Lara told him.
    They looked at each other for a moment.
    "You do hear a lot of silly uplift," he said. "Phyllis isn't that way."
    "It's contemptible," she said with a fine sneer. "Life is a fairy tale and they're the good little fairies. The gallant little social egalitarian feminist fairies. It's our responsibility to keep them from getting loose in the world."
    "Keep them down on the farm," Michael said, "before they've seen Paree."
    "Right. Stifle them aborning. Because, you know, one sees them overseas," she said, "and one's ashamed to be an American."
    "They can get nasty too," Michael said. He had somehow not thought of Lara as an American.
    "But of course they're nasty. On their own ground, in absurd provincial backwaters of the academy—places like this—they run our lives."
    They both laughed.
    "You're blushing. I haven't offended you? Oh, but I suppose I have."
    "No, you're absolutely right," he said. "Jargon and goodie-speak prevail here. Actually, I'm not sure it's better at ... more prominent institutions."
    "There are nuances," she said. "Places like Berkeley are exhausted by politics. They're in deep reaction, which is fine with me. At other places—Yale, for example—the powers that be are merely cynical."
    "Tell me this," Michael said. "What's someone like you doing in an absurd provincial backwater?"
    "It's what I deserve," she said. "And you?"
    "I'm a genuine provincial. People like me provide authenticity."
    "In fact," she said, "I planned to settle here with my ex-husband. The job was a great convenience."
    "It's a nice town for kids."
    She shook her head. "No kids." Then she said, "You'll want to be going. Your dinner will be waiting."
    "Norman Rockwell," he said, "is stopping by tonight to sketch us."
    A little flaring of the fine nostrils. "An artist, isn't he? A sentimental artist? So you think I picture your home life as a sentimental ideal?"
    "Happy families are all alike," Michael said.
    "What will you have for dinner?"
    "We call it supper," Michael said. "We'll have pot roast."
    "I mustn't keep you from it," Lara said. "You can tell your protégée Phyllis I'll serve on her committee. I hope she won't regret it."
    "I'm confident she won't."
    She offered him her hand. "And," she said, "we can get to know one another."
    "Yes. Yes, I hope so."
    Just before he turned away, she cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. As if to say it was fated. As if to say, inevitable now. When he hit the cold street, his heart soared.
    It was a three-quarter-mile walk from the coffee shop to his house. The cold, the walk and the scintillations of his encounter with Marie-Claire Purcell had sharpened his desire for a drink. Kristin, in gym clothes, was in the kitchen preparing one of her quickie Viking specials, warm smoked salmon with dill and mustard sauce. She had taught two classes and spent the rest of the day at the pool.