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at the Sigs then back at Alison. She grinned. “At last, my chance at table six.”
    “Enjoy,” Alison told her. She went into the kitchen, said good night to Gabby and Thelma, and picked up her flight bag. When she came out, Eileen was already on her way to table six.
    She went to the rest room, intending to change into her street clothes, but the door was locked. With a shrug, she left. She didn’t mind walking home in the uniform. At night, it didn’t seem to matter so much.
    She started down the sidewalk, coins from tips jangling in her apron pocket. After a few steps, she crouched, opened her flight bag, and took out her purse. She was transferring handfuls of change from her apron to a side pocket of the purse when someone approached.
    And stopped in front of her.
    She recognized the beat-up, ankle-high boots.
    Her heart quickened.
    She looked up at Evan.
    “So,” she said, “you came after all.”
    “I never said I wouldn’t.”
    “I guess not.” She finished emptying her apron, buckled down the purse flap, shut the purse inside her flight bag, and stood up.
    “Can I carry that for you?”
    “If you like.”
    She handed it to him. Evan pretended it was too heavy, gasped with surprise and staggered sideways. “Whoa! Mucho tips, huh?”
    Alison found that she couldn’t smile.
    “Hard night?” he asked.
    “Hard afternoon.”
    “Oh.” He took her hand and they started walking. “Nobody came into the room, by the way. I stayed until after five.”
    “So it would’ve been perfectly all right, is that it?”
    “Yeah. I knew it would be.”
    “Good for you.”
    “Hey, come on. We didn’t do it, okay? You won. So what’s the big deal?”
    “No big deal,” Alison muttered.
    They waited at a street corner for the light to change, then started across.
    “Am I some kind of creep because I wanted to make love with you?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “Hell, we’ve done it in the park. Not just at night, either. What about Sunday afternoon?”
    She remembered the bushes, the sunlight, the feel of the blanket, the feel of Evan. It seemed a long time ago.
    “I don’t happen to see the big difference,” he said. “A park, a classroom.”
    They stepped onto the curb and started down the nextblock. They passed closed shops, a bar with the sounds of clacking pools balls and jukebox music drifting from the open door, more deserted stores.
    “So what’s the big difference?” Evan asked.
    “There’s not that much,” Alison told him. “It doesn’t have to do with that.”
    “You lost me.”
    “It doesn’t have to do with the difference between the park and your classroom.”
    “I still don’t get it.”
    She looked at him. He was frowning. “The thing is, you dumped on me.”
    “I see.”
    “It didn’t bother me that you wanted to have sex. It was your reaction when I said no.”
    “Just because I wouldn’t walk you to Gabby’s?” He sounded as if he considered that a silly reason to be upset.
    “Sort of,” Alison said.
    They reached the corner of Summer Street’s intersection with Central Avenue. Evan’s apartment was four blocks to the right, just off Summer. The house where Alison lived was straight ahead, two blocks past the end of the campus, on a road off Central. As she expected, Evan led her to the right.
    She didn’t resist.
    Her heart pounded harder.
    Earlier, she had made up her mind against going to his apartment tonight. She had doubted that he would meet her after work, anyway, but if he did come, she would simply have to tell him no.
    That kind of decision was easy, she realized, with Evan nowhere around and the confrontation sometime in the vague future.
    It wasn’t so easy when the time came.
    And it would get more difficult with every step. Before long, they would be at his apartment.
    “Wait,” she said. Stopping, she pulled her hand free. Evan looked at her.
    “I don’t think so,” she said.
    “You don’t think what?”
    “Not tonight.”
    In the dim glow from