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some other guy because I didn’t move fast enough. Some guy with a lot of money, like one of those D.C. lawyers who like to hang out at the Lodge when they come over to check on their rental properties. You know the guys … fucking speculators from over in D.C. I see them eyeing her. Guys with money, man, that’s my enemy.”
    The words stuck in Bob’s craw. Everything Dave said about Lou Anne was twice as true for Jesse. Rich lawyers from Fells Point were always falling into Bertha’s Mussels. He’d been in there a couple of times and seen them talking to her.
    “Jesse, you look great today.”
    “Jesse, what
is
that perfume? Doesn’t she smell terrific?”
    “Jesse, baby, those high heels are really sexy.”
    Christ, if he didn’t make a move soon … he’d lose her. The thought made him sick to his stomach. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t stand it. He had to have her. What the hell was he going to do without her? That was the roughest part of all. Having deadened himself to the world for so long, now that he was feeling alive again, he couldn’t imagine going back to the same old daily routine.
    No, he couldn’t, he really couldn’t bear it.
    What the hell was he going to do?
    It was four in the morning and Bob walked around his house in a loop, by the bed, into the hall, down the end of the hall to the bathroom, around the bathroom, and back down the hall to his bedroom again. He made this loop seven times, then put on his sweater and leather jacket and walked down the steps and out the front door.
    He stood outside her apartment, looking up at the dark second floor. She was up there sleeping, he was sure of it. This was madness, standing out here like an adolescent, but that was how he felt now, like a crazed kid who was just getting his first shot of hormones.
    What should he do? Throw pebbles at the window? Start singing a love song? Christ, he had no idea how to act. He was like a zombie brought back to life but with no memory of what it was like to be human.
    What would be a cool and subtle move?
    He walked around in a circle trying to come up with it.
    But it was no use. No good. He had not one idea.
    Finally, afraid that he might chicken out entirely, he walked up the marble steps and saw her name on the buzzer: REARDON, J.
    There was nothing else to do or say.
    He started to push the button but the light came on in the hall.
    Amazingly, she was standing there, dressed in a black nightgown that flowed dramatically to the floor.
    She opened the door and smiled at him in a curious way.
    “Bob, I happened to look out the window a minute ago and you were out here walking around in circles. Is something wrong?”
    “Can I come in?”
    “All right. But just for a while.”
    He looked down at the floor as he brushed past her. Slowly, he walked up the stairs to her apartment.
    Her place was funny, he thought. Though it was an apartment in the city, it might as well have been a rustic cabin in the West Virginia hills. There were pictures on the fireplace mantel of a glen somewhere in the mountains. There was an old rocker, obviously carved by some backwoods furniture maker. There was a couch with a handmade quilt thrown over it.
    Bob felt swept away by the simple beauty of it all. He looked at her as she sat on the couch across from him. She was barefoot, and suddenly Bob had an intense desire to kiss her feet. The thought unnerved him even more.
    “What’s wrong, honey?” she said, in her smoky voice.
    “What’s wrong?” Bob said. “You barely talked to me tonight.”
    “I had to go home. I had to think,” she said.
    “And?” he said.
    “Bobby, I do care for you … but I don’t know … I don’t know if I can go through it.”
    Bob moved to the edge of his seat. He felt as though he might fall off into space.
    “Go through what?” he said.
    “You’ll hate me if I tell you,” she said.
    “Never,” Bob said. “For God’s sake, tell me what it is.”
    “If I was a little