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courtroom defeat behind me. The evening was off to a good start.
    Betsy and I were having one of our friendly arguments about runners. She’d been a top NCAA sprinter, and was going to coach the Prescott women’s team in the 1978-79 school year. Betsy was like a hummingbird — small, feisty, and hard to catch. So we liked to get each other going.
    “Go on,” Betsy scoffed, “women runners can compete with men.”
    The baby was gung-ho to crawl off the window-seat. We kept grabbing him.
    “Aw, Bets,” I said. “Look at the spread between men and women in short distance. Look at the 60-yard dash, for Chrissake. Women will never come close to the men’s world bests. No matter how hard they train!”
    “Aw, yourself!” she laughed back. “Look at long distance. Women are beating men one-to-one in the 100-mile races.” Holding the baby in one arm, she used the other to bat me over the head with a sofa pillow.
    Happily I defended myself with upraised arms.
    “Only a few women can win a hundred miler,” I said, taking the baby from her. “Exceptions prove the rule.” The kid was eight months now — all that was left of my lover. Alert, he stared at me boldly, waving his fists. Half of his chromosomes were Billy’s — how many would dominate? His blue-gray baby eyes — were they going to be Billy’s eye color? Would his black hair change color, like so many babies’ did, and go light brown, like Billy’s? His strong little feet felt more gifted at karate than running.
    I had heard the hippie talk about reincarnation, and wondered if it was possible — if Billy’s spirit was back in this tiny body?
    The baby grabbed my nose.
    “Holy jeez,” I exclaimed, pulling back.
    “I can hardly wait for him to start walking,” Betsy said dryly, taking the baby back.
    “He’s like a little falcon. He zooms in and nails things.” “A falcon? God, the Irish poet in you comes out at the weirdest moments.”
    ‘Well, that’s how falcons hunt. Good nickname for you, kid.”
    Falcon suddenly squalled with hunger.
    “Right now, he’s hunting me,” she said, sticking his head under her T-shirt, so he could nurse.
    His kicking feet quieted, and soft suckings floated in the air. Studying her lamp-lit figure, her smiling face bent over the baby, I felt that emotional foliage stirring in me that was still photosensitive to women’s moonlight. All the bitterness toward my ex-wife, and some nega-
    tive attitudes about women in general, hadn’t killed it. “What’re you looking at?” she said, blushing a little. “Oh ... you and Falcon.”
    Shyly, she pulled her T-shirt farther down over the baby.
    I shook my head. ‘You act like I’m going to grab your tit.” “Now and then I catch this vibe from you,” she said, coloring.
    “Some guys never touch women. I wasn’t one of those.” “Oooooo, the Neanderthal is talking bi.”
    Now I was running backwards, trying to lighten things up. “I’m not going to chase you.”
    ‘You couldn’t run a hundred miles anyway,” she leered puckishly.
    The subject needed changing.
    “How much were you with guys, anyway?” I asked. Betsy shrugged. “Oh ... a couple of times, in high school. But it wasn’t home.”
    “There’s all kinds of home.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It might be a good idea if we got married.”
    Mouth open, she stared at me. “What?”
    ‘You heard me.”
    She touched the gold ring on my hand. ‘You’re already married.”
    “More safety for you and Falcon. Legally, socially. And just on general principles. Unless you want to live with your own bodyguard.”
    “But nobody knows he’s Billy’s kid. I always let on that I don’t know who the father is.”
    “Supposing people find out? Like that guy who writes the hate letters?”
    “So ... you’re proposing a passing marriage? No sex?” ‘Yeah. Strictly camouflage.”
    “What about you and Vince?” she asked.
    “I’ll have to decide. I have a bad feeling about Vince.” “He