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tones and, without looking at each other, got themselves gracefully to the door. It was clearly understood between them that before they left they were going to have to say goodbye for good; Debbi started it.
    “Mrs. Harlowe,” she said, “I do want you to know that we appreciate all you’ve done.”
    “You’ve been very tolerant and sympathetic,” Joan said.
    “I’ve enjoyed it all so much,” Louise said. “Being here at the college has been quite an experience for both Lionel and me.” She laughed. “I think a year is enough, though.”
    “Lionel says he won’t ever give up teaching,” Joan said innocently.
    Louise smiled at her beautifully. “Lionel,” she said, emphasizing the word heavily, to make sure it carried to Joan, “Lionel has apparently been flattering you,” she said.
    She closed the door behind them, feeling ashamed of herself and afraid of seeing Lionel. There was still time for them to get to him before he came home; there was still time for Joan to tell him sweetly, “Mrs. Harlowe asked me—”
    She went out into the kitchen and made herself a drink. So I did it, she told herself defiantly. He can’t say a word without admitting everything. No more respect for his wife than that, she thought, every fat-faced little tomato who walks into his class. She took her drink back with her to the couch, and picked up the history book she was studying.

The Arabian Nights
    Alice was twelve; to be precise, Alice was twelve and a day when she went to a famous nightclub with her mother and father and Mr. and Mrs. Carrington. The Carringtons were friends of her family’s, and had just arrived that day from Chicago. “So Alice was twelve years old yesterday?” Mr. Carrington had said, looking down at Alice and grinning. “Don’t you think that calls for a little celebration?” Mr. Carrington was big and cheerful and red-faced; when he said “a little celebration” it meant he wanted to spend money and show someone a good time.
    Mrs. Carrington had red hair and was big and cheerful, like Mr. Carrington; Alice was very fond of both of them. “A girl’s only young once,” Mrs. Carrington had said. “This ought to be the finest celebration this old city has ever seen.”
    Alice’s mother and father were cheerful people too, and they had seen to it that Alice had a very pretty twelfth birthday party; her father gave her a charm bracelet with a tiny silver cocktail shaker and glasses on it, which made her feel daring and sophisticated, and her mother gave her a manicure set with natural-color polish. Because Alice was an only child she felt very close to her mother and father, in spite of an uneasy feeling at times that they had a complete life apart from her. She knew that they were immensely popular people, that their friends were witty and charming, and that their books were good and their ideas modern; only occasionally did she wonder what they talked about all the time when they were with their friends, since they had so little to say to each other.
    “Alice has never had a real grown-up celebration,” her father said. He reached for Alice, who was standing next to him, and pulled her down onto his knee. “She’s not a little girl anymore,” her father said. “She’s a young lady. What am I going to do,” he asked Mr. Carrington, “when some young man comes along and wants to take her away from me?”
    “Make sure he’s rich,” Mrs. Carrington said. “If I had a daughter I’d make sure she married a man who could support Charley and me in our old age.”
    “Stop mauling the child, Jamie,” Alice’s mother said. “She’s too big, and it’s undignified.”
    “Two days ago I could still hold her on my lap,” Alice’s father said, “but now that she’s twelve I can’t?”
    “On my fiftieth birthday,” Alice told her father, “I’ll come around and sit on your lap.”
    Alice’s father began to laugh. “See, honey,” he said to his wife, “not everyone thinks