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apologize for,” said Arnold. Heglared at the obese minister, but the sunglasses deflected his gaze. “Therefore, obviously, I won’t apologize.”
    More cameras snapped. Another reporter asked him a question about terrorism.
    “I would appreciate it if you all got the hell away from my house,” Arnold added. “You’re scaring off the bees. The forsythia won’t pollinate.”
    Then he stepped back into the dim foyer and slammed the door.
    Judith was still sitting in the darkened living room. She was clutching one of the sofa pillows to her chest like teddy bear.
    “Did you apologize?” she asked. “Please tell me you apologized.”
    “I told them to get their priorities straight.”
    Judith squeezed the pillow tighter. “I’m fifty-one years old, Arnold. I can’t handle this.”
    “I’m not going to apologize for something I didn’t do.”
    “But you
did
do it, Arnold. That’s the point.”
    “Well I didn’t do it the way they say I did it.”
    Arnold shook his head in the hope of clearing his thoughts; his brain remained murky. He sat down beside Judith on the edge of the couch and rubbed her shoulder.
    “Don’t touch me right now,” she snapped. Then she added: “Change your clothes. You’re trailing mud.”
    Arnold examined his path. Crumbs of caked earthspeckled the tile in the foyer.
    “Dammit,” said Arnold. He walked toward the kitchen door. “I’ll be outside if you need me. If you want to talk.”
    In the garden, the sun had burnt off the last of the haze. Brown creepers and nuthatches worked their way down the tree trunks. Wasps buzzed among the hollyhocks. A chipmunk darted across the stone wall beneath the linden. Only the oppressive din from the sidewalk distinguished this morning from any other—from a moment that might otherwise have belonged to a previous age.
    Much to Arnold’s consternation, the girl had left her ladder behind the hedges. He’d have no choice but to return it as soon as the crisis blew over. He was about to remove it—no need to invite in a real burglar—when a shadow darkened the flagstones behind him. It was the girl.
    “Looks like your first run-in with the media was a real hit,” she said. “You had them eating out of your hand.”
    “What the hell are you still doing here?”
    “I can hear them packing up their gear and running off to Africa this very minute. Who can blame them? They might miss breaking the next case of dysentery.”
    “I thought I ordered you to leave.”
    “I disobeyed.”
    “You have to leave. I need time to think.” Under different circumstances, he would have kept his cool.He’d even have invited the girl in for a cold drink before expelling her. But when he wasn’t getting along with Judith, everything in Arnold’s life stopped working. “I’m not joking anymore. I’ll call the goddam police.”
    “We’re you joking before?” asked the girl.
    “Fine, stay,” he snapped. “I’ll leave.”
    That’s when the idea struck him. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Do you still have that other ladder?”
    “It’s lying against the fence.”
    “So I could leave without going through the front door.”
    The girl smirked. “If I let you.”
    She stood between him and the ladders. He considered attempting to get past her—to use force, if necessary—but he didn’t like the idea of wrestling with a girl in her twenties. Besides, she might scream. The last thing he wanted was Spitford & Company coming around the back of the house.
    “You give me an interview,” offered the girl, “and I’ll lend you my ladders.”
    “That’s bullshit.”
    “That’s my best offer. Only offer, really. Take it or leave it.”
    Arnold remembered why he’d left academics. Too much negotiating. In business, ironically, nobody ever haggled. It just wasn’t worth it.
    “You drive a damn hard bargain,” said Arnold.
    She grinned and stuck out
her
tongue.
    “Deal?” she asked.
    “Deal. Now let’s get out of here.”

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