Incidents and fragments, bits-and-pieces time. Like- "You're not joking?"

"I'm afraid not."

"I'd rather it looked like hell for the obvious reasons," she said, wide-eyed, backing toward the door we had just come through.

"Well, whatever happened, it's done. We'll just clean up and ... "

She reopened the door, that long, lovely, wild hair dancing as she shook her head vigorously.

"You know, I'm going to think this over a little more," she said, stepping back into the hall.

"Aw, come on, Ginny. It's nothing serious."

"Like I said, I'll think about it."

She began closing the door.

"Should I call you later, then?"

"I don't think so."

"Tomorrow?"

"Tell you what, I'll call you."

Click.

Hell. She might as well have slammed it. End of Phase One in my search for a new roommate. Hal Sidmore, who had shared the apartment with me for some time, had gotten married a couple of months back. I missed him, as he had been a boon companion, good chess player and general heller about town, as well as an able explicator of multitudes of matters. I had decided to look for something a bit different in my next roommate, however. I thought I had spotted that indefinable quality in Ginny, late one night while climbing the radio tower behind the Pi Phi house, as she was about her end-of-day business in her third-floor room there. Things had gone swimmingly after that. I had met her at ground level, we had been doing things together for over a month and I had just about succeeded in persuading her to consider a change of residence for the coming semester. Then this.

"Damn!" I decided, kicking at a drawer that had been pulled from the desk, dumped and dropped to the floor. No sense in going after her right now. Clean up. Let her get over things. See her tomorrow.

Somebody had really torn the place apart, had gone through everything.