“You keep it nice,” Catherine offered.

“Oh, Mother Mascalco brought her boy up right,” Tom said with a grin. She noticed that Tom wasn’t sloppy in dress even on the weekend. He was wearing a sports shirt obviously straight from the laundry; and, amazingly, his jeans had creases. “The bed, I have to admit, is not made. You wouldn’t be interested in seeing the bedroom?”

Catherine shook her head with a smile. “We wouldn’t suit,” she said. “Besides, what happened to your fiancée in Memphis? I thought one reason you took the job here was because you could drive up to see her on weekends.”

“She dumped me,” Tom said, with an attempt at lightness. “Haven’t you noticed that I’ve been lurking around here the past two weekends?”

Well, yes, she had noticed, kind of. But she had vaguely assumed he had fetched the girl from Memphis for some weekend housekeeping. Tom’s visits to her house had been during the past two weeks, now that she came to think of it.

“Stuck here for nothing,” Catherine said, making a tactful effort to match Tom’s light tone. “Well, this job will look good on your résumé.”

“Yeah,” he said morosely. “Want something to drink? Beer, orange juice? I have some milk, too,” he added apologetically, “but I think it’s past its prime. Or dope?” He opened the cigarette box, and Catherine saw that it held at least fifteen rolled joints.

“Yes to the beer,” she said.

“Turning into an alcoholic,” Tom said with a mocking shake of the head, as he unfolded his lanky frame from the low couch and went into the kitchen.

“You better watch out with this stuff,” Catherine called after him, putting the lid back on the cigarette box. She wandered around the room, then followed him to the kitchen. It too was neat, without being exactly clean. “This little house sits in the county, you know,” she said “and you’d have Galton to contend with rather than the town police.”