Low barometer, Anderson thought. That's all it is. Makes us both restless, cranky.

And her damned period. Usually she flowed heavy and then just stopped. Like turning off a faucet. This time she just went on leaking. Bad washer, ha-ha, she thought with no humor at all. She found herself sitting in front of the typewriter just after dark on the second rainy day, a blank sheet rolled into the carriage. She started to type and what came out was a bunch of X's and O's, like a kid's tic-tac-toe game, and then something that looked like a mathematical equation … which was stupid, since the last math she'd taken was Algebra II in high school. These days, x was for crossing out the wrong word, and that was all. She pulled the blank sheet out and tossed it away.

After lunch on the third rainy day, she called the English Department at the university. Jim no longer taught there, not for eight years, but he still had friends on the faculty and kept in touch. Muriel in the office usually knew where he was.

And did this time. Jim Gardener, she told Anderson, was doing a reading in Fall River that night, June 24th, followed by two in Boston over the next three nights, followed by readings and lectures in Providence and New Haven – all part of something called The New England Poetry Caravan. Must be Patricia McCardle, Anderson thought, smiling a little.

'So he'd be back … when? Fourth of July?'

'Gee, I don't know when he'll be back, Bobbi,' Muriel said. 'You know Jim. His last reading's June 30th. That's all I can say for sure.'

Anderson thanked her and hung up. She looked at the phone thoughtfully, calling up Muriel fully in her mind – another Irish colleen (but Muriel had the expected red hair) just now reaching the far edge of her prime, round-faced, green-eyed, full-breasted. Had she slept with Jim? Probably. Anderson felt a spark of jealousy – but not much of a spark. Muriel was okay. Just speaking to Muriel made her feel better – someone who knew who she was, who could think of her as a real person, not just as a customer on the other side of the counter in an Augusta hardware store or as someone to say how-do to over the mailbox. She was solitary by nature, but not monastic … and sometimes simple human contact had a way of fulfilling her when she didn't even know she needed to be fulfilled.