Urban, Anna thought. Christina Walters had a traditional urban femininity. Strangely, Anna liked it. On another woman it might have set her teeth on edge, but on the fair-haired clerk it looked good. Perhaps, Anna explained the phenomenon to herself, because Christina didn't push it: she chose it.

It crossed Anna's mind to put on a little lipstick and perfume when she got home that night. There'd been a time she'd lived in the stuff, a time she'd required it to feel attractive. With a sudden sense of achievement, she knew she could go back to it now just for fun, just for the sheer sensual pleasure of the commercial feminine luxury.

"Do you need something?" Christina was asking in a low voice with a hint of a drawl and Anna realized she had been staring.

"Do I look that desperate?" she answered with a laugh.

Christina Walters studied her gravely. "Yes."

"I'm afraid I'm fouling up in triplicate here." Anna almost said "fucking up" but there was something about Christina that made her want to seem a gentler person than she was.

"Let me see." Christina walked around the low wall and looked over Anna's shoulder. Delicate perfume drifted from her hair. White Linen, Anna guessed. It suited her.

"It's the 343 on the Drury Lion Kill," Anna said. She half turned in her chair and saw the fleeting freeze on Christina's oval face. An aging, a minute dying, as if for a moment pain- or hatred-had jabbed deep.

"Sony," Anna said with abrupt embarrassment. "I didn't realize you knew her that well."

Christina straightened up, her hair falling to hide her eyes. When she smoothed it back her face was working again. "I didn't know her that well. Here-" she pulled the form out of the typewriter "-it'll only take me a minute." Smiling with what looked like genuine warmth, she fluttered a manicured hand. "Magic fingers."