I liked her right away- admired her courage, her honesty, her gentle manner. Her looks were too notable to miss, but back then I appreciated them as an abstraction.

Ivory skin, soft but assertive cheekbones, a wide, strong mouth, the most gorgeous, waist-length black hair I’d ever seen. Huge eyes, blue as midnight, projected a sharp curiosity. Like me, she was a psychologist. Those eyes, I figured, would serve her well.

She grew up in Beverly Hills, the only daughter of an assistant attorney general, went to Penn, continued there for a Ph.D. In her senior year, she met a Wharton whiz, fell in love, married young, and moved back to California. Within months of receiving her state license, her husband was diagnosed with a rare malignancy, and she was widowed. Eventually, she pulled herself together and built up a Santa Monica practice. Now she combined clinical work with teaching nights at the U, and volunteering at a hospice for the terminally ill.

Keeping busy. I knew that tune.

Seated, her high waist and willowy arms and swan neck implied height, but like Robin, she was a small, delicately built woman- there I go again, comparing.

Unlike Robin, she favored expensive makeup, considered clothes-shopping a recreational activity, had no problem flashing strategic glints of diamond jewelry.

One time she confessed it was because she’d been late to enter puberty, had hated looking like a child all through high school. At thirty-seven, she appeared ten years younger.

I was the first man she’d been with in a long time.

When I called her, it had been months since we’d spoken. Surprise brightened her voice. “Oh, hi.”

I talked around the issue, finally asked her to dinner.

She said, “As in a date?”

“As in.”

“I thought there… was someone.”

“So did I,” I said.