In the restaurant he brushed aside the fact they had no reservation and succeeded in being placed at the corner table he wanted. Jenny turned down the suggestion of wine. “I’d be drowsy in fifteen minutes. I was a bit short on sleep last night. Perrier for me, please.”

They ordered club sandwiches, then he leaned across the table. “Tell me about yourself, Jenny MacPartland.”

She tried not to laugh. “Did you ever take the Dale Carnegie course?”

“No, I didn’t. Why?”

“That’s the kind of question they teach you to ask on a first meeting. Be interested in the other fellow. I want to know about you.”

“But it happens that I do want to know about you.”

The drinks came and they sipped as she told him: “I am the head of what the modern world calls ‘the single parent family.’ I have two little girls. Beth is three and Tina just turned two. We live in an apartment in a brownstone on East Thirty-seventh Street. A grand piano, if I had one, would just about take up the whole place. I’ve worked for Mr. Hartley for four years.”

“How could you work for him four years with such young children?”

“I took a couple of weeks off when they were born.”

“Why was it necessary to go bck to work so quickly?”

Jenny shrugged. “I met Kevin MacPartland the summer after I finished college. I’d been a fine arts major at Fordham University in Lincoln Center. Kev had a small part in an off-Broadway show. Nana told me I was making a mistake but naturally I didn’t listen.”

“Nana?”

“My grandmother. She raised me since I was a year old. Anyhow Nana was right. Kev’s a nice enough guy but he’s a-lightweight. Two children in two years of marriage wasn’t on his schedule. Right after Tina was born he moved out. We’re divorced now.”