“What was it?”

“What?” Beatrice tore her eyes from the computer monitor.

“The book. The one you forgot?”

She frowned. “Oh…uh, Bonfire of the Vanities. Tom Wolfe.”

His lips twitched when he heard the title. “Oh.”

“Have you read it?”

His smile almost looked rueful as he turned back to his work. “No.”

“It’s good. It’s set in New York. I’ve never been, have you?”

He nodded as he took out a blank sheet of paper and started a new page of careful notes. “I have. It’s very…fast.”

“Fast?”

“Yes, I prefer the pace of Southern cities.”

“I can see that.”

“Can you?”

She looked up to see Giovanni staring, his blue-green eyes almost burning her with the intensity of their focus.

“I-I think so,” she said, glancing down to avoid his gaze.

He stared for another minute before she noticed him look back to his notes.

Beatrice let out a breath, oddly disturbed by their conversation. After another half an hour, he stood and began to pack up his materials to leave.

She watched him in amusement, his deliberate movements somehow reminding her of her late grandfather when he came home from work for the day. She flashed for a moment to the image of her Grandpa Hector emptying his pockets and setting his old-fashioned pocket watch on the dresser in her grandparents’ room.

Beatrice walked over to collect the manuscript and return it to the locked stacks. By the time she came back, she caught only a glimpse of Giovanni as he rushed out the door with a quick, “Goodnight, Beatrice,” called over his shoulder.

She watched him walk out the door with an admiring look, reminded again that there was nothing haphazard about the way Dr. Giovanni Vecchio moved. He walked with a fluid and silent grace that seemed as effortless as it was swift.

Beatrice exited the room a few moments after him, locking up behind her and making sure all the lights were off. She no longer expected to see him waiting for the slow elevator, and she thought she heard the click of the stairwell door as it closed down the darkened hall.