sed, arms
outstretched, when he felt a washcloth gently but firmly applied. He
jumped. "Just cleaning up," she said cheerfully. "Go back to sleep."
Joe pictured his apartment. He rolled over on his side.

"Alison . . . " he said.

"Yes?"

"You take to this like a duck to water."

"It must be the Swedish," she said seriously.

"Alison, that was wonderful, but I have to go home."

"Oh." She was disappointed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"O.K., Joe."

He dressed, hugged her, and stepped outside. Widely separated
streetlights cast circles of blue light; hedges and trees were dark
green in the shadows. He was only forty minutes from home and he wanted
to walk in the cool air. Alison was going to make up for lost time. She
was in love with him and linking fast. He didn't want to hurt her.

"Complications," he told Batman, on duty at his post on the lanai.
"Nothing we can't handle." But he wasn't so sure.

9

The following Saturday, Joe was on Alison's couch again. Her need to be
coupled was stronger than his need to be alone. She must have known
that a future together was unlikely, but she didn't care. She was in
love. Joe couldn't bring himself to disappoint her. Besides, he enjoyed
her company and the small mole below her left ear and her smell which
reminded him of a field after rain.

They began eating dinner together every other night, but Joe continued
to go home afterwards, often in the early hours of the morning. It was
a compromise. He wanted to wake up in his own bed, stick to his habits,
take his notebook to a coffee shop and keep at his writing.

The weeks sped by as he wrote a longer story based on Mike, the cat
burglar. It was not successful. When he strayed from the facts as he
remembered them, he felt false and uncertain. He had the uneasy feeling
that he didn't know what he was doing. One afternoon toward the end of
August, he and Alison rode the Nuuanu bus to the end of the line and
walked to the bamboo grove that Mo had shown him. They stood on the
bridge and listened to the rhythmic hypnotic knocking.

"It's so romantic, Joe." Alison leaned against him.

"Yes."

She said, "You know I've got to go home."

"Mmm."

"My flight is Wednesday."

He sighed. "So soon?"

"Are you going to stay in Honolulu, Joe?"

He sensed the proposal behind the question. It was tempting to follow
her, to merge lives, to be a normal husband and give up his frustrating
search for something he didn'