privacy lay in the living room like an expensive
gift.

Mo led him into a neatly organized kitchen. "I know who he is." Joe
pointed at a photograph of her father that hung above a table.

"Ah yes. My father. Do I look so much like him?"

"Very similar in the eyes and mouth." What else was there?

"Professor Soule," she said.

"I read his book," Joe confessed. "Pretty good writer." An expression
both arrogant and helpless flashed across her face. "Clear," Joe added.

"Yes. He's a worker." Her expression neutralized. Joe put a hand behind
his ear.

"I don't hear any dripping . . . "

"Let me show you. The kitchen doesn't drip all the time; the bathroom
is the worst." Joe leaned over the bathroom sink, thumped it, and
listened to its heartbeat.

"Operation iss required." He opened the aluminum case.

"Snazzo, so shiny," she said staring at the tools. "I'll fix the
salad."

Joe shut the water off and began dismantling a faucet, eventually
reaching the washer, held by a brass screw. He replaced both washers in
the bathroom and both in the kitchen.

"As new," he said, washing his hands.

"Wonderful." She carried a dark salad bowl one step down into a dining
room that had a tile floor and large windows. "I eat in the kitchen,
usually, but when I have company it's nice to be out here. Should we
have more light? It's sprinkling again." She switched on a paper globe
suspended over the table.

"I don't know . . . I like the natural light." She switched it off and
lit a sage colored candle. "There, that's better. We had this end of
the porch extended and made into a dining room. When it's clear, you
can see across the valley."

"Who we?"

"It was Thurston, really. It was Thurston's house. We lived together
for eight years. He ran off with his secretary to Texas."

"Oh."

"Ran isn't the right word. Thurston didn't run anywhere; he was rather
deliberate, actually. He gave me a deal on the house."

"That was good," Joe said.

"I didn't want him to go . . . Men just can't keep their thing in their
pants," she said angrily.

Joe remembered that silence was golden. Mo reached for a baguette of
French bread and broke it sharply. Joe took a piece and investigated
the cheese.

"Chevre?"

"Yes."

"Finest kind. Yummy salad." Fresh olive oil, Manoa lettuce, avocado,
scallions, a hint of lime or maybe Meyer lemon--delicious with the
crusty bread. "Vino?" She nodded and he poured them each a glass of
Sauvignon