being pierced by a
thin hot wire. He smiled back as best he could and left quickly.

The next morning, the young woman looked at him calmly from her usual
seat in the corner of the coffee shop. "I did a drawing of you. Would
you like it?"

"Sure." Joe rose from his table and walked over. She handed him a
pencil drawing that showed him sitting, head forward, looking down. The
lines were simplified but intense. His head was like a hatchet about to
strike. It embarrassed Joe to realize that this maniacal stranger was
him, or her perception of him. There was life in it.

"It isn't very good," she said.

"I like it . . . Thanks. I'll trade; I'll give you some writing." She
seemed pleased. She had signed the drawing in one corner. "Rhiannon,
that's a beautiful name. I've never heard it before."

"It's Welsh."

"Oh. I'm Joe Burke--Irish." He meant it as a joke, but it sounded in
his ears like a warning or an acknowledgment of kinship. "So, you work
around here?"

"Club 21, the clothing boutique on the corner. I don't start until ten,
but I like to get up early, get out of the apartment." That explained
her stylish outfits. She put her sketch book, her pencils, and her CD
player into a backpack and waved goodbye.

The next day he gave her four poems, handwritten on heavy stock that he
bought in the art store next to the coffee shop. "Awesome," she said,
putting them carefully in her pack.

"I'm starting a novel," he said.

"I could never write a book."

"Do you live around here?"

"My mother has a place on Wilder Avenue."

"Not far from me--on Liholiho." She smiled her unsettling smile and
began drawing. Their conversations were short; each felt the other's
need for privacy. The back tables of the coffee shop became their
studio for an hour or two nearly every morning. Gradually, Joe saw that
Rhiannon was beautiful. She had no spectacular features; it was the
whole combo working together that was beautiful--hair, eyes, mouth,
clear skin, proud compact walk. Feeling flickered on her face like
firelight. She was stubborn; Joe could see that. But, at the same time,
she laughed at herself. They were a lot alike, and she knew it. That
was why her smile troubled him--to deny her was to deny himself.

The coffee shop was cheerful in the early morning. Many of the
customers were young and worked in the surrounding shops. Rhiannon
joked with them but maintained a friendly distance. Once, a young man
came over to her