Connie Steffano was looking for work for the first time, and looking for an apartment for the first time. Just to increase the stress, she was doing it in Springfield, Wisconsin, which was -- although she'd lived there for a while -- much less familiar than Hartford had been. She'd mostly hung around campus rather than exploring the town. She wore one of the skirts she'd brought from home, almost the first time she'd worn it. Slacks were for the university, skirts for the business world.

She could stay in the dorm for only one more week before it closed. So, since she had some money in the bank, she looked for an apartment first. These should be easier to find in the summer in a college town. "We rent it out to college girls every year," the woman told her on Saturday about one of the apartments she'd seen advertised. "One of the girls is staying over for the summer, and we have more bedrooms. There is a shared kitchen and a bath. I have to stay in the office, but Dwight will be back soon. He can show it to you."

Connie thought the woman shouldn't be walking around showing apartments anyway. She was pregnant and looked to be due any day. "My situation is a little iffy," she explained. "I'm looking for work around here, and I'll need a place within walking distance of the job I get."

"Hmm?" the woman said. "Type?"

"Yes. Know of anybody looking for a typist?"

"College typing or real typing?"

"I've used it for college work, but I learned beside women who were going into office work."

"And you go back to school after Labor Day?"

"Yes."

"Here, type me a copy of this." She handed Connie a letter and got up to give her a place at the typewriter.

Connie typed the letter out just as it was written.

"Dwight," the woman called to footsteps on the stairs, "I think we've solved both problems."

"What problems?" the man who came through the door asked. He was fat, bald, fortyish, and smoking a cigar.

"This girl wants a room and a summer job. She can type, if not very fast. Why not hire her as my replacement and rent her one of the rooms over on Pine Street?"

"Damn it Gloria, I can hold off 'til after the Fourth."

"That's nice. I'll return after Labor Day. And I mean the federal holiday, not when I go into labor."

"You don't need that much time."

"It's real generous of you to give me your medical opinions for free, Dwight. But I'll still depend on Doctor Brandon. Don't let Dwight bother you, hon. His bark's worse than his bite."

"Does she know anything about real estate?"

"Nope. You have the license; you'll have to tell her. Why don't you walk her over to Pine Street. You'll see, hon, it isn't that far."

"Get in the car," Dwight said when they were downstairs. He drove them to a large house. It had once been a mansion, but not recently. "Smoking or not?" Dwight asked as they went up the stairs. It was rather late to ask that question, as he'd been puffing away in the car.

"I don't smoke."

"Well, that girl does. Let's look at this apartment." He unlocked a door. "Kitchen," he said with a gesture. It was larger than the living room and furnished with a table and chairs. "Bedroom, bedroom, bedroom, bedroom, bath. The bedrooms'll be cleared out tomorrow." The bathroom contained a tub, but no shower. Fairly clearly, the original bathroom on this floor had been divided into one for this apartment and one for the other apartment. The dividing wall cut diagonally across the original room.

"You pay $200 a month, for one of the bedrooms and access to the kitchen, living room, and bath. During the school year, we rent out the apartment to one person who finds the other roommates. You pay phone, electric, and gas; how you divide the utilities between the four of you is your business. You pay one month's deposit and the last month's utilities are taken out of it before you get it back. Interested?"

$200 a month sounded high to Connie, although a room of her own sounded attractive. And she didn't have a job yet. "I might be interested. Let's walk back and see how long it would take me to walk to your office." He gave her directions, instead. It was a shorter walk than it had been a drive; Springfield was full of one-way streets.

She accepted the job and the apartment. The job's hours ran from 11:00 to 7:00 Monday through Saturday. She got an hour off for lunch; just when depended on when Mr. Williams -- which was what she would call the man whom Gloria called 'Dwight'-- got back. She'd be paid $5 an hour. Gloria would stay on to show her the ropes.

Sunday, she went back to St. Matthew's, which was closer to the place she'd be living now than it was to the dorm.

She bought a shopping cart Monday morning, and moved her stuff to the new apartment over the next few days. Her new bed was a single; she checked all of the rooms, and they were all the same. The dorm room bed had been a twin, which meant that the fitted sheets weren't. She bought sheets. She found herself going to the bank in the morning before work. She wasn't hurting, but a lot was going out -- the expected roommates hadn't appeared and she paid a month's utility bills -- before her first paycheck came in.

She took the room whose air conditioner looked least likely to break down, which wasn't saying a lot.

Gloria filled her in on the job. Not all that much of it involved typing; there was a good deal of filing, but there was a good deal of sitting around and getting to know Gloria, too. They added new girls to the apartment and the other one on the floor, adding them by offering a lower rent than Connie was paying. Professor Franke would have appreciated the slope of the supply curve, certainly appreciated it more than Connie did.

The first roommate was Michelle Kurek. Then there were two girls who smoked and went into the other apartment. The apartment on the ground floor was rented to men during the school year, but would be empty for the summer. The second roommate was Wendy Toffler.

She still had a mailbox at the University. When she visited it one Monday morning after ignoring it for a while, she found several letters. She had the grades for the last quarter both from the University and from Helen who'd forwarded them. She had an 'A' in English 103 and a 'B' in the Jeffers course. She got 'B's in economics and phys-ed, and a 'C'in geology.

She had 43 hours towards the graduation requirement of 150, and a GPA of 3.12. If her calculations were right, that didn't include gym. Considering that she had more than half the distribution she'd need out of the way, that GPA rocked.

Wednesday of her second week in the office, a boy ran up the stairs. "Where's dad?" he asked.

"He's showing a property," answered Gloria. "Drew Williams, Connie Steffano. He's not always this rude; sometimes he's worse."

"Dammit, Gloria. Linda-Sue broke up with me."

"What is this, the twelfth time?"

"This may be permanent. She's going off to Madison in the fall."

Gloria took him back into his father's office, leaving Connie to handle whatever business came in. "I'll be there if it's an emergency, hon."

Connie could handle almost everything which came in by then. She had learned to get to the office just before 11:00. She would unlock the doors, having bought new keys as one of her first tasks as an employee, and get to her desk on the dot of 11:00. Her leaving times weren't that fixed. "You have to see," Mr. Williams said, "real estate is all about service. When people are here thinking about buying a house and it turns seven, they don't want you telling them to go home."

And, when he was in the middle of telling a joke when it turned seven, he didn't want her telling him to go home, either. Nor did he stop abruptly when he was complaining about his family. Connie knew enough about the ways of the world to ignore his comments that his wife didn't understand him, but he might just have been blowing off steam. He was as full of complaints about his son. "You go to the University, don't you?" he asked the Friday after Drew had looked for him. "And you come from the East?"

"Hartford." She vaguely resented his implication that Savannah was about the same.

"Wish you would talk to Drew. He thinks he has to go to New York University." Connie thought he meant SUNY, but wasn't sure.

"I can't help you there. One reason I came to Benson was to get experience in an entirely different environment. Benson satisfies me that way; it would hardly satisfy Drew."

She took to eating breakfast at the apartment, lunch and dinner at diners near the office. There were three diners within easy walking distance, and cooking in the apartment after you'd got off work at 7:00 (or, occasionally, 7:30) didn't appeal. Then, too, although each of the roommates had her own shelf in the refrigerator, Connie had noticed that some of the food on hers disappeared. So she could get back at 7:45 with a meal planned only to find that she had to go to the store for an ingredient before she could cook it.

Gloria didn't show up for work on Monday, June 13. She called in that afternoon. "Williams real estate," Connie answered the phone.

"Connie?"

"Gloria! How are you doing? I was worried when you didn't show up."

"I'm doing great! Pete was born early Sunday morning. Seven pounds, three ounces."

"Congratulations! I'll tell Mr. Williams."

The fourth girl, Candy Burke, moved in Wednesday, June 15. She was a local girl who had just got out of high school and was at war with her parents. She clerked in the local hardware store. Sometimes Connie would get back from work to find her with Carl, her boyfriend, in the living room or the kitchen. The living room wasn't a problem; Connie hadn't used it much when she'd had the apartment to herself. Michelle and Wendy watched TV there. She regarded the kitchen, however, as a workspace rather than a social center.

Connie's gross pay for the first two weeks was $420. She was shocked at how much came out of it. "Everybody is surprised," Mr. Williams said, "damned government sucks all the money out of the economy."

Connie had thought that the damned government required Mr. Williams to pay her $215 for 42 hours work a week, to say nothing of the times she stayed late. She dropped over to visit the university office which helped students get jobs to check on how her employment rated. "Five dollars an hour for full time office work," the man said. "Sounds low to me, but not unheard of. Most of our jobs are waitress, and that sort of thing. Those pay lower. On the other hand, you did get a job right off. Maybe you'd have got more per hour if you had looked longer; would you have got more total money for the summer?"

He had a point, and Connie was more than covering her expenses, or would when she received her second paycheck for the month. Anyway, she now had work experience. She also knew a lot about the market for housing over the summer. She'd do better next summer, and she'd rather work in an office -- even for Mr. Williams -- than wait on tables. Besides, next year she'd be eighteen.

Anyway, she now realized the University's business side hadn't closed for the summer; for that matter, classes were still being held. And she had a lot of free time in the mornings to deal with school. Wednesday, she went to pick up a catalog for the next school year. It told neither who was teaching which course nor the times, but otherwise it held all the information she needed.

The courses corresponding to the Jeffers course she took were on Steffano the first quarter -- Walters had told her that -- Millay the second, and Frost the third. Hmmm? Steffano, Millay, and Frost. She'd tell Andre; he'd be pleased. Well, she figured while waiting for Williams to get back and free her for lunch, she was not going to take the Steffano course. She could take the American Lit course, though. And, having given her a 'B' in Jeffers, Walters could hardly refuse to let her take the other two courses. She'd be competing with half the lit majors, of course. She'd read some over the summer and show up better prepared than she had for the Jeffers course.

She'd go back to her verse, as well. When she'd got to this point in her plans, Williams came back. She went to lunch, and didn't think about it until the next morning. The others left the apartment before nine, allowing Connie time for a leisurely bath and an excursion to the town library before work. When he came in, at 11:19, Connie handed Mr. Williams a rent receipt.

"Oh," he asked, "did we rent out the last room in your building?" Then he read what he'd signed. "Connie! Would I cheat you?"

She decided to avoid that question. "The library requires proof of residence before I can get a card."

He laughed and handed it to her.

Friday, she got a library card and took out Millay's A Few Figs From Thistles. She looked at her watch, 2:17, when she got out of the office for lunch. After lunch, she read the book sitting on somebody's front steps in the shade until 3:10. She was back in the office before 3:17.

After she'd been back at the office for awhile, Gloria called. "Tell me," she said, "if you have to go."

"Nothing's up. You know how it can be."

"And how I know. A day can be empty. But another day can be jammed full. Tel me when you have to go, and I'l let you."

"And tell me when you have to deal with Pete."

"Believe me, I will. He's asleep right now, but I was wrong. Dwight is more mature." Connie laughed.

She killed the book Saturday evening. Saturday's mail brought a letter from Josh. There had been a musical event in Milwaukee, and Jessica had invited Josh. He'd told Jessica that Connie was his girlfriend now. "Don't tell her that," she wrote back. "Or, at least, don't tell yourself that. Jessica hurt you, though it sounded like she was trying not to hurt you. You can tell her anything you want. But don't tell yourself that you are going steady with me, because I'm not going steady with you. I may have studied with you, I may have gone on dates with you when I wasn't going on dates with any other boy. But I never promised you anything." In particular, though she didn't want to type it out, she hadn't promised him her body.

She reread the whole Millay book Sunday. She'd enjoyed it, but what it really generated was a desire to write some more verse of her own. Her experience in the mechanics-of-verse class had convinced her that she could handle more than iambic pentameter. She'd see how far she could go with dactylic tetrameter -- no, she didn't want to deal with feminine rhymes. She was writing light verse, but not that light. She'd use anapestic tetrameter.

She turned out five quatrains that afternoon, and then cooked herself some dinner. After that, Carl and Candy took over the kitchen. Connie retreated to her room and the University's catalog. Nine hours of psychology was required for graduation as well as nine hours of some other social science. Connie might as well kill the psychology requirement her sophomore year. American literature was a prerequisite for the Millay and Frost courses. She wasn't going to meet that requirement, but she might as well take the course. It looked interesting anyway. And a French literature in translation course was open to graduates of French 203, like herself. Connie was puzzled why any knowledge of French was necessary to read the books in translation. On the other hand, it was presented by the French department; maybe they were pushing their intro courses. She'd look better taking an advanced lit course before the Millay, too. That would look on paper like an interest in lit, not simply an interest in Walters.

The advanced American lit course -- she'd look weird asking to take an advanced course in Dickens without even taking the English lit course concurrently -- was on Moby Dick. She could read the book over the summer. Unlike Millay's poetry it was likely to take all summer; it was one whale of a book.

She was asking for a lot of reading, though. The American lit course recommended concurrent registration in American history. That wouldn't be so much reading, and only reading for content. Besides, she'd always done well in history. That was a nice full schedule, except for phys-ed.

Connie needed three more quarters of this to graduate, and she was tempted to take archery each spring of the next three years. Everybody warned, however, about letting that sort of requirement go until the last moment. And it would be just like the administration to stop teaching archery her senior year.

Monday, she went to the university library before work to see if she could take anything out despite not being registered just then. She could, and took out a biography of Millay as well as Jeffers's The Stallion. The latter was an old friend, and she still had a record of the good parts in the back of her French notebook.

When she got back from lunch that day, Mr. Williams was talking to his son Drew. Mr. Williams went off without telling her where he was going or when he was coming back. Drew stayed.

"Look," he said. "I didn't mean to be rude to you the other day."

"That's all right."

"You're a pretty girl, but I was too full of my own concerns to more than just notice that."

"I'm not the sort of girl who expects compliments from passersby." For that matter, she didn't think of herself as particularly pretty.

"Well, my church group is having a dance Friday night. Would you like to go? Would you be willing to go as my date? I mean."

In the first place, he was a reasonably presentable boy. In the second place, he was her boss's son. In the third place, it was a signal to Josh that she wasn't his steady. "Why thank you. Friday night? When? Do you want to pick me up?"

"8:00? The doors open at 8:00, but we'll still get there before any serious dancing starts."

"In that case, why don't you make it 8:30? I don't get off here until 7:00. I could make it by 8:00, but it would be a rush."

"8:30. Where is your place again?"

She gave him the address.

Tuesday, she returned the Millay book to the town library and got out Moby Dick.

Friday, Drew was on time picking her up, and she was ready for him. By the time they got to the gym in the Presbyterian church, the dance was already in progress. She could tell that she and Drew caused a little stir when they entered. Drew was an enjoyable dance partner, but nothing special. She kissed him good night on the front seat of his car.

Saturday, Mr. Williams made no comment on her relationship with Drew. Drew called her up that night to thank her.

She felt that the date deserved more than a quatrain. She wrote two quatrains and a final couplet to describe it.

Monday was the Fourth, and a holiday even in her office. Connie enjoyed the local fireworks. Tuesday, she got to the office early. She typed out another pair of quatrains and a final couplet to describe the fireworks display. After eating her lunch, she took the ten-line poem to the office of the Springfield Sentinel. "Here is something you might want to print," she said. "Give me a byline, and I won't want compensation."

"I'll show it to the editor," the woman who spoke to her said.

Drew called her at the office to ask her to a movie on Saturday night. She accepted.

The newspaper editor called her the next morning. "You really are submitting this at our regular rates?"

"I was submitting it for free. What are your regular rates?"

"Two cents a line. It won't make you rich."

"A copy of the paper and a nickel over?"

"I'll give you a free copy of the paper, too. One thing, though. If you want to submit an article on the Fourth of July to a daily paper, you get it here early on the fifth from now on. The night of the Fourth would be better.

"Thanks. I'll remember that." The piece was on the editorial page of the Thursday paper. She liked how it looked. Maybe she should specialize in that verse form, anapestic tetrameter in ABAB CDCD EE. She'd try that for a while.

She wouldn't have gone to the movie by herself, and Drew sat with his arm over her shoulder. She put up with that until he cupped her boob with that hand. Then she removed his arm altogether.

When he drove her home, she said: "Thanks for the movie."

She raised her mouth for the kiss, but removed his hand from her boob again. As she was opening the door, he said: "Care to do it again next week?"

She thought for a minute. On the one hand, these were dates; on the other hand, it looked like they were turning into wrestling matches. Why not? she thought, and almost said it that way. When she did speak aloud, though, it came out as "Why, thank you." Still, his invitation confirmed Helen's promise so many years before that boys would still ask her out after she said no.

She did a poem every morning, sometimes about the previous day, sometimes about Drew or his father, sometimes about another subject. After she visited Gloria, she mailed her a poem titled "Pete." She became quite disciplined on other things, as well, reading ten pages of the Millay biography or of Moby Dick every night.

Millay had liked sex with both men and women. Connie's preference was for men, but -- after contemplating wrestling with Drew -- she sometimes wondered why.

She wrote Josh that she had accepted several dates with another boy. "This doesn't interfere with what I feel for you," she wrote, "and your having dates while you're in Milwaukee wouldn't interfere with what you feel for me."

Then she typed it over with 'won't' replacing 'wouldn't.'

When Drew took her to the movies again he put his arm around her, but made no effort to touch her boob. When they kissed good night, however, he caressed both boobs. Well, he was far from the first boy to do so.

"Since you insisted," Josh wrote, "I did go out with Jessica."

"I didn't insist you go out with her," she wrote back. "I insisted that you not tell yourself that you had some commitment to me. You don't. I hope you enjoyed your date."

When Drew took her to the movies again, he behaved himself in the theater. He parked on the way home. Again, he wasn't the first boy to do that, and she had missed some stimulation since returning the Jeffers book. Drew provided a good deal, and then drove her home. He walked her to the front door, a first for him, and kissed her before asking her out the next Saturday.

In her room, she found that her memories of making out with Drew weren't enough. She imagined Walters holding her boobs, and then -- when she stroked her cunny -- she imagined that it was his hand.

Sunday she finished the Millay biography. She had renewed it, but felt a little awkward not reading a normal book in three weeks. She turned to Moby Dick with more energy.

Monday morning, she was enjoying a leisurely bath. The office hours were hell on coming home, but they made for great mornings. Having soaped her boobs, she caressed the slippery surface. Her fingers brushed very lightly across her hard nipples. Suddenly, the door crashed open. "Sorry," said Carl. He turned from her to lift the seat of the toilet. Piss poured out of him for the longest and noisiest time. She draped her washcloth over her groin and held her hands in front of her boobs. "Sorry," he said again. "I'll wash in the kitchen." He flushed and went out.

Now, Connie didn't consider herself a prude. On the other hand, she was paying $200 a month for one person's use of the apartment. Candy was paying $150 a month and the same share of the utilities. Apparently for two people.

"Sorry," Carl said for a third time when she came out in her robe. "But it was an emergency."

"Candy here?" Connie felt that her quarrel was really with Candy.

"No. She works Monday mornings. I don't go in 'til noon."

That day's mail brought another letter from Josh. "I enjoyed the date in every way. I only wish that it could have been with you." Which was suggestive, but not explicit enough to challenge. "Are you still thinking of Davis?" She hadn't been, recently.

She and Josh had each lived in a freshman dorm the previous year. Neither could return. Davis was a dorm for undergraduate sophomores and above. It was coed, and they had talked about both living there. Men and women lived on opposite sides of the building, but they could meet more easily. And there was a cafeteria on the bottom floor. They could eat together in midwinter without putting on coats.

"I'm willing to live in Davis next year if you are," she wrote back. "After this summer, I'm even less interested in living in the town." They (mostly Josh) had talked about an apartment outside of University housing. Maybe sometime, but she wasn't ready to share a bed with Josh anytime soon, and that was clearly what he intended.

Friday brought a thunderstorm. It was threatening all morning, and she didn't want to take any excursions. For that matter, she packed a lunch rather than risk rain during her lunch hour. She was in the office for the worst of it, but walking home in the dripping aftermath got her wet enough. She changed her clothes in her room before cooking dinner. After dinner, she wrote a poem about the disappointment brought by rain during what should be the height of summer. It was light verse, and maybe the newspaper would be interested. She figured that "Connie" was enough of a byline.

Saturday she dropped the poem off on her way to work. Luckily, the sky was clear for the longer walk. By closing time, though, it was raining heavily. Drew called. "Want me to pick you up there?" he asked. He did, and bought them supper at a drive- through window in a burger place. It was still raining when they got out of the movie. Instead of parking, Drew drove her home, walked her to the door, and opened it.

"What?" she asked.

"Shh." He held his finger to his lips. He unlocked the door to one of the downstairs apartments. The air was stuffy, and the living room still held remnants of the former tenants. The place was dry, however.

Drew plopped down on the couch and held his hands up to her. She sat in his lap. He had been thoughtful, she needed some excitement, and this gave more privacy than any car ever had. She opened her mouth for his tongue and welcomed his hands on her boobs. When he started fumbling with her bra, though, she got up. "You don't know when to stop. Do you?" She went into the bathroom, which was really cruddy, to put herself together.

"Connie, don't make it end like this."

"I'm not the one who made it end. Enough is enough."

"I'm in college, too. Or will be this fall. You just think I'm too young for you."

"If you were too young for me, I wouldn't have gone out with you. You're just too demanding for me."

"All I want is what your college-boys get, and not all of that."

"You don't have any idea what 'my college-boys' get. When you wanted a date, I was happy. Now you want a mistress, you should look elsewhere." She unlocked the door and climbed the stairs to her apartment.

She cleaned her room after church, and visited the local library on Monday. The Sentinel hadn't printed her poem. She did take out another two volumes of Millay. She called the editor from work. "Was I too late?" she asked.

"Probably, but that didn't matter. Some of our subscribers are farmers currently, and many more of them grew up on a farm, have relatives and friends who still farm, or both. The rain Friday and Saturday was good news, continuing long enough to soak in. Farmers needed the rain, and aren't interested in reading about some college kid's discomfort with the rain."

"Sorry."

"No problem. If you can't reject copy, you shouldn't try to be an editor. Try again next time you write a poem, and we'll see how it fits." There was no reason he needed to know that she wrote a poem every day, several some days. The poems about her dates with Drew wouldn't be publishable, anyway, even if she wanted her boss to see them. And were these really poems? They were verse, well-written light verse.

Tuesday, Drew called her up at work. "Look," he said, "I'm sorry." His lack of identification was rotten telephone technique. If Connie had acted like that on the business phone, his father would have come down on her like a ton of bricks.

"Is this Drew?"

"Yes. You've been hanging around my dad too much."

"I've probably been hanging around both Williamses too much. But I get paid for hanging around your dad. Anyway, you don't sound very sorry. I had to make sure it was you; I don't want to chew out a customer just because he sounds like you."

"And you do want to chew me out?"

As far as she was concerned, they were finished. She had no illusions that she could beat Drew in a wrestling match, and the price of her losing was rather high. "Not particularly. You can hang up right now, and I won't mind."

"Gee thanks! What did I do to you?"

"It wasn't what you did, it was that you wouldn't stop when you were told to."

"You let all your college boyfriends go farther than I did."

"I have fewer college boyfriends than you think, and they take fewer liberties than you think. But that doesn't matter. Connie decides what Connie is going to do, and if you think you can decide for me, you have another think coming." There was another call. "I've got to get that. G'bye."

The other call was business. When the phone rang again, she answered it long enough to hear that it was Drew again. Then she put him on hold and returned to the business call.

"Hello," she said when that matter was settled.

"Christ, Connie, you took long enough."

"Your father pays me to conduct business here. If you want me to give your calls precedence, tell him."

"As if he gives a shit about me."

"Fine. Then my employer doesn't want me taking personal calls."

"Connie, why are you being so hard-nosed? I called up to apologize. Linda-Sue always took my apologies."

"Then apologize." In her opinion, he hadn't yet.

"I'm sorry I got out of line. I just could picture you with those college boys, and I wanted what they get. But you're right; I was out of line." Connie seriously doubted that Drew would be satisfied with what Josh got, or even what Joe had received. Besides, where did Drew get the idea that Connie owed him to do with him what she'd done with her boyfriends?

"Look," she asked, "want to talk?"

"Aren't we talking now?"

"Talking far too much. I have work to do. If you want to talk, pick me up at seven, here. You give me a ride home, and I'll give you some pointers."

"Deal."

When he showed up, though, he asked, "Want to go out for a burger?"

"No, you know where I live. Look..." she hesitated for a moment thinking that he was driving her somewhere else. But she realized that he was following the one-way streets. "You were a fairly big man on campus, weren't you?"

"I was no football star."

"And Linda-Sue was some sort of standout, too?"

"Yeah. We weren't nobodies."

"Well, that's what you will be next year. A freshman, and there's nothing lower than that. I know. I was a freshman last year. And nobody you meet next year will have ever met Linda- Sue. That's one reason to stop mentioning her. Look, you struck out with me, and that's okay, 'cause we'll never see each other again."

"I'll be back next summer."

"And I might not be. Anyway, Gloria won't be having another baby; so, I won't be working for your father."

"I'll be a college boy next year."

"So you will, and you might learn to act like one. Nobody at.... You're going to be attending State University of New York?"

"Yeah."

"Nobody at SUNY will give a good Goddamn about Linda-Sue, so don't mention her. And you won't know what the girls you meet will have done with their boyfriends. Instead of telling them about what they know and you don't, act charming. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

"You're one to talk."

"Ah! But I've decided I don't want to catch you. Here's my building coming up. Thanks for the ride."

"You're welcome." He didn't thank her for the advice, but did anyone ever? Anyway, Drew was out of her life, and without causing a rupture between her and his father. She cooked dinner, for once. Then she retreated to her room to write an extra poem and read an especially gory part of Moby Dick.

But, if she were clear that Drew was out of her life, he wasn't. He called her up Thursday to ask her out to the movies. "No, thank you," she said. He called again on Saturday.

"C'mon Connie," he said. "I was out of line and I apologized."

"Girls in your high school might accept dates for the day they're asked. Most girls don't. Especially from boys who have been out of line."

"How about next Friday? There's another dance at my church. My dad asked if we had quarreled." And, of course, they had. On the other hand, she had told Mr. Williams that they hadn't. And she wanted a fight with neither her boss nor her landlord.

Besides which, next Friday was the 12th. That was nearly one third of the remaining time before Labor Day. She could dribble this relationship a little further. And there wasn't much that Drew could do in a public place -- less than he could do in the balcony of a movie theater. And it was his church; a quarrel there would embarrass him more than it would embarrass her.

She had almost persuaded herself when Drew spoke again. "Please, Connie. This is important to me."

"Very well, Drew. I accept."

As if to make up for the recent rain, the weather turned hot. Moby Dick was due at the town library. She'd planned to return it and get another copy out of the university library -- she was a little ashamed of taking six weeks to read any book, even that book. Rather than make two trips through the heat, though, she renewed it one last time. She did return the Millay. She got out one volume of Frost. No sense in trying to be on top of either of them, but a long familiarity would help.

The weather grew hotter yet, and nearly windless. She left the air conditioner running in her room when she left for work Thursday. She went out as little as possible. Instead of spending the tail end of her lunch hour on the street, she dallied in the diner or returned to the office early.

When Gloria called on Friday, they covered Pete's development. He was a cute kid, but Connie thought him more of a lump than anything else. On the other hand, she could understand why Gloria thought him the center of the world; he was the center of hers.

"By the way," Connie asked when Gloria ran down, "you've known Drew for some time, haven't you?"

"Since he was in grade school."

"Well, he invited me to a dance at his church tonight. The way he talked made it sound as if this were really important to him."

"It's not only his church; it's Linda-Sue's."

"So having a date matters to him."

"And a college-girl date. And don't sell yourself short. You're an attractive girl. All his friends will know that he didn't lose by breaking up with Linda-Sue."

"I didn't know Wisconsin named girls like that."

"We don't. Tennessee, and you should hear her accent. I swear it has gotten heavier over the years I've known her."

The phone rang. "Well, thanks," said Connie. Gloria, conscious of the needs of business, hung up before Connie could.

Drew picked her up again at 8:30. The windows of his car were open. "Sorry," he said. "The air broke down." Which was odd, his father hadn't mentioned it. And Mr. Williams wasn't the sort of person to keep silent about his problems.

Despite all the open windows, everybody at the dance was sweating freely. She enjoyed the slow dances less than she usually did; Drew's damp embrace was a bit much in that weather. Even though she sweated during the fast dances, she also moved. That combination brought a welcome relief.

Drew drove her to her building and walked her to the door. Instead of kissing her good night, though, he unlocked the outside door and then the door of the downstairs apartment. The living room had been cleaned up a little. It wasn't swept, but much of the garbage the last tenants had left behind was out of sight. Drew ushered her in and opened the door to one of the bedrooms. The air conditioner in that room was running.

"I thought," he said, "that we'd be more comfortable in here." There was nothing lying around the room, but it was mostly furnished with a bed. The chair wouldn't hold two of them, and the only other piece of furniture was a desk.

"Drew," she said. He put a hand on her back and pushed her towards the bedroom. She resisted. He grabbed the wrist of her left arm and pulled. She knew she couldn't win a wrestling match with him. "Let go," she said.

"Come on."

"Let go!" She swung her right hand at his face. Her fingers were extended, and she intended to claw his eyes. When he dodged, she missed his eyes, but she did see streaks appear on his cheek. She yanked her left hand out of his grip. Unwilling to turn her back, she backed across the living room.

"Connie!" he said.

"Good night, Drew. Goodbye, Drew." She opened the door without turning, and then spun around to flee up the stairs.

Drew didn't follow, which was lucky. The door to her apartment was unlocked. For once, though, she was glad to see Carl there. He and Candy and Michelle were watching TV. Connie locked the door and went by the kitchen to get a carving knife before she went to her room. She locked the room door, not that Drew couldn't pick that lock -- Michelle had locked herself out, and then turned the lock with a dime.

She didn't hear from Drew again that night. The next morning, though, Gloria called her. "What happened between you and Drew? Dwight said that he came home with his face scratched."

"He wouldn't take no for an answer. Well, finally he did, but the scratch was what communicated the no."

"Look, Dwight was in a mood to back him up when he spoke to me. He actually asked when I could come in. I told him the sixth. Look 'Myers' up in the Rolodex. L-S Myers is Linda-Sue. When Dwight gets to the office call Drew at home. Read him the telephone number. Tell him that you'll report his behavior to Linda-Sue if he doesn't call off his dad."

"Does that matter? I thought they were broken up."

"They've broken up lots of times. Anyway, she knows all his friends. Dwight isn't about to try dealing with a sexual- harassment lawsuit for three lousy weeks of pay."

She followed Gloria's advice. "You know," Drew said, "I wouldn't of hurt you. I just wanted what we'd done before."

"Probably not." Which was a much stronger statement than she actually believed. "But look at it from my perspective. You were dragging me towards a bedroom, towards a bed. If you had explained what you wanted, I might have gone along. I might have simply said no. When you decided to use physical force, I needed to get physical, too. Linda-Sue might know you better than that, but I had to defend myself against the possibilities. Look, it's over between us; I wouldn't accept a ride from you, much less a date. But there is no reason it has to go farther than that. You'll go east in a few days; I'll leave your father's business. There is no reason that we have to see each other ever again. It's just that, if you want to drag others into this, then I can, too."

Dwight didn't try to fire her, but he was an even pickier boss. Saturday he reminded her that her rent as paid through the end of August. "Want to rent the place for September?"

At the beginning of the year, he'd spoken of a few days leeway. School didn't start until Labor Day. But Connie didn't want to depend on his good graces. "I'll see what the situation is in University housing."

Monday, she did. While she was dealing with the administration, she gathered up the printout of the course schedules for the next quarter. The rooms on the third floor of Davis were already empty. She moved in Monday and Tuesday mornings. Tuesday after dinner, she stripped the bed in her apartment and gathered her remaining belongings. She wheeled that stuff over to Davis. She'd already made the (twin) bed there.

Wednesday morning, she planned her course schedule. Walters was teaching one section of American literature. (Besides the course on Andre's poetry, he was teaching three sections of English 101; only a few other teachers had two apiece, although almost all English professors taught one section.)

That class was MWF at 10:00. She would take it as her first course of the day. She didn't want a course right after it, either. What if he wanted to talk to her? The French lit course was at 11:00 TTS, and the Moby Dick class was just before it two of those three days and in another building. Getting from one to the next would be possible, if not easy in bad weather.

She'd think about the psych and American history classes later. There were three kinds of psych without prerequisites. That would influence her schedule of phys-ed, as well.

That afternoon, she handed Mr. Williams the keys to her apartment when he came in. "I could have just put these back on the board, but I wanted you to know that I had returned them."

Almost none of the keys to the other apartmenst were back that early.

Saturday, was her last day at work. She called Gloria a few minutes before 7:00. "You sure you can handle it on Tuesday?"

"Sure. I'd have been in this week if I hadn't known that Dwight was just looking for an excuse to let you go. You've been sweet, and I'm saving Pete's poem to show him when he's grown up."

"Keep in touch," she said when she heard Pete complain in the background. So this phase of her life came to an end not with a bang, but with a whimper.