Night Shift(93)

When the intercom buzzed, Alice was studying. 'You get it, Liz. Probably for you anyway.'

Elizabeth went to the intercom. 'Yes?'

'Gentleman door-caller, Liz.'

Oh, Lord.

'Who is it?' she asked, annoyed, and ran through her tattered stack of excuses. Migraine headache. She hadn't used that one this week.

The desk girl said, amused, 'His name is Edward Jackson Hamner. Junior, no less.' Her voice lowered. 'His socks don't match.'

Elizabeth's hand flew to the collar of her robe. 'Oh, God.

Tell him I'll be right down. No, tell him it will be just a minute. No, a couple of minutes, okay?'

'Sure,' the voice said dubiously. 'Don't have a haemorrhage.'

Elizabeth took a pair of slacks out of her closet. Took out a short denim skirt. Felt the curlers in her hair and groaned. Began to yank them out.

Alice watched all this calmly, without speaking, but she looked speculatively at the door for a long time after Elizabeth had left.

He looked just the same; he hadn't changed at all. He was wearing his green fatigue jacket, and it still looked at least two sizes too big. One of the bows of his horn-rimmed glasses had been mended with electrician's tape. His jeans looked new and stiff, miles from the soft and faded 'in' look that Tony had achieved effortlessly. He was wearing one green sock, one brown sock.

And she knew she loved him.

'Why didn't you call before?' she asked, going to him.

He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket and grinned shyly. 'I thought I'd give you some time to date around. Meet some guys. Figure out what you want.

'I think I know that.'

'Good. Would you like to go to a movie?'

'Anything,' she said. 'Anything at all.'

As the days passed it occurred to her that she had never met anyone, male or female, that seemed to understand her moods and needs so completely or so wordlessly. Their tastes coincided. While Tony had enjoyed violent movies of the Godfather type, Ed seemed more into comedy or non-violent dramas. He took her to the circus one night when she was feeling low and they had a hilariously wonderful time. Study dates were real study dates, not just an excuse to grope on the third floor of the Union. He took her to dances and seemed especially good at the old ones, which she loved. They won a fifties Stroll trophy at a Homecoming Nostalgia Dance. More important, he seemed to understand when she wanted to be passionate. He didn't force her or hurry her; she never got the feeling that she had with some of the other boys she had gone out with - that there was an inner timetable for sex, beginning with a kiss good night on Date 1 and ending with a night in some friend's borrowed apartment on Date 10. The Mill Street apartment was Ed's exclusively, a third-floor walkup. They went there often, and Elizabeth went without the feeling that she was walking into some minor-league Don Juan's passion pit. He didn't push. He honestly seemed to want what she wanted, when she wanted it. And things progressed.

When school reconvened following the semester break, Alice seemed strangely preoccupied. Several times that afternoon before Ed came to pick her up - they were going out to dinner - Elizabeth looked up to see her room-mate frowning down at a large manila envelope on her desk. Once Elizabeth almost asked about it, then decided not to. Some new project probably.

It was snowing hard when Ed brought her back to the dorm.

'Tomorrow?' he asked. 'My place?' 'Sure. I'll make some popcorn.'

'Great,' he said, and kissed her. 'I love you, Beth.'

'Love you, too.'

'Would you like to stay over?' Ed asked evenly. 'Tomorrow night?'

'All right, Ed.' She looked into his eyes. 'Whatever you want.'

'Good,' he said quietly. 'Sleep well, kid.'

'You, too.'

She expected that Alice would be asleep and entered the room quietly, but Alice was up and sitting at her desk.

'Alice, are you okay?'

'I have to talk to you, Liz. About Ed.'

'What about him?'

Alice said carefully, 'I think that when I finish talking to you we're not going to be friends any mpre. For me, that's giving up a lot. So I want you to listen carefully.'

'Then maybe you better not say anything.'

'I have to try.'

Elizabeth felt her initial curiosity kindle into anger. 'Have you been snooping around Ed?'

Alice only looked at her.

'Were you jealous of us?'

'No. If I'd been jealous of you and your dates, I would have moved out two years ago.'

Elizabeth looked at her, perplexed. She knew what Alice said was the truth. And she suddenly felt afraid.

'Two things made me wonder about Ed Hamner,' Alice said. 'First, you wrote me about Tony's death and said how lucky it was that I'd seen Ed at the Lakewood Theatre. How he came right over to Boothbay and really helped you out. But I never saw him, Liz. I was never near the Lakewood Theatre last summer.'

'But...

'But how did he know Tony was dead? I have no idea. I only know he didn't get it from me. The other thing was that eidetic-memory business. My God, Liz, he can't even remember which socks he's got on!'

'That's a different thing altogether,' Liz said stiffly. 'It -' 'Ed Hamner was in Las Vegas last summer,' Alice said softly. 'He came back in mid-July and took a motel room in Pemaquid. That's just across the Boothbay Harbour town line. Almost as if he were waiting for you to need him.'