"We think Taiwan."

"Doesn't he..." What did she want to ask? Doesn't he have a translator? Draw maps? Was the language of texting universal? Maybe they could hand him a cell phone.

"Keeps giving us his village's name. We think." Ty laughed as if he'd tried hard enough that failure to understand was finally funny. "What are you studying?"

Oh, god, she didn't know there'd be questions at the meeting. Who are you? What are you doing here? She wasn't prepared for questions, especially questions from a late-twenties, beautiful man. Soap opera star beautiful man. In fact, the level of aesthetic skill he possessed had always seemed like an oddity to her. When she'd been in the presence of it before, man or woman, it felt like something was wrong. Too much of one thing had to leave a deficit somewhere else. But this man had smart eyes and a really nice smile. Not just a nice smile but a nice guy smile. And a... "do you have an accent?"

He shrugged in apology. "My family lived in Australia when I was in elementary school. It comes out in certain words."

Of course he'd have a hint of an Australian drawl. How many males had been short-changed to give all the good stuff to Ty?

Mranda shoved a folder towards her, and Gwen took it to prevent losing an eye. She noticed Mranda leaned very close to hand one to Ty but set one down next to Guy, who didn't look up from his silent TV flicking. She dropped the last one as close as she could towards Annie without actually going near her. "Let's go over some dorm policies. Rules are an important part of your fun here at Craig Hall."

Insomnia might be the other part of her fun at Craig Hall. Rules and sleeplessness, they just might describe a good portion of her life. Gwen rose from the well-appointed bed. She'd made sure of that for Missy. A new start, a new life ought to begin with well-appointed. She'd even bought new clothes for Missy, jeans and t-shirts, a couple of sweaters, some adorable flats, and a suede jacket. It felt beyond weird to see them hanging in the small closet and know that after another day in her own clothes, she would have to wash her one outfit while she was naked or wear the wardrobe intended for her daughter. Underwear even. Print, tiny ones.

She turned on the desk lamp, the halogen burning brightly. What would Missy be doing at... she checked the clock, a music docker, minus the player Missy had taken with her. Midnight. Missy would be closing down the restaurant if she had a late shift. Gwen remembered locking up a store or two, the Dairy Haven in high school and full-time retail selling housewares before Missy was born. Steve's commissions were more than enough by then. And hadn't the plan been to put their energy into his insurance career? Insurance. That's what she hadn't gotten.

He'd be over-insured and sleeping, snoring a little, with some woman beside him, a woman he hadn't even given her the courtesy of naming. He'd claimed fidelity, as if men ever left a perfectly fine marriage for anything but a new woman, new as in young, no doubt. Gwen walked to the window and opened the drapes. No one could see into the ninth floor, and she was too old to incur the interest of a peeping tom anyway.

Below, the lights were surprisingly bright for only a mid-sized city. She'd always loved that glow at night, as if a white heat somehow flooded up and helped, helped anything that was cold, dark, or lost. Maybe Steve had always been lost with her and just righted himself with someone else. He'd found another path that changed her course whether she wanted it to or not.

She felt a wave of home sickness, and she wasn't sure she'd ever had it before. She'd never gone to camp, hadn't missed her mother the first time she'd gone to college. But the sadness that rose up in her, like a longing for something she couldn't even name, made her wish for at least the familiar, maybe just her own bed. Even that made her wonder. With Steve not on the other side was it even her bed, or was it still theirs until some legal document divided it?

Everything in her life felt that kind of foreign. Things were new and unfamiliar at Belmar, but to be honest, they would be like that anywhere she could go. She felt foreign to herself. She'd like to step back into her kitchen and make a cocoa from scratch, just the way Missy loved it, but that kitchen was hours away, empty, and she didn't know if she could be trusted to not just cry in it. She didn't know anything anymore. She didn't know the way to go or the way to be. She'd try to get some sleep and wake up to an empty alarm clock.

Gwen's Journal - September 3rd 1989 Saturday When I graduate I'm going to teach in California or Alaska. And then when I've done that for at least five years, I'm going to get married. Love is like getting a piece of the pie, and since it's just one piece of the whole thing, you've got to focus on the rest of, you know, the pie, to make sure the whole thing, the pie, comes together just like you want it to.

Gwen's Life - the night before...

Molly steadily led the way down the dorm hall, unscathed by the night's outing. At two a.m. with a couple of iced teas, like they make in Long Island, floating in her bloodstream, Gwen felt a bit scathed. She had to concentrate going past the R.A.'s door. The lime green poster tacked to it outlined the twenty-seven rules for Good Neighbor Behavior. The R.A. probably thought the butterfly stickers softened the blow of twenty-seven ways to hear don't, but it just made the prison policy creepy.

When Gwen made it past the gauntlet and into their room, she sat down on her bed with her back propped up by a Care Bear pillow. Molly sat cross legged on her bed, like she could stay up the rest of the night with no trouble. Gwen felt more tired than that but still buzzed from her first night in a bar, first drinks consumed in public like a real adult, first night on the dance floor, and the first time she'd given her phone number to a guy. She'd dated once or twice in high school, but those were people you knew well. Most of them you'd known since they still ate glue and got the occasional bean stuck up their nose. There was nothing mysterious or exciting about the dating ritual when you held a decade-old memory like that.

"Think he'll call?" Isn't that what women asked each other after a night out?

Molly shrugged. "They do. They don't. Mostly they do."

"Really?"

"Well, they call me."

Gwen wondered if she'd be the girl who would get called. God, she didn't want to be the kind that didn't, the perpetually waiting-for-him kind. She was going to be an elementary school teacher. She'd be too busy to wait for some guy. Maybe she'd teach in the inner city for a year or someplace where teachers were hard to come by, and she could be really useful. Alaska. Or L.A. Someplace people didn't want to go.

Molly leaned against a pile of pillows, all a great paisley print that matched the comforter. She had a ruffle that went along the bottom of the mattress, something Gwen had never seen before. "He'll call. He's really cute."

"Do cute guys call more?"

"No, less. Way less. But he liked you. I could tell."

"You saw him for, like, a second before he left with his friends."

"Yeah, but he didn't want to go. I could tell because of the backwards walk."

Gwen worried that she should know what that was. She was definitely going to take a psychology class, biology too. What animal walked backwards, a crustacean?

Molly pointed to the door. "When they really want to get away..." She jerked her head that direction, "they whip around."

"Oh-kay..."

Molly got off the bed and crossed the room to stand in front of her. "But that guy kind of stepped back and then walked a little backwards towards his friends." Molly inched towards the door.

Molly was a good roommate. She knew just when to lie. Gwen shook her head anyway. "He did not moonwalk."

Molly laughed and slid her feet across the floor back to her bed. It was a fair attempt at Michael Jackson. "Plus. It's meant to be."

Gwen tried to laugh. She wasn't going to fall for any girl ridiculousness. These were years to be bold, maybe, but not romantic. Romance, or its poor imitation, the deadly mix of lust and wildness, had given her two step-fathers and more maternal boyfriends than could be counted.

"His bolt fit."

"I'll never know."

"Oh, you'd say no to," Molly shook her hair, "green-eyed hair guy?"

"I'm holding out for--"

Molly's eyes popped wide. "Marriage?"

"No. But, you know, the whole package, when I'm ready. I want a relationship that's good and sex. You know, it's like icing on the cake."

"The relationship is the cake, and sex is the icing?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"When I make cake, I never have enough frosting 'cause I ate most of it before the cake's even out of the oven."

Gwen pointed across the room at the lively girl she was lucky to tag along with. "That's why guys call you back. I will be call-less from green-eyed hair boy. He's looking for icing."

"They all are."

"Well, when I'm ready... not now, but later, I'll find cake with just enough frosting."

Molly stared at her in confusion, and Gwen felt compelled to recover some semblance of college coolness. She could name the perfect example of what she was talking about. She baked a lot. "Like a pecan pie."

Molly's confusion turned to pity. "Shit, Gwen, pie doesn't even get any frosting."

Back to U...

Chapter Three.

A pinch of cinnamon improves French toast.

"Is it going to do something?"

Gwen jumped, nearly knocking the French toast off her tray. "Oh." She tried to smile at Ty, but his face was very distracting.

"So, what's up with the French toast?" He tipped his head to the nearest table, set his tray down and waited, too polite to laugh, she decided, even though she must look terribly uncomfortable.

She felt herself blush but sat down anyway. "It didn't have any cinnamon." She held up her hand. "Long story. I'm just kind of a food person."

Ty motioned to the food on his tray. "I'm sorry."

She cataloged the scrambled eggs, more chopped up omelet than anything, and the sheen of oil on the previously frozen hash browns. "Well, it's hard to cook for so many people and have it be complex."

"Or good."

Gwen laughed. "Or good. They call it institutional food for a reason."

"Do you know the arts building?"

"I don't think so."

"You should check it out. It's just north of the SUB." He stopped. "The Student Union Building."

"That, I remember."

"You've been here before."

Gwen nodded and began to eat her rapidly cooling breakfast. Heat lamps seemed to tan the outside but not contribute that much heat. She tried to focus on that but felt Ty watching her, waiting to see if she would say any more. Hearing him drinking his coffee with patience, she finally looked up.

He smiled. "You have a story to tell, Gwen Melissa."

She felt the quick pull of tears she stopped with a deep breath. "I'm almost forty, and I don't have much of a story."

But he just waited and she sensed he could do that a long time. In addition to looking really pretty, he was also very good at waiting people out.

She shrugged. "My story is I've done everything I thought I was supposed to do." Checking her watch, she felt relieved that she'd have to run off to psychology.

Ty sat back in his chair, studied her until she thought she had something on her face. "Then your story is just beginning."

Psychology II was so enormous, a couple hundred students in the lecture hall, that she hadn't felt odd or old or old and odd at all. There'd been a few folks who were lots odder and a few even older than she was. So who would even notice her? She'd just go to class, study, pass, and voila a two-year degree with her name on it. And like any to-do list, and granted hers was shorter than it had ever been in her life, but like any list, it just took knocking off that first item to really get things, unnamed and unknown, into order.

Yeah, her life sucked, but she wasn't going to give it a second's thought, just go to the SUB and get her textbook. And she'd sit for a while in the atrium. She loved the huge room, dotted with tables and plants. She'd crack open her new psychology book and use a highlighter. A highlighter would really help her. It would illuminate everything. Later, she'd put it under her pillow and in her dreams all her questions would be answered. School supplies would be her mid-life band aid.

She got in line to pay for her two dollar cup of marginal coffee at the convenience store that had always been in the SUB and had always overcharged. She felt almost giddy with her textbook, notebook, pens, pencils, thesaurus, dictionary, postcards she had no idea who she'd send to, and Belmar University travel mug.

Three checkers made quick work of the lines, and Gwen stepped out into the atrium and felt the cup leave her grip as easily as she was taken back the twenty years since she'd last seen him.

Green eyes. His hair was the same dark blond, and he had a camera in his hand. In broken-in khakis and a new t-shirt, he looked like himself, just more himself with the passage of time. When he noticed her, she held her breath, afraid that somehow he wouldn't know her. The way he froze for a moment then moved toward her without the ease she'd seen, made her understand he did.

He stood further away than a friend would, further away than even a stranger would. "Gwen."

Not knowing what to say, she just nodded once, felt panic and sadness all mixed together.

He studied her as if looking for a clue why she'd appeared, and she regretted the bag on her shoulder, Missy's red leather student one. It might make it difficult to get out of the truth. Then she registered the heat and glanced at the floor where her new travel mug sat split in half. A rivulet of coffee pooled in the low spot at her feet. Yep, that would be her, the low spot.

Seeing the trajectory of the spill, she might have felt lucky that most of it had missed her except that after twenty years... she looked up, shook her head, "Max." She tried for casual. "I imagined when I saw you again, I'd be standing in a cup of coffee."

He just watched her, and she didn't think he was going to say anything, but then he raised his camera, obscuring his eyes, and took a shot of her sandals. He lowered the camera and held it against his chest. "I imagined I'd never see you again."

She watched him walk away again, this time down the length of the atrium. When she felt herself shake, she knew it was for the best that she hadn't gotten any of the caffeine inside her. She hoped she wasn't taking it in through the soles of her feet. Stepping away just in case, she looked back to where Max had stood the moment she'd seen him again. A new information kiosk curved against the back wall. Its copper letters were shiny against the dark wood and spelled out The Source.

He sat at his desk, glad he'd shut the door. He was fine, hell, why wouldn't he be? He'd been shot at once and had gone on to get some great pictures. Sure, the shooter had been an old Sicilian woman he'd surprised by checking into his room early, but cleaning women had good aim, pretty good aim, fair aim. He'd been fine after that bullet missed him.

This was nothing. He just needed a minute because he'd been genuinely surprised, that's all. She took him by surprise. He set the camera down, already getting back to business. That's as much as he was going to think about her. He slid open the panel on the side and tried to get the memory card out. He'd pushed his thumbnail a million times on the thin blue edge of it and watched it slide out enough to grab, but he couldn't get it to budge. He lifted both hands from the camera, took a deep breath, and left it in the middle of his desk.

Getting up, he shoved a couple of boxes out of his way until he found the right one. He pulled the strip of masking tape off and opened the dog-eared cardboard flaps. He reached in for the dark leather case, the good heft of his first camera. He ignored the notebook beneath it, slid the box over with his foot, and set out to find some film.

Max's Life - September 3rd, 1989 -Saturday "Your mom called and said your Dad says you gotta be at dinner Sunday."

"Shit." Max set his camera on the built-in desk and slumped into the chair, his legs sticking out in front of him. His roommate turned back to his economics textbook, having delivered the message and all the responsibilities that went with it. Justin usually studied in the library. It was weird to come back from shooting some hoops, shooting some pictures, and remember he even had a roommate.

"Shit." Rob echoed Max and tossed a basketball in the air over and over, checking out the book over Justin's shoulder. "It's Saturday, ya know, and what are you, some freakin' secretary? You tell the parents, he's not here. You don't take a goddamn message. Max, you gotta move in with me." He missed the ball, and it hit Max in the toe, and skidded under the nearest bed.

"Yeah." Max considered his options. He could just not show up for dinner. They'd figure it out, though, and his old man would track him down. His dad would get him coming out of a class or worse, not coming out of a class he was scheduled to come out of. Fuck. He knew it was a mistake to go to Belmar, but it was the only place they'd pay for. He'd mowed lawns, had a paper route one year. At seventeen he'd made really good money for three months in construction, but he wouldn't have had enough for college unless he'd taken at least a year off. So there he was, screwed at Belmar, ordered home for dinner. Dress pants for Christ sake. Dress pants and disapproval.

"Oh," Justin looked up from his book, "and your mom said you could bring somebody."

"Why would I bring..."

"Like a date. She said like a date. She asked me if you were seeing anybody. She said it like that. Seeing anybody."

Rob dug under the bed for the ball. "Shit."

Justin ignored him. "I told your mom I didn't know."

Max felt a jolt of relief. There wasn't anything to keep from his parents yet, but it was good to not tell them things right up front. "Good. God. Good."