One of the boa constrictors called out, "Marian! They've got brownies today."

"After the cake last night I really couldn't. Could I?"

Liddy wanted to roll her eyes. Lesbians and chocolate-what a cliche.

There was an abrupt silence and Liddy could feel the traded glances behind her back. The brunette with the overprocessed high-lights whispered, "That's her. You were standing right next to her and you didn't say anything?"

The woman named Marian said in a normal tone, "Ellie, I'm quite sure she can hear every word you're saying."

Liddy stiffened her back and slowly turned around. "I may be new, but I'm not deaf."

Marian, at least, was looking her in the eye. "I'm sorry, I know what it's like. We were all new once."

An older woman with wedge-cut gray hair chimed in, "I'm the only native in the bunch."

"Oh hush, Terry, even you ended up on Carrie's holistic love couch," the brunette muttered. Her sharp brown gaze caught Liddy's for a moment and her smile grew conspiratorial. "You'll know Carrie when you see her."

Liddy didn't know whether to give vent to the indignation she felt at having her proclivities presumed, or to laugh, say something meaningless, and escape.

"It's okay," Marian said. "Ellie can't help herself."

Liddy found a tight smile. "Fortunately, I can."

Marian chortled appreciatively. "Good for you." She turned to the brunette again. "I have to get back to work, El. See you Friday night if not sooner."

Liddy headed for the door as well, not wanting to be drawn into any conversation with Ellie. She wasn't in the mood for s.e.x. Maybe never again. She didn't need a girlfriend to be whole, and she didn't need s.e.x to feel alive, swear to freakin' G.o.d.

19.

She found herself following Marian down the wide Pedestrian Mall-what a creative name, she thought. The open-air mall was dotted with planters, benches and tables placed under broad, canopied trees. The smell of falafel and tahini sauce was evocative of home, and Liddy nearly got a pita just for comfort. But the coffee was refreshing enough.

The mall reached a dead end at a multistoried hotel, and, like Marian, she turned left, away from the fountain. She glanced longingly over her shoulder at the children running through the spray.

To have no worries . . . sometimes being a grownup sucked. Liddy followed Marian past a ma.s.sive play structure-deserted in the swelter of early afternoon-and around brightly painted construction barriers on South Linn. Marian turned into the large public library.

Was that where she worked? Marian the Librarian? Swear to freakin'

G.o.d, Liddy thought, this town is small.

It was a long walk to her rented house on North Dodge. Her cotton tank was a second skin by the end of the first block, but the iced mocha was wonderful going down. At least they took their coffee seriously.

The streets were shady and most of the yards brimmed with lush gardens, so as walks went, it didn't suck. What else would she do with her time?

Dating was out of the question. She was not interested in dating right now, and certainly not any of the predators at the coffeehouse.

It was annoying, being taken for granted. She'd been taken for granted by men before she'd realized she was a lesbian. Liking women did not make her see why she should stop being annoyed.

She was wearing an old top and even older cutoffs. Her hair looked like she'd slept on it wet, which she had. And still the looks, the overt curiosity.

Maybe she screamed "s.e.xy" and "d.y.k.e." She'd been told often that she did, so often it felt like an accusation, not a compliment. But she didn't think she d.a.m.n well screamed "available for the asking,"

too. Swear to freakin' G.o.d, b.o.o.bs made even lesbians stupid.

20.

She was halfway home when she realized she'd forgotten to look for a store that sold candles. Telegraph Avenue at home would have offered a half-dozen street vendors, but here she'd have to make a bigger effort, obviously. The furnished house had a funky smell of mice and mothb.a.l.l.s. Something with the aroma of the ocean would be relaxing and useful. It was a long, long way to the nearest tide.

The house smelled old and dead and she was not either of those things, even if she felt like it sometimes.

She stopped walking for a moment, letting the waves of anger subside. She'd thought miles and f.u.c.king miles of f.u.c.king cornfields would be far enough away from the past. Far enough away that she'd stop being mad and hurt and crushed. That she'd start feeling like she could smile and not cry.

She needed to destroy something but lacked a viable target. If Jerry Falwell had appeared in front of her right then she'd have cheerfully dismembered him and then beat his fascist cronies to death with his bones.

What are you doing in Iowa f.u.c.king City, Liddy? She pressed one hand over her eyes and took a long, steadying breath. To do a job, she reminded herself. If she did it well it could be a good future.

Swear to freakin' G.o.d, she was not going to be thirty and still wondering what she wanted to be when she grew up.

She trudged up the driveway of her temporary home. The living room of the house was Iowa City rental chic. What matched was broken while the ugliest furniture would survive the apocalypse, forever pristine. Rates were low for summer and the lease was up July 31 when students would flood the town again. By then Liddy hoped to be home in Berkeley, where she belonged, her laptop overflowing with notes and citations.

She snapped on the boombox. Groove Armada oozed over the tick of a single clock and the drone of traffic on the busy street outside. Oatmeal and bananas for dinner?

21.

She dialed up her voicemail out of habit and flinched at the sound of her mother's amplified voice.

"Daddy and I are just wondering how you are. Have you looked up my cousin Selma yet? Cedar Rapids is only thirty-five miles. You take the interstate-"

She punched ahead thirty seconds.

"Then you turn left onto Runnymede. Daddy can send you the map if you need it. Are you eating something more than oatmeal?

We love you, honey. Call when you get the chance."

It was her first and only message since her arrival four days ago, so she saved it. She could listen again later and pretend she actually had a reason for voice mail.

She was only a few steps from the phone when it chirped. She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the handset.

"This is Faye with University Library Services. I'm calling to let you know that eight of the nine texts you requested have arrived.

They'll be held under your name for the next four days."

"Oh." Liddy was at a loss for words. "You actually called."

"We always do, as you should have been informed-"

"It's okay. n.o.body's ever called before, that's all."

"Really? But it's our policy. Never?"

"Oh, I'm new. n.o.body at home ever called, I mean. In California."

"Oh, I see." Incredulity changed to understanding. There was even a nuance of pity in the librarian's voice.

"How late are you open tonight?"

"Until eight on Wednesdays."

"Great." She could grab the books, get some dinner out for a change. Then come home and settle in to read something useful.

The rest of the day no longer seemed so bleak. At least she would get some work done toward claiming that first paycheck. She was here to work.

22.

She'd had her doubts that the in-window air conditioning unit had any effect at all until she stepped outside just after seven. The humidity descended on her shoulders like a blanket and sweat instantly p.r.i.c.kled the length of her back.

She stood in the shade of the house for minute, glaring at the Hummer. It had been fun to drive across country. She'd slept in it three nights in Wal-Mart parking lots. She'd cruised past big rigs and RVs on steep grades.

It barely fit in the narrow two-track cement driveway, and there was no street parking. And it got thirteen miles to the gallon, if she was lucky.

Leave it to her absentee biological father to make a gesture like this: lavish, conspicuous, yet undeniably fun. He wanted her to love the outdoors the way he did, routinely ignoring the fact that she was a city girl down to the tips of her pink-tinted toenails. The insurance was astronomical and there were times when she couldn't afford to fill the thirty-two gallon tank. It was not the vehicle of a Master in History with no firm job prospects.

Her mother, when she'd seen it, had simply said, "How typical of Jim." Liddy heard every bounced child-support check in her mother's sigh.

Daddy, her mother's second husband, had helped her explore all its little gadgets, then advised her to sell it and pay off her student loans.

She steeled herself for the tight squeeze through the fence posts at the base of the driveway. A scratch would probably cost a thousand bucks to repair. Her biological father was there at the major birth-days and events like college graduation, but not around for the little things. He never had been. Jason and Jeanine, being older, were long used to asking him for stuff, but she had never felt enough like his daughter to do that. She'd been two months old when her mother had filed for divorce.

She had the behemoth halfway out of the driveway when the next spate of traffic reached her. Aware she was holding up the busy 23 street, she continued inching out and told herself she could do this every day. She would not sell her car just because it was too big for Iowa f.u.c.king City. She was only here for the summer.

n.o.body honked, but she felt as if gun sights were focused on her California license plates.

Free at last, she headed toward campus, narrowly avoiding a head-on with a bus. The streets were too narrow.

She managed to find two adjacent parking s.p.a.ces in the lot next to the university's main library. She jammed a Cal Bears cap over her hair, pulled her ponytail through the back and welcomed the cool interior.

Her reserved books were located and checked out to her with alacrity. Scanning the bibliography of the first book she saw several items she ought to look for. Wandering through the musty stacks she felt calm again. Libraries had that effect on her.

She was startled when the lights flickered. A glance at her watch told her it was nearly eight. She took her new list of needed texts to the research desk. At least the lines were short. She'd be spoiled when she got home to Cal again. Stop that, she thought. You're not a Cal student any longer, remember?

"This one I can't help you with. It's out to a professor and they can keep a book indefinitely." The slightly swishy reference librarian seemed genuinely regretful. "Technically they have to bring it back, but short of us sending a security guard to their office, we can't really force the issue."

"Oh, well, dang. I saw in the catalog it's the only copy."

"Try the P.L. They have a lot of general medical reference."

"P.L.?"

"Public library. It's just off the Ped Mall."

"Oh, really? Yeah, I guess it's worth stopping in." She remembered now Marian the Librarian turning into the sizable building.

"Plus they have fiction and videos."

"There's an idea." Liddy thanked him for the advice, checked out the three additional books she'd decided on, and headed into the sunset swelter.

24.

Parking the Hummer near the Pedestrian Mall was another ch.o.r.e. Maybe she should settle her student loans and buy something more practical. One of those hybrids that would get her home to California on one tank of gas, maybe. Or a nice Jeep. A Jeep could be fun and practical. Of course it would never double as a moving van.

The Hummer had held a ton of c.r.a.p and left plenty of room for sleeping, even if one morning she'd woken up with the winch in her back.

Standing in the nonfiction area, she realized her reference number for the text was the Library of Congress method and of course the public library used the Dewey Decimal System. There were no terminals free to look it up again and suddenly the rows seemed very long. She could guess roughly where the book ought to be, but sharp hunger pangs were making it hard to think.

She knew closing time had to be fast approaching. Discouraged, she almost left, but her roaming glance caught sight of a sign for the reference desk. The librarians would have their own terminals.

The woman at the desk was huddled over something as Liddy approached, but she abruptly looked up. Oh, Liddy thought in surprise. Marian again.

"May I help you find a resource?"