Man, woman, and child(34)

"What about the kids?" he asked plaintively.

"You're there," she replied. "They can manage without me for one night."

"I can't manage without you," he answered.



The place was dimly lit, the checkered tables crowded with an insalata mista of young college couples and noisy Italian families.

They relaxed easily into friendly conversation.

^Tou seem to enjoy your work/' Gavin remarked.

''I do," Sheila replied.

^*Well, you're bloody good at it. I mean, it's a rare editor who doesn't hide behind coy euphemisms when they think a paragraph is total rubbish."

"Tell me about Washington," she said.

'Tell me more about you," he countered.

"Fve told you everything, really. My life's pretty conventional compared to yours."

Again she had deliberately shifted the topic back to him. Vm not that fascinating, he told himself. Still it was refreshing to encounter someone who could actually resist talking about themselves.

*'Do you see the President much?" she asked.

^'There's no such person. With rare exceptions, the Oval Office is occupied by well-tailored actors who read scripts written for them by a team of writers—of whom I am one. Actually the present incumbent is more like that robot chap in Star Warsr

'Tou're being naughty," she smiled.

"Oh, I thought I was being irreverently charming."

"You were that too. In fact, you're everything the columns say you are."

"Am I? I never read the things."

"Neither do I," said Sheila, "but my staff clip them and put them on my desk."

He looked straight into her mischievous green eyes and said, "Touch6." And added, "Perhaps I need a new scriptwriter."

"No," she answered. "Just an editor." Almost as she said it, she realized the embarrassing ambiguity,



and added as quickly as possible, "Fd love to hear more about our robot President."

''No," he said emphatically. "You can read Jack Anderson for that. Tell me about your other authors. Are they all as vain as I?"

At least this was a topic that did not make her uneasy.

"I don't usually have much personal contact with them. Most of our editing is done by mail."

"Lucky me," he said warmly.

The ambiguity of his remark made her too shy to speak.

Gavin gazed at Sheila's face across the candles, wondering why this lovely woman seemed—despite her playful outward manner—to emanate such sadness.

"You know, you're extremely attractive. Sheila," he said.

She tried desperately to look happily married.

"Do you think Tm just flattering you?" he asked.

^Tes," she said.

"Don't believe everything you read. I'm not playing the devious rou6."

"I never thought so," she replied, convincing neither of them.

"Good," he said. "I'm glad. That means you'll accept my invitation for a nightcap without any superfluous qualms."

"No, really, I can't. My friends are expecting me."

"The Sheraton Commander's midway between there and here."

His hotel. God, was he predictable. And so persistent. What a linel Did he ever actually succeed with it?

Of course he did. Because in other circumstances he might well succeed in making her believe she was attractive and desirable. How ironic that it hap-



pened now, when she was at the very nadir of her confidence as a woman.

"'Sheila?" Gavin repeated, still awaiting her response.

"Uh-I would love to .. /'

'Tine."

"But really Fm exhausted. I wouldn't be much fun.'' He could construe that in accordance with the subtext of his own intention.

"Some other time then," he said good-naturedly, and rose to help her from her chair.

They drove in silence (past the Commander) to the Harvard Press. He waited while she got into her car.

"Thank you, Gavin," Sheila said.

And he replied, "I can't tell you how much I look forward to working with you."



A

h! You weren't working overtime. You had a date/'

"I had dinner with an author, Margo/'

*'I don t care if he was a trapeze artist. He was a man and you were out with him. By my definition, that's a date. Now tell me everything^

As she sat down on the couch, Sheila realized that this was the first time in her life that she actually 'wanted to share her intimate thoughts with Margo.

"May I have a glass of that wine," she said.

Margo poured her some. ''Now let's hear everything. Oh, isn't this just like the Vassar days?"

Was it? Things were much more frivolous then. And much less married.

"Well . . ." Sheila began with the innocuous: ^'Evelyn asked me to come up today for a special rush project. We're reissuing three of Gavin Wilson's books."