d gotten lost
somewhere. I took the message over to him and watched him turn pale.
Bye, bye, Sammy, I said to myself. They were just grabbing people for
Nam when I got out."

"I had a college deferment for a while," Patrick said. "I hope I don't
get drafted. I'd probably leave the country."

"Canada?" Wendell asked.

"South America or Europe," Patrick said.

"I'd never go," Wendell said. "I wouldn't do their dirty work, the
assholes."

"They don't want old men, anyway," Joe said.

"I may be old," Wendell said, "but I can put you on your ass, Joe
Burke."

"So could Willow," Joe said, grinning.

"It's a female thing," Willow said to Wendell who might or might not be
accepting this.

"Female thing," he said looking at her breasts. This was comfortable
territory. "Ha, ha. There's male things, and there's female things."

Joe held up his glass. "Right on, Wendell."

Willow finished her beer and left. They were a pretty decent bunch, she
thought as she pedaled home. They treated her like one of the guys,
almost. She was getting used to conversations full of fuck this and
fuck that. It was a relief after the cautious academic world of her
parents. When she arrived home, she was flushed from the ride. Amber
was still out. She made a sandwich and went to bed with Henry Miller
who was dependably self-involved, hip, sexy, and good humored.

3

The next morning, in the News Shop, Parker Ives introduced Patrick to
Wilson. "Willy, you and Patrick get started on the Van Slyke house." He
rubbed his forehead. "She's intense about her roses; better cover them.
The lilacs, too. I'll be around later with more primer."

"Ya, Boss. Let's go, Patrick." Wilson was short and muscular, balding,
with a thick black mustache and a glass eye. He drove at top speed up
the mountain, stopping several miles from town in the driveway of a
white Colonial. Purple lilacs leaned out from each side of the front
door; rose bushes extended to the ends of the house. They covered the
roses with drop cloths and tied a tarpaulin around each lilac. A woman
wearing linen slacks and a cafe-au-lait blouse appeared at the corner
of the house. Her hair was blonde, short, and well cut.

"Good morning. Is Parker here?"

"He will be, later," Wilson said. She nodded and drove away in a
station wagon, tires crunching on gravel.

They worked on ladders, scraping a section and then priming it.
"Willy--is every woman in Woodstock good looking?" Pat