Night Shift

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.'

'That's crazy!' And how would you know Ed was in Las Vegas?'

'I ran into Shirley D'Antonio just before school started. She worked in the Pines Restaurant, which is just across from the playhouse. She said she never saw anybody who looked like Ed Hamner. So I've known he's been lying to you about several things. And so I went to my father and laid it out and he gave me the go-ahead.'

'To do what?' Elizabeth asked, bewildered.

'To hire a private detective agency.'

Elizabeth was on her feet. 'No more, Alice. That's it.' She would catch the bus into town, spend tonight at Ed's apartment. She had only been waiting for him to ask her, anyway.

'At least know,' Alice said. 'Then make your own decision.'

'I don't have to know anything except he's kind and good and -'

'Love is blind, huh?' Alice said, and smiled bitterly. 'Well, maybe I happen to love you a little, Liz. Have you ever thought of that?'

Elizabeth turned and looked at her for a long moment. 'If you do, you've got a funny way of showing it,' she said. 'Go on, then. Maybe you're right. Maybe I owe you that much. Goon.'

'You knew him a long time ago,' Alice said quietly. 'I. . . what?'

'P.S. 119, Bridgeport, Connecticut.'

Elizabeth was struck dumb. She and her parents had lived in Bridgeport for six years, moving to their present home the year after she had finished the second grade. She had gone to P.S. 119, but -'Alice, are you sure?'