The War of the Roses

'That's not the way they were sold,' she said, flashing green eyes, widely set, in rebuke.

'He didn't know what he was doing.'

'I liked it,' she said as they walked out of the parlor, huddling in the crowded hall as the group opened umbrellas and prepared to walk into the gusty rain.

'All I had was seventeen bucks. I deliberately bid it up.' He felt foolish and vindictive, telling her that.

'I got carried away,' he added, hoping to blunt his pettiness.

'So did I,' she admitted. 'That's me.' 'Too damned stubborn.' 'My father says tenacious.'

She smiled, showing white, even teeth. The smile warmed him and his antagonism faded. 'Suppose I'd bid it up to a hundred?'

'I was worried you would.' 'You would have gone along?' 'I hate to think about it.'

He returned her smile and moved with her to the doorway.

'Why did you want it?' he asked.

She hesitated, coy now. He sensed the give and take of flirtation.

'It's for one of the girls at the Chatham Arms. I'm a baking assistant for the summer. Her brother's in Golden Gloves. She's one of the maids. Takes a lot of crap. I thought it would be nice. Instead of a tip.'

He was touched, feeling guilty suddenly.

'A shame to break up a pair. Even for a good cause.'

She opened her umbrella and stepped into the rain. He ducked under it, although it didn't do either of them much good.

'Hope you don't mind.'

'I'm a sportsmanlike winner.'

'I'm a lousy loser.'

The Chatham Arms was on the other side of town and they walked through the main street. His hand covered hers as they jointly clutched the umbrella against the wind. The rain came at them horizontally and they finally took refuge in the doorway of a closed toy store.

By then they had traded vital statistics. Her name was Barbara Knowles. She was a student at Boston University. She had wanted to spend the summer as a volunteer for Jack Kennedy to help him win against Nixon, she told him. But she couldn't afford that.

'Anyway, I like baking. It's fun. And the pay's good.'

'Unless you spend it all.' He pointed to the figure wrapped in soggy newspapers.

'You, too.' She laughed and he noticed that her eyes were really hazel and had turned from green to brown in the late-afternoon light.

'I guess I just like old things. They'll be worth more than money someday. Like these figures.' 'You can't eat them.'

'Unfortunately not. Anyway, I'll have to avoid temptation. Better stay away from auctions,' he told her. 'Harvard Law is damned expensive. I start in the fall. My deal with my folks is that they pay tuition and I pay living expenses.'

They were huddled together in the tiny storefront entrance. When she spoke, he felt her warm breath against his cheek. A current, he knew, was passing between them. Something wonderful and mysterious. He felt her response.

'Don't give him away,' he said, sensing his note of pleading. It was, after all, a symbol of their meeting. 'Not yet.'

'It's mine,' She pouted with mock sarcasm, holding it over his head like a club.

'One isn't much good without the other,' he said. 'It's a twosome.'

'I beat you fair and square,' she said.

'Well, the battle isn't over yet,' Oliver whispered, wondering if she had heard his voice above the beat of the rain.

'Not yet,' she agreed, smiling. She had heard him.

2

Through the dormer window of her third-floor room, Ann saw him open the side door of the garage. Holding his toolbox, he moved over the flagstone walk toward the house. A reddish spear of light from the slipping September sun bounced off the metal tools laid neatly in the box. Starded by the sudden glinting beam, she moved back out of the dormer's niche, her heart pounding.

Hoping that she was out of his field of vision, she watched him pause and reattach a string of English ivy that had fallen from the high cedar fence. The fence formed a backdrop for a line of still-maturing arborvitaes that separated the back garden from the neighbor's.

Seldom could she study him so minutely, free of her self-consciousness and clumsy shyness. Besides, she was certain that Oliver Rose viewed her as a country bumpkin from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, that is, if he ever took the time to assess her seriously.

In his beige corduroys and blue plaid shirt, he looked oddly miscast as a man who worked with his hands most of his spare time. Even in his basement workroom - surrounded by his neatly hung power tools; his nuts, bolts,