Betrayal

Nolan pulled into a space in the parking lot by her apartment. He killed the engine and his lights and reached for his door handle.

'You don't have to get out,' she said.

'No, I do. A gentleman walks a woman to her door on a dark night.'

'That's all right. I'll be fine.'

He sat back in his seat, then turned to look at her. 'You're trying to avoid that awkward here-we-are-at-the- door moment. Understood. You don't have to ask me in for a nightcap. I won't try to kiss you good-night. Even if I am finding you marginally more attractive than before we'd had such a good time. That was a great meal.'

'It was.' But she spoke without much enthusiasm. Her hands clasped in her lap, she sat facing forward, stiff and unyielding.

'What is it?' he asked. 'Are you all right?'

She exhaled. 'Do you still have Evan's letter?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

She didn't move. 'I think I should read it. I should read the other ones.'

'All right. It's in the glovebox, right in front of you. Help yourself.' He opened the car door and stepped out. The night smells of gardenia, jasmine, magnolia-he'd forgotten how beautiful it could be here in California in the summertime. Walking around the car, he opened the passenger door.

Tara sat still another second, then opened the glove compartment, picked out the envelope, swung her legs, and got out. She said, 'Really, Ron, I'm okay. That's my place, right up there, you can see it from here.'

'Yes, you can, but it's against my religion to let you walk up there alone.'

She sighed. 'Okay.'

'And no funny stuff,' he said. 'From you, I mean.'

Amused in spite of herself, she looked up at him and shook her head. 'I'll try to keep myself under control.' Holding up the letter so he could see she had it, she turned and he fell in beside her-across the parking lot, up the outside stairs. Unlocking her door, she pushed it open and turned on the inside light. 'Safe,' she said. 'Thank you.'

'You're very welcome.' He executed a small bow. 'I had a great time,' he said. 'You sleep tight.'

5

Saturday he took her up to San Francisco. This one was a nondate, he told her, because it was in the daytime and a real date by definition had to be at night. He picked her up at ten-thirty in the morning and with the top down on his Corvette, they took Highway 280 up to the city, the beautiful green back way, Crystal Springs reservoir on their left, and then, farther on, the great expanse of the glittering Bay down to their right.

She didn't know the city as well as he did. She'd told him that at dinner, and he'd used it as his excuse to ask her out again: She couldn't live as close as she did to one of the world's great cities and not know very much about it. It was morally wrong.

So they hit the Palace of the Legion of Honor, then swung back through Golden Gate Park, stopping for tea at the Japanese Tea Garden after an hour inside the De Young Museum. The fine August weather was holding up, and parking at Ghirardelli Square, they walked back up Polk Street and ate baguettes and pate and drank red wine at one of the outdoor tables of a French bistro. Taking a walk afterward, idly sightseeing, they essayed the descent of Lombard, the 'crookedest street in the world'-although it wasn't in fact even the crookedest street in the city, Nolan told her. That distinction belonged to Vermont Street down in Potrero Hill. Nevertheless, Lombard was crooked and steep enough, and he told her that she might want to put her hand on his arm for balance, and she did.

In North Beach, at Caffe Trieste, Nolan brought their cappuccinos over and put them down on the tiny table in front of her. 'Okay,' he said, 'risky-question time again.'

This time, more comfortable with him by now, she smiled and said, 'Uh-oh.'

'Think you can handle it?'

'You never know, but I'll try.'

'Evan's letters.'

'What about them?'

'Have you read them?'

She looked down at her coffee, lifted the cup and took a sip, then put it down carefully. 'Why don't you just tell me I'm pretty again and we'll run with that instead?'

'Okay. You're pretty again. After that ugly time you had back there for a while.'

'Yeah, that was terrible.' But the gag wasn't working. Her mouth went tight and she closed her eyes, sighing, then opened them and looked him full in the face. 'Not yet. I tried starting to read them the other night, but I'm still too emotional about him. I haven't changed my mind about what he's doing, so there's really nothing he can say…'

Nolan took a long moment before he sipped his coffee, another one before he spoke. 'You don't see anything noble or glorious or even good in the warrior, do you?'

She briefly met his eyes. 'The warrior,' she said in a derisive tone.

'The warrior, that's right.'

She shook her head. 'Evan's not a warrior, Ron. Evan's a simple soldier, a grunt who's taking orders from men he doesn't respect, fighting in a country that doesn't want us there, risking his life for a cause he doesn't believe in. I have a hard time with words like noble and glorious and good coming into that equation when I keep seeing waste and stupidity and ignorance.'

'Okay,' Nolan said. 'We could maybe get in a good fight about this particular war. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the philosophical concept of the warrior.'

Her face was still set in stone. 'I never think about the warrior, Ron. War is what's wrong with the world, and always has been.'

Again, Nolan let a silence accumulate. 'With all respect, Tara,' he said quietly, 'you owe it to yourself to think about this.'

'To myself?'

'If you're dumping the guy you're in love with over it, then yes. To yourself.'

'I've told you, I don't know if I'm in love with him anymore.'

'Because he went to fight?'

She slowly turned her coffee cup around. 'I told him we could go to Canada, or anywhere else.'

'And what happens when Canada or wherever feels threatened and needs soldiers?'

'But that's the point, Ron. There was no threat. Iraq was no threat. It was preemptive, like Germany invading Poland. America doesn't do that, that's the point. There are no WMDs, you wait and see. The whole thing's a sham. It's about oil profits and that's all. Halliburton and those people. Can't you see that?'

'Defense contractors, you mean?'

'Yes. Defense contractors. Big business. Cheney and his buddies.'

'Well, of course I see what you're saying, but I'm in a little bit of a bind here, because a defense contractor is who I work for. But from my perspective, we're the guys who are protecting the Army and the civilian admin guys over there. We're the ones feeding our troops, moving water and supplies, doing good work, saving lives, trying to rebuild the country.'

'That we destroyed in the first place.'

Nolan took a breath. 'Look, Tara, war may be hell but that doesn't mean everybody involved in it is evil. I've seen evil, and believe me, it's a whole different animal than what you're thinking of. So let's not talk about this war. I grant you it's got some issues. Let's talk about the warrior.'

'The warrior, the warrior. I don't want the warrior in my life, that's all. I don't want the warrior in the world.'

'Ah, but there's the crux of it. Of course it would be wonderful if there didn't need to be warriors. Just like it would be great if there were no evil in the world. But here's the thing-there is evil. And without warriors, evil would