Dearest Constance, it seems so weird to be back in high school, spending my time with all these people who have no idea what I was feeling all summer, how much I learned, how different I am. A boy I met last year, Wesley Minturn, very tall and thin and stooped (like a stork peering down to see what the rest of us are up to) asked me to go to a movie. He said he had his father’s car and he even told me what kind—a six-cylinder Alfa-Romeo convertible, red, with black leather seats—I guess he thought I’d find that irresistible but actually I thought it was pretty sad that he couldn’t trust himself to be the main attraction of the evening. He made me feel old . . . well, older than him anyway, because I do trust myself, maybe for the first time in my life. I think I won’t date at all for the rest of high school; I’m just too different from everybody here, I’ve seen too much of the world, I’m world-weary (I’m pretty sure I know what that means) and even though I’m an actress I won’t act like all the other seventeen-year-olds in my class. I’m sure I’ll be lonely, but that’s the price one pays for being an artist. If we don’t suffer, how can we ever become great? I hope you’re fine and please write to me. All my love, Jessica.
Luke smiled. World-weary. Hardly. She was young, charming, full of energy and hope, and dramatic as only a seventeen-year-old could be: acting a role even when writing a letter. Constance probably had seen herself, at seventeen, in that letter. No wonder they’d become friends.
He slipped Jessica’s letter back in its place and sat back, his gaze moving around the library. It was large and square with a deep green cove ceiling, mahogany shelves lining three walls and a mahogany-carved fireplace within a green marble surround. A red, green and brown Bessarabian covered the floor and the long couches were the same red, startling and dramatic against dark green velvet drapes. “Like a stage set,” his grandmother had said with satisfaction, and she had sat like a queen in the center of one of the couches, looking up to the ceiling with its wrought-iron chandelier and down to the vast coffee table covered with stacks of books, most of them bristling with bookmarks. I miss her, Luke thought; those weekly telephone calls, our visits, just knowing she was there, part of my life.
The telephone rang and he reached for it. “Luke,” said Tricia, somewhere between annoyance and alarm, “I’m at Joe and Ilene’s; why aren’t you here?”
“I decided to stay home and read.”
“Stay home? You never stay home! And this playwright you wanted to meet—”
“I called him; we made a date for lunch next week.”
“Something’s wrong. Was it last night? Because I talked about getting married? I wasn’t serious, you know; and anyway, I said I didn’t want to, so—”
“It has nothing to do with you. I enjoy being home and I don’t do it often enough.”
There was a pause. “Are you going to Monte’s dinner?”
“No.”
“Luke, he’s your producer!”
“He’s having sixty people for dinner; he won’t miss me. I’m sorry I’m not with you, but you’ll find plenty of scandals for tomorrow’s column and that’s the real reason you’re there, isn’t it?”
“Well, and to be with you.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll do something on Friday if you’re free. Right now I’m going back to my reading.”
When he hung up, he refilled his glass from the bottle of Scotch that Martin had left for him earlier that evening and added ice cubes from the insulated ice bucket. “You’ll be having dinner at home?” Martin had asked. “About eight,” Luke replied. “Something light.”
He reached for another letter, and the telephone rang again. “What the hell,” he said, and thought of letting Martin get it, but instead picked it up.
“Luke!” Claudia exclaimed. “Why are you home? You said you’d be at Joe and Ilene’s, and then Monte’s, and then we had a date!”
Oh, Christ, he thought, remembering, and felt annoyed and resentful as he saw his private evening slip away. But at the same time he saw the humor in it: two women trying to drag him out of his home when all he wanted was to be alone with a third woman’s letters.
“It’s because you don’t want to see me, isn’t it? You never stay home; you’re just looking for an excuse—”
“It has nothing to do with you.” It was amazing how people made themselves crucial to every event, he thought, seeing themselves as the cause of what other people do. He drained his glass and mentally shrugged. “I’ll have a quick supper with you. Italia at nine. I’ll see you there.”
He told Martin he would not, after all, be dining at home and asked him to call the restaurant to reserve a table. He poured himself another drink and took out the next letter. He had an hour.
Oh, what a magnificent gift! Dearest Constance, how wonderful you are, the necklace is absolutely the most gorgeous gift I’ve ever had. The cameo looks so rare and precious, and I love the silver chain, and I’m going to wear it forever, starting tomorrow afternoon with graduation and then the prom. Well, yes, I actually am going to the prom. I remember I told you I wouldn’t date for the rest of high school and you said I’d feel as if I was in a play and got sick and my understudy went on and nobody missed me. You were absolutely right, so after a while I started going to parties and things and I even had a good time. Well, some of the time I did; do you have any idea how young high school boys are? They only have three or four things to talk about and then they start using their hands. You wouldn’t believe it: one minute they’re talking about the school football team or something else I couldn’t care less about, and then all of a sudden their hands are all over the place, poking, rubbing, pawing . . . unbelievably crude! And sloppy! They have absolutely no finesse . . . they’re like puppies, all panting and nuzzling. The problem is, once in a while lately I’ve started responding—well, my body has, anyway, and I think, oh, well, why not?—which I find totally embarrassing because there’s nothing romantic happening, and then it all seems so dumb, and I tell whoever it is to take me home. But what happened about the prom was that a really handsome guy who just moved here, very smooth—lots of finesse!—asked me to go, and I thought, what a change, so I’m going with him. . . . He just called and asked me what I’m wearing so he could choose an orchid to match! I told him black. It has lace barely covering my front, very sophisticated—and can’t you imagine how the cameo will look against black silk? More later, all of it in great detail.
Crude and sloppy, Luke thought. Puppies. He remembered himself in high school, all arms and legs, awkward and uncoordinated the minute a girl approached; his voice unreliable, his penis willfully springing to attention, obeying no master but itself. She doesn’t know a damn thing about it, he grumbled. But then he chuckled, remembering that the letter had been written some twenty-three years earlier. Past history, he thought; she’s learned a lot since then, and so have I. He opened the next letter and ran a casual eye over it, not interested in descriptions of a high school prom, but suddenly a sentence stopped him.
I’m so ashamed of the letters I’ve been sending you, so incredibly childish.
Something happened, he thought; she’s changed. And it looks like it’s been a long time since the last letter. He went back to the beginning.
Dearest Constance, your letter was forwarded to me here, at Yale, where I’m finishing up my first year. I’m sorry I haven’t written, I think of you all the time but I just couldn’t write. I’m so ashamed of the letters I’ve been sending you, so incredibly childish. I can’t believe I ever was that person, so young and uncaring, never wondering if you had time in your life for a twittering teenager who kept throwing herself at you, demanding that you love her. I did want you to love me, for lots of reasons, but partly because I thought my parents didn’t. Well, now they’re dead and all I know for sure is that I never really knew them and that makes me so despairing that I think I’ll explode with it because there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not sure I ever really looked at them, you know; it seems to me I was always looking somewhere else when they were in the room. So I never saw who they really were. They told me they loved me and wanted to protect me, but that meant keeping me in our little town, safely married, doing something with my drawing and painting—like interior design, or something—but I’d told them over and over that that was just a hobby. They never understood that New York means the theater and you and life to me, and all I wanted was to be there, and we quarreled about that and now I think of things I should have said, or things I should have said differently, or not said at all. I know they loved me and they weren’t bad people . . . oh, it’s crazy and scary to think that I’ll never see them again or tell them all these things I’ve figured out how to say. They were driving to a movie and they stopped for a red light and a car rammed them from behind and pushed them into the path of a truck. I had nightmares about that for months, even after I came to Yale, and then I got sick and ended up in the infirmary. A psychiatrist, Dr. Leppard, came to see me, a wonderful man who reminds me of my father, and we talked for months, three times a week, and after a while I was able to sleep again. But I didn’t care about anything; I felt like some kind of mechanical doll that makes all the right moves and passes tests in class and talks to people—everybody was so nice, but it was like they were talking to me from far away—I felt all empty inside—not alive. Then one day Dr. Leppard asked why wasn’t I in the theater program? That was funny, because of course it was the reason I came to Yale and I hadn’t even thought about it. So I went over to the theater and they were casting a play and I got a part right away. It was small, but it got me back on stage. But then the most awful thing happened. When I came to the first rehearsal and looked at all the empty seats in front of me and the rest of the cast all around me and the director sitting on the edge of the stage with the script in his hand, I started to cry. Because right then, for the first time, I really believed that my parents were dead and I’d never be with them again and it was as if I’d thumbed my nose at them the minute I walked out on stage. I mean, I’d chosen this other world that they didn’t approve of and it was like a betrayal. Of course they’d never know it, but still . . . oh, I don’t know, it was the most confused time in my life. Everybody came to help and I finally stopped crying, and afterwards I felt like I’d become somebody else. I wasn’t my parents’ daughter and I never would be, ever again. And I was alone. I didn’t have anybody behind me, waiting for me to come home, keeping my bedroom ready and leaving the front door unlocked and the living room lamp lit. But after a while I remembered that I have you to write to, and your letters to read—I read them hundreds of times, did I ever tell you that?—and I knew that I really do have a family and a home and that’s the theater. It’s the one place I know I belong. I’m going to work as hard as I can, and I’ll be the best of all—except for you, of course; but maybe someday I’ll be as good as you—because that’s what I want more than anything in the world. I don’t want a family or children or any of those ordinary things that get so messy and hurt so much. I just want to act. Once I thought the theater was all I wanted; now I know it’s all I can have. I miss my parents. I miss knowing they’re at home, talking about what we’ll do when I visit. I miss having them miss me. I hope you’re fine and that you’ll write to me again even if I’ve spent all this time talking about myself. Are you fine? What are you starring in now? All my love, Jessica.
“Luke, what in the world is the matter with you?” Claudia exclaimed. “We’re waiting for you!”
Luke looked up and met the patient gaze of the sommelier, looking as timeless as the murals of Pompeii and Herculaneum on the walls and the antique draperies at the windows. “Sorry.” He ran his eye down the wine list he had been staring at, unseeing. “We’ll have the Conterno Poderi Barolo if you still have the ’90. And ask our waiter to bring us an order of calamari to start.”
“What were you thinking about? Or should I say, who?”
“An eighteen-year-old girl whose parents were killed in an automobile accident.”
She stared at him. “Who is it? I didn’t know you knew any eighteen-year-olds. Oh, is it the new play you’ve just started working on? You haven’t told me anything about it.”
“No.” The sommelier brought the wine and Luke sat back and looked at Claudia. She was wearing a dark blue dinner suit, beaded at the deep cuffs and collar and cut with such dramatic angles that it was almost a costume. She wore it with style, attracting glances. But they were brief, because her beauty was the kind that left people feeling puzzled, wondering why they were not drawn to such perfection. Her face was a perfect oval framed by straight black hair that swung smoothly when she turned her head; her black eyes were spaced perfectly, her cheekbones made gentle shadows in her smooth, lightly powdered skin. Her mouth . . . well, that was one of the problems, Luke thought. Her mouth would have been perfect but for the tiny tug of dissatisfaction at each corner, like a perpetual complaint that the world was not living up to Claudia Cameron’s expectations. And then there was something wrong with her perfection itself: she always looked a little as if she were lacquered, her features unmarked by warmth. Even when she smiled, her eyes were watchful and a little suspicious.
Once, Luke had been overwhelmed by her beauty, when he was young and beginning to be noticed. He knew she would help him to be noticed, and she did: they were such a striking couple that their photographs appeared in magazines more often than couples with greater fame and more impressive credentials. And Claudia helped him in other ways. She was an amiable hostess who followed Luke’s directions perfectly in hiring caterers, florists and valets; she tolerated unexpected guests with a bright smile; and she could talk lightly and amusingly at parties of ten or a hundred for an entire evening without saying one word of significance or making one remark that anyone could construe as controversial.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, having held her pose for several minutes so that he could gaze at her without interruption.
Luke nodded to the sommelier to pour the wine. “What a good hostess you are.”
“Oh, was. I don’t entertain anymore. There doesn’t seem to be any point. Is the eighteen-year-old real, or is she in a play?”
“She’s real.”
“Who is she?”
“An actress.”
“At eighteen?”
“She’s in the theater program at Yale.”
“And fired up with ambition? That’s what you find so attractive about her?”
“Do I find her attractive?”
“Enough to make you forget I’m sitting here.”
“I didn’t forget; I was distracted. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
Claudia beckoned to the waiter. “Ravioli alla quattro funghi,” she said, “and the tre colore salad to start. Keep the dressing on the side. What are you having, Luke? Maybe the same thing? You always did like mushrooms.”
An old trick, Luke thought, remembering all the ways Claudia had tried to bind them into one when it was clear their marriage had failed to do that. “Lobster risotto,” he said to the waiter, “and the same salad as the lady.” He turned to Claudia. “Is it money again?”
“Oh, Luke, how crude you are.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. But you did say you had to talk to me.”
“Well, I am.” He made a gesture of impatience that she recognized and she said hastily, “It’s just that I need to talk. You know that, Luke. All these years and I haven’t found one person who understands me the way you do. You know there’s more to me than people think. I was a good hostess, wasn’t I? People always talked about our parties; some of them would have killed to get invitations. I loved being your hostess; I remember every party we ever gave. Remember the time that prince, the short one, what’s-his-name . . .”
Luke drank his wine and welcomed the arrival of his salad and then their dinners. It became increasingly clear that Claudia had nothing particular to talk to him about or, if she did, was putting it off to another night, to make sure there would indeed be another night.
“. . . and of course it was such fun, all those people telling you how wonderful you were, and I was part of it. Nobody notices me now; do you know how awful that is? No, how could you? It’s the worst thing in the world; it’s like I’ve disappeared.”
“You have at least five hundred friends; you’re busy every night.”
“Well, thank God; that’s what keeps me alive. But, you know, Luke, those are acquaintances; they’re not really friends who truly care about me. I mean, they think I’m somebody because I was married to you and I still see you, I mean, we still date once in a while, but when you come right down to it, you know, there is absolutely nobody waiting for me when I get home at night. Just that empty apartment.”
I didn’t have people behind me, waiting for me to come home, keeping my bedroom ready and leaving the front door unlocked and the living room lamp lit.
Luke felt a flicker of pity, which surprised him and left him momentarily silent. He seldom felt pity: he believed most people were the cause of their own troubles and had it in their power to clear them up if they so chose. Claudia especially—beautiful, spoiled, self-centered—had undercut their marriage from the beginning by refusing to share with him in building it. She had clung to him for everything: the fame he brought her, their travel, their friends, their social life, the way she organized her days, demanding of him that he tell her what to do with herself and how to do it. “You have a good sense of design,” he had said, and she had gone to design school until it bored her. “I’ll be an actress,” she had declared, staring down Luke’s look of disbelief, and she had gone to acting classes until even she had admitted that she had no talent and no real interest. Over and over, she had forced him to direct their marriage as he directed plays, but when something upset her she called him a tyrant. She preened at the attention they got when they went out, then sulked at home because people wanted to talk to Luke, not to her.
“What do you want?” he had demanded when they had been married almost five years.
“I want you to help me!” she flung at him.
“I’ve helped you for five years,” he said quietly.
“Not enough!”
But by then he did not care whether it was enough or not. Whatever she wanted, it was more than he could give her and he was exhausted by her incessant demands. He said he wanted a divorce, and she went through with it, rigid with anger and the fear of being alone. She left New York and for a year Luke did not see her. But then she began calling him, first from Europe, to tell him she was coming home, then irregularly, begging to see him. And, almost always, Luke made the time to see her.
“You shouldn’t have married her,” Constance had told him. “You know perfectly well that you can’t tolerate dependent people and you knew from the time you met Claudia that she would lean on you for everything. But you can’t just cut her out of your life; you still have some responsibility for her.”
“Luke, you’re drifting again!” Claudia exclaimed. “I wish, just once, you’d concentrate on me. We’d still be married if you’d been willing to do that.” Luke smiled and she looked at him defiantly. “I don’t see what you find amusing in that.”
“I’m amused by the contortions people go through to explain the past. It’s not just you, it’s everyone, including me. Such convolutions to find ways to soothe our vanity.”
“You’re saying I’m lying?”
“I’m saying you’ve written your own script and it satisfies you, so it needn’t have even a remote resemblance to mine.” His pity had faded; he was exactly where he was every time he was with Claudia: impatient to be gone. And now he could be; they had finished their coffee and had no reason to linger. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
“Already? Are you nervous? You always get nervous when I talk about our marriage.”
“I never recognize our marriage when you talk about it. And I’m not nervous; I want to get home. I have work to do; we begin casting next week.”
“Can I watch the rehearsals?”
“I leave that up to the cast. You know that.” He signaled for the check.
“I was at the Phelans’ last week,” Claudia said, very casually, and then Luke knew what this dinner was about, and he knew that she had held off talking about it until it was clear that, otherwise, the evening would be over.
He sat back, ignoring the check the waiter put beside him. “How much did you lose?”
“You could give me the benefit of the doubt. I might have won.” He looked at her steadily and she flushed deeply. “A little over five thousand.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t go there again.”
“I was lonely.”
“More likely bored.”
“That’s part of being lonely. So when they called and said they missed me and they had some really interesting people and a new roulette wheel with a terrific new croupier—and I felt lucky—and God knows I’ve missed them—well, anyway, I said yes. And they gave me the front bedroom, you know, the blue-and-silver one, and I had such a good time. They’re wonderful people, Luke; they make me feel wanted.”
“They want your money.”
“They want me! They could get tons of people with money, but they always call me first. Why can’t you believe that people really like me?”
“I know that people like you. I also know the Phelans.” He skimmed the dinner check, then laid it inside its leather folder with his credit card. “How much over five thousand?”
There was a pause. “Actually, it was closer to ten.”
“How much closer?”
“A little over nine. Just a little. Nine, three. But I have it, Luke, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“You don’t have it. The Phelans know you don’t have it, but they know you can get it. Why else would they let you play all weekend just on your signature?”
“How do you know—”
“I told you: I know them. You didn’t spend a penny at their house, did you? They never asked you to. And what little token of affection did they give you when you left? Earrings? An Hermès scarf? A bracelet?” Claudia was silent. “What was it?”
“Lapel pin,” she whispered.
“Ninety-three hundred dollars for a lapel pin,” he said contemptuously.
“It was a gift! Because they love me! And if I want to believe that, who the hell are you to tell me I’m wrong?”
“Your banker,” he said.
Her shoulders slumped. She stared into space, running a finger around the rim of her wineglass. “I have until day after tomorrow.”
The waiter took the leather folder and vanished, and Luke pulled out his checkbook. An expensive dinner, he thought, and no sign of anything changing soon. Why the hell can’t she find another husband? But he knew the answer to that: she clung to the fantasy that they would get together again. Like a child, she believed that saying or thinking something often enough would make it a reality. And in one way she was right: he kept covering her gambling debts.
He wrote the check and held it out until, with a whispered “Thank you,” she took it and slipped it into her purse. Then he signed the charge slip for dinner and finally shoved back his chair and stood up. “I’ll walk you home,” he said, and turned to lead the way out of the restaurant, letting Claudia trail behind.
“Thank you,” she said again when they reached her building. “I do appreciate it, Luke, your help, your being close to me . . . it means everything to me. I won’t go back there, you know, the Phelans’, if you don’t want me to.”
“I didn’t want you to go the last time. You knew that.”
“But I hadn’t gone for such a long time. . . . And you know, they are my friends.”
“Next time you want to go, call me first.”
“Like AA.” She smiled brightly. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have for a buddy.” She put her hand on his arm. “Won’t you come up for a drink? I bought your favorite cognac.”
He even told me what kind of car . . . I guess he thought I’d find that irresistible but I thought it was pretty sad that he couldn’t trust himself to be the main attraction of the evening.
“No,” Luke said. “Good night.” And he walked away, leaving Claudia with her doorman, who patiently held the door, averting his eyes but not missing a word.
Dearest Constance, how can I ever thank you enough for your wonderful letter. I’m so sorry about your daughter dying . . . I guess that sounds silly because I know it happened such a long time ago, but the way you described it, I was crying, it was so sad and I couldn’t bear to think of how you suffered, even though you said having your daughter’s little boy helped a lot. And it helped me, knowing what you’d gone through, and of course the most important part was when you said “I didn’t tell her often enough how much I loved her and what a good person and good mother I thought she was; I took it for granted that somehow she knew all that. But nothing in relationships can be taken for granted, repaired or restored when all the opportunities have slipped through our fingers.” I showed that to Dr. Leppard and he said you’re a very wise woman, and you are, and how lucky your grandson was to grow up with you. Lucas Cameron, what a nice name; he must be a wonderful man. And he wants to be a director! That’s so exciting for you! I’m sorry he was in Europe when I met you in summer stock, and now he’s finishing graduate school, but I know I’ll meet him someday because he’s going to be famous, I just know it, because you brought him up and maybe someday he’ll direct both of us in a play; wouldn’t that be wonderful? Please tell me how you’re going to play Miss Moffat. I’ve loved The Corn Is Green all my life and I’ve thought about how I’d play her and I’m sure that deep inside she’s very insecure and fighting to discover who she is and what she can be. Is that how you see her? Thank you again, thank you so much, for your letter and most of all for your friendship. I do love you. Jessica.
Luke reread the last few sentences. He remembered talking to Constance about The Corn Is Green. She had come to his graduation when he received his Ph.D. and they had talked about the play, soon to begin rehearsals. Constance had said that a friend thought that Miss Moffat was insecure and what did Luke think about that? “You’ve got a smart friend,” Luke had said. And it was Jessica, he thought, refolding the letter. About nineteen years old, for the first time broaching her ideas to Constance as an equal: one actress to another. Good for her.
He fit the letter into its place in the box. As sure of herself at nineteen as I was, he reflected. And she thought I’d be famous someday. He smiled to himself. What amazing insight.
He finished his drink and looked at his watch. A little after midnight; time for a few more letters. He pulled out a handful, all from Yale, describing her courses, her part-time jobs and her acting. By her third year she was regularly starring in the Yale Repertory Theater, one of the most prestigious in the country, and halfway through her senior year her letters reflected this: they grew more assured with every part she played, never casual but often casually confident. She was no longer a wide-eyed ingenue, but a professional who approached each play as a set of problems to be solved, a challenge to be confronted, a joyous time of discoveries about herself and the world.
He looked up as his butler appeared in the doorway. “Still awake? Martin, it’s almost one o’clock.”
“Mr. Cameron, I just discovered a message the housekeeper took this afternoon when I was out. Mr. Kent Home says he’s worried about Monte’s pushing to make Lena older—those are his exact words—and he wants to talk to you, whatever time you arrive home.”
“Thank you, Martin.”
“His voice sounded urgent, the housekeeper said.”
“His voice always sounds urgent. If he calls again, tell him we’ll talk in the morning. Better yet, turn off the main phone and go to bed.”
Martin’s face grew stern. “I could never do that. Emergencies occur, tragedies happen. One cannot cut oneself off, ever, from the tumult of the world, however much it may, momentarily, seem desirable.”
Amused, Luke shook his head when Martin left. I’m surrounded by drama. Probably I create the atmosphere and everyone else jumps in. He glanced at the last paragraph of the letter in his hand. Including Jessica.
I know you’re thinking of my happiness when you keep asking if I’m dating, but dear, dear Constance, I’ve told you so many times that I’m not and I don’t want to. Maybe someday that will change, but, believe me, I don’t feel deprived by not dating and jouncing around in bed the way almost everybody else does. It’s just too far from anything I really care about. I suppose if I met someone really special . . . but I haven’t, so it’s foolish to speculate. I’d rather think about the chance that you’ll come to New Haven for graduation in two weeks. That would be so splendid! Please let me know the very second you decide; I’ve already reserved a room for you, just in case, and the best table in the best restaurant for dinner. Now, THE BIGGEST NEWS OF ALL. (I’ve been saving it for last, hugging it, you know, like a precious secret that I’m sharing for now just with you.) Two days after graduation I’m going to Chicago to read for John Malkovich at Steppenwolf! The theater manager called and invited me! The play is something I don’t know, by Sam Shepherd—they’re sending it to me and I should have it in a day or two—but I don’t care what it is; you of all people know that this is a dream come true—the chance to work with Malkovich and Gary Sinise and Joan Allen and Glenne Headley . . . oh, Constance, I’m sending prayers to all the theater gods that they ask me to join them. Please come to see me graduate; I want to see you, the real you, not the picture of you in my head when I write or read your letters. I can’t wait. Much love, Jessica.
Luke read the long paragraph again, sharing Jessica’s excitement, the exhilaration that comes with that first opening of a door to the future. He had felt it when he got his first job as assistant to one of the greatest directors on Broadway; he had known then that he was on his way and nothing would stop him. And Jessica, too, he thought. I wonder if Constance went to her graduation.
He wanted to read more, to be with her for a while longer and find out what happened next, but it was late and he had an early meeting. Reluctantly he closed the box and switched off the desk lamp. Tomorrow night, he thought. I’ll come back to her then. But at least I know this much. She’s on her way.