"Right. Good thinking," Sam said, pretending that he had the slightest idea of what she was talking about and that he wasn't wondering in the least who or where Grubb's father was.

"Nina moved in when we were both pregnant," Calliope said. "We were each other's Lamaze coaches. I was farther along, though."

"What about Yiffer?"

"Scum," Nina said.

"He seems like a nice guy," Sam said, and Nina shot him an acid look. "As scum goes," he quickly added.

"He only lives here sometimes," Calliope said. "Mostly when he doesn't have gas money for his van."

Nina said, "We're having a yard sale day after tomorrow to raise some money to get him out of here. You might want to look at the stuff down in storage before the sale, pick up a bargain before it gets picked over."

Yiffer entered the living room munching on a loaf of French bread. He stood next to Sam and thrust the bread under Sam's chin. "Bite?"

"No, thanks," Sam said.

"Yiffer!" Calliope said. "That bread was for all of us."

"Truth," Yiffer said. He held the loaf out to Calliope. "Bite?"

"You ruined their dinner," Nina said, letting J. Nigel's head drop and wobble.

Yiffer grinned around a mouthful of bread and gestured toward Nina's exposed breast with his beer hand. "Looking good, babe."

Nina reattached J. Nigel and said to Sam, "I'm sorry, he's only like this when he's awake." To Yiffer she said, "Take some money out of my purse and go down to the corner and get a pizza."

Sam reached for his wallet. "Let me."

"No," Calliope and Nina said in unison.

"Cool!" Yiffer exclaimed, sandblasting Sam with a spray of bread crumbs.

"Go!" Nina commanded, and Yiffer turned and bounded out of the room. In a moment Sam heard the screen door open and footfalls on the steps.

"Sit down," Calliope said. "Relax."

Sam took a seat on the couch next to the two women and for the next forty minutes they exchanged pleasantries between the screaming demands of the babies until Nina handed a damp J. Nigel to Sam and left the room. Like most bachelors, Sam held a baby as if it were radioactive.

"That fucking asshole!" Nina shrieked from the other room, frightening Grubb, who screamed like an air-raid siren. J. Nigel was following suit when Nina returned to the living room, her purse in hand. "He took my rent money. The asshole took all my rent money. Can you guys watch J. Nigel for a minute? I've got to go find him and kill him."

"Sure," Calliope said. Sam nodded, adjusting J. Nigel for long-term holding.

Nina left. Calliope turned to Sam and over the din of screaming infants said, "Alone at last."

"I think J. Nigel needs changing," Sam said.

"So does Grubb. Let's take them into Nina's room."

Sam had slipped into the personality he referred to as "tough and adaptable," one he reserved for the more chaotic and bizarre situations he had encountered in his career. "I can do this," he said with a grin.

He hadn't changed a baby since the days on the reservation when he used to help with his cousins, but when he opened J. Nigel's diaper the memory came back on him like a fetid whirlwind, and he had to fight to keep from gagging. The adhesive strips on disposable diapers were a completely new adventure and he found after a few minutes that he had diapered his left hand perfectly while a squirming J. Nigel remained naked to the world. After changing Grubb and returning him to his plastic donut, Calliope liberated Sam from the diaper and started on J. Nigel, who giggled and peed like an excited puppy at her touch. Sam sympathized.

"Don't feel bad," she said. "The last time we let Yiffer baby-sit he duct-taped J. Nigel's diaper on and we had to use nail-polish remover to get the adhesive off."

"I haven't had much practice," Sam said.

"You don't have any kids?"

"No, I've never met anyone I wanted to have kids with." Sam wanted to smack himself for saying it. Remember, tough and adaptable.

"Me either," Calliope said. "But Grubb is the best thing that ever happened to me. I used to drink and do a lot of drugs, but as soon as I found out I was pregnant I stopped."

Sam looked for an opening to ask about Grubb's father, but none came and the silence was becoming awkward. "That's great," he said. "I had my own battle with the bottle." Actually it hadn't been much of a battle. Aaron had insisted that social drinking was part of the job, but each time Sam had gotten drunk he was haunted by the stereotype of the drunken Indian that he thought he had left behind. It had been ten years since he'd had a drink.

"I'm going to put these guys down," Calliope said. "Why don't you go in the living room and put some music on."

In the living room Sam found a briefcase full of loose cassette tapes. Most of the tapes were New Age releases with enigmatic titles like Tree Frog Whale Song Selections by artists with names like Yanni Volvofinder. With further digging he found one called The Language of Love by a female jazz singer he liked, but when he opened the box he found that the tape had been replaced with one called Catbox Nightmare by a band called Satan's Smegma, obviously a Yifferesque selection. Finally he found The Language of Love languishing boxless in the bottom of the case and popped it into a portable stereo on a bricks-and-boards bookshelf.

Calliope returned to the living room just as the first song was rising in the speakers. "Oh, I love this tape," she said. "I've always wanted to make love to this tape. I'll be right back." She left the room again and returned in a moment with an armload of pillows and blankets, which she dropped in the middle of the floor. "Grubb sleeps in my room and he won't be asleep for a while." She began to spread the blankets out over the floor.

Sam stood by, trying to fight the objections that were rising in his mind about the speed at which things were progressing. She just assumed that he would say yes; it made him feel like — well — a slut. Then again, if this beautiful girl wanted to make love with him, who was he to object? Okay, so he was a slut; he was a tough and adaptable slut. Still, there was one thing that bothered him. "What if Yiffer and Nina come home with the pizza?"

"Oh, I don't think they'll be home that soon. This first time will be pretty fast."

"Hey." Sam thought he might have just been insulted, but on second thought he realized that the girl had just voiced something that he had really been worrying about, without even admitting it to himself. On second thought, she had relieved the pressure on him to perform.

Calliope finished fluffing the pillows, then unlaced her dress and let it drop to the floor. She stepped out of it and went to the stereo, where she turned up the volume, then she crawled naked under the top blanket and pulled it up to her neck. "Okay," she said.

Sam sat on the couch, stunned. She was stunning. But where was the seduction, the deception, the sweet lies and tender posturing? Where was the hunt, the cat-and-mouse game? Sam just stared at her and thought, This is entirely too honest.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yes, it's just kind of…"

"You want me and I want you. Right?"

Who did she think she was? You can't just go around blurting out the truth like a prophet with Tourette's syndrome. He said, "Well, I guess. Yeah, that's right."

"Well?" She threw the covers back to make room for him.

Sam leapt off the couch and fought his way out of his clothes. He was under the covers, taking her into his arms, before his shirt settled to the floor. At the touch of her skin, her warmth, he felt every muscle in his body tense, then melt against her. He kissed her for a long time with none of the fumbling or awkwardness that he expected. He entered her and they began to move together in slow rhythm to the music. Calliope let out a long, low moan and dug her fingers into the muscles of his back. He joined her in the moan and pushed deeper, losing suddenly any thoughts or images or reservations, damn near losing consciousness to the warm, dark rhythm. A door slammed, violently shaking the windows of the apartment.