There's not much more depressing than to be alone in a crowd listening to Christmas carols.

I shuffled through the terminal, feeling about ninety years old. It was about 9:30. Just about time for three or four drinks in the motel bar and then to bed.

I didn't put much stock in Tom's odds. Even if he'd been right, I wasn't sure I'd know what to do with my good fortune in my present state. The one thing about Tom that irritates me is his belief that I live some kind of wild bachelor life.

Hell, in Kensington, Maryland? I'm not saying it hadn't occurred to me to take an apartment in town. Washington is and always has been blessed with an abundance of lovely, young government workers. Plenty of them will go to bed with you for a couple drinks and a turn around the dance floor. Then they'll get up in the morning, peck you on the cheek, and you never see them again. Quick and easy and fun, and no strings attached. I know what I'm talking about; I tried it a few times not long after the divorce.

The thing is, it was good, athletic fun at night, but it always left me feeling shitty. I wanted to know the girl, I wanted to use a devalued word a relationship. I didn't insist on marriage. I wasn't that far behind the times. But I thought we should get to know each other.

My wife would have had a good laugh over that.

I patronized a certain massage parlor on Q Street. I didn't do it more than once every two or three weeks; my sexual urges didn't seem to be what they once were. What I liked was the no-nonsense atmosphere. It was quick and efficient, and though I felt bad when I left, it wasn't so bad as the one-night stands had been.

That was the wild and free bachelor life that happily married Tom Stanley seemed to delight in thinking about. And that's what had happened to the carefree jet-jockey too young for Korea and out of the service by the time of Nam but who had so goddam much of the Right Stuff he could have written the goddam book. Somehow, he didn't quite remember how, he'd ended up at a desk. For a good time he got drunk and went to bed with whores.

In that frame of mind I hardly noticed where I was going. Keeping my eyes on my feet, I stepped on a down escalator, and a pair of low-cut brown shoes stepped on with me. I looked up the nylons to the skirt, then quickly to her face.

"We do keep running into each other, don't we?" she said, with a smile.

I was still staring at her when there was a jolt. I had one hand on the rubber rail; with the other I grabbed her arm. For one wild moment I thought earthquake! Then I looked around and realized the escalator had stopped.

"Maybe we'd better get acquainted," she said. "We might be stuck here for hours."

I laughed. "You've got the advantage on me," I said. "You know my name, but I've never had time to ask you yours."

"It's Louise Ba " She covered her mouth and coughed. There was a cigarette going in her other hand. "Louise Ball." She looked at me with a tentative smile, like she wanted to know if that was okay with me, her being Louise Ball. Well, I don't meet a lot of Louises anymore, but it was better than Luci or Lori or any of the cutesy names moms were giving their girls these days.

I smiled back at her, and her full-blown smile emerged. You could have used it to light candles. I became aware I was still holding her elbow, so I let it go.

"No relation to the famous redhead?" I asked.

She looked blank for a moment and I thought I might have dated myself with a reference to ancient history, then she had it. It was only later that I thought it odd she'd miss a reference to "I Love Lucy." With a name like hers, wise guys like me must have brought it up a hundred times.

"No relation. I hope I didn't embarrass you. I'm always doing thin s like that."

I thought we were still talking about Lucille Ball, then realized she was referring to the coffee she'd spilled on me. It seemed like a trifle compared with the privilege of sharing an escalator step with her.

"No problem."

The people below us were moving, so we started down the unnaturally high steps.

I considered and rejected several things to say to her. I was attracted to her as I hadn't been attracted to a woman in a long time. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to dance the night away with her, sweep her off her feet, laugh with her, cry with her, say bright, witty, gay things to her. Okay, I wouldn't have minded going to bed with her, either. To do any of those things, I should start by enchanting her, fascinating her with my wit, deliver some of those fine lines movie stars toss off with such ease in screwball comedies.

"You live around here?" I asked. Brilliant conversation opener number 192. I've got a million of 'em.

"Uh-huh. In Menlo Park."

"I don't know the area. I've only been here a couple of times, and hardly ever left the airport." Will you show me the city? But I couldn't quite bring myself to ask her that. We had come to rest in a quiet little eddy beside the rushing river of humanity. We almost had to shout to hear each other.

"It's across San Francisco Bay. On the peninsula. I ride the underground to work."

"You mean BART?"

Again there was that pause; she looked blank, like computer tapes were whirling around in her head, then, bingo.

"Yes, of course, the Bay Area Rapid Transit."

An embarrassing silence began to settle over us. I had the gloomy feeling she'd be away in a moment unless Cary Grant stepped to my rescue with a good line.

"So you probably don't know the East Bay very well."

"Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering if you knew a good restaurant. All I know are the ones around the airport."

"I've been told there are some nice ones in Jack London Square."

And she just stood there, smiling at me. I hesitated again frankly, I'm always awkward with people I've just met, unless it's in the line of business. But she clearly wasn't in a hurry to get anywhere, so what the hell? "Would you like to have dinner with me, then?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Her smile was better than amphetamines, and worse than heroin. I mean, here I'd been feeling like I'd been stepped on by an elephant, and then we were together, and just like that it was like I was twenty years old and just woke up from a good night's sleep.

On the other hand, I felt it might be habit-forming, and it sure as hell did disorient me.

We were already walking through the public parking lot in the drizzle with me babbling away like a speed freak before I recalled I had a car of my own, over at the Hertz lot. I told her about it, and she looked up at the sky. It was starting to rain harder.

"Why don't we take mine, anyway?" she said. "I can drop you off here later."

It sounded like a good idea, until I saw her car.

It was one hell of a car. I looked at it, then at her. She was smiling innocently at me, so I looked back at the car.

I'm not even sure what it was, but it was Italian, looked like it had been built about twenty or thirty years from now, was about eighteen inches high and thirty feet long, and seemed to be doing sixty just sitting there. I figured it had to cost eighty or ninety grand.

Okay. This is her boyfriend's car. Or she has a lucrative side income. Maybe a rich uncle just died, or her parents had money. There was no way she could have paid for it on an airline ticket agent's salary.

Frankly, I was getting a little dubious about her. Small things were adding up the wrong way. For instance, with this sitting in the garage she rode the "underground" to work? And let's be brutally frank. With a face and a body like that, she was eager to go out with a guy like me? I began to fear she might be a disaster groupie. They exist, though they tend to be male.