Rafe held out his hand. "Allow me."

Lisl hesitated, then handed him the gold jewelry. Rafe turned and gave it all to the first woman who passed by.

"Merry Christmas, ma'am," he said as he thrust it into one of her hands.

The gesture shocked Lisl. This wasn't petty thievery. Rafe was trying to make a point. When he took her hand, she didn't pull away.

They walked on and Lisl glanced back. The woman was staring after them as if they were crazy. She glanced at the jewelry in her hand, then dropped it all in a nearby litter basket.

Lisl stopped and tugged on Rafe's arm.

"That's eighteen-karat gold!"

Rafe pulled her along. "She thinks it's junk jewelry. Either way, it's shiny metal. That's all."

Lisl turned her back on the woman and the litter basket.

"This is all so crazy!"

"But exciting too."

"Not exciting—terrifying."

"Come now. Admit that there's a kind of exhilaration buzzing through you right now."

Lisl felt the adrenalized tingling of her limbs, the racing thump of her heart. As much as she hated to admit it, it had been exciting.

"But I feel guilty."

"That will pass. You're a Prime. Guilt and remorse—they have no place in your life. If you do something that causes guilt, you must do it again. And again. Ten, twenty, thirty times if need be, until the guilt and remorse are gone."

"And then what?"

"And then you go further. You crank it up a notch. You'll see."

Lisl felt a chill.

"I will?"

"Sure. You'll see that it's easier the next time."

"I don't want a next time, Rafe."

He stopped and stared at her. They were at a corner. People were streaming by but Lisl barely noticed them. The disappointment in Rafe's eyes nearly overwhelmed all other perceptions.

"This isn't for me, Lisl. This is for you. I'm trying to cut you loose, to free you to fly and reach the heights of your potential. You can't fly if you won't kick off the shackles they've used to hobble you all your life. Do you want to kick free or not?"

"Of course I do, but—"

"No buts. Are you going to stay chained down here or are you going to fly with me? The choice is yours."

Lisl saw how serious he was, and realized in that moment that she could lose this man. Yes, he was young, and yes, she had lived almost half again as many years as he had, but dammit she could not remember ever feeling this good about herself, about life in general. She felt like a complete woman, an intellectual and sexual being for whom there were no limits. She felt a certain greatness beckoning; all she had to do was follow the call.

And it was all due to Rafe. Without him she'd still be just another math nerd.

Nerd. God, she hated the word. But she'd always been a nerd. She knew it and was brave enough to admit it: She was a nerd to the bone and she was tired of it. She didn't want to be who she was, and here was Rafe offering her a chance to be somebody new. And if she didn't take that chance, what would he do? Would he turn his back and walk away? Give up on her as a lost cause?

She couldn't stand that.

But it wouldn't happen. She was through being a nerd. The new Lisl Whitman was going to take control of her life. She was going to squeeze the last drop of juice from it.

But she didn't want to steal. No matter what Rafe said about other people owing it to her, the idea of stealing stuck in her craw. And no matter how many times she did it, she knew she'd still feel guilty.

She could pretend to go along, though. Pretend that she'd overcome any guilt or remorse about it and then they could quit that and move on to quieter, saner pastimes. Rafe was so radical, so intense, but she was sure that was all due to his youth. A little time and she knew she could mellow him.

She smiled at him.

"All right. I'm ready when you are. When's the next caper?"

He laughed and hugged her. "It's now. It's right up the street. Let's go!"

"Great!" she said, reaching into her bag to hide the sinking feeling inside. She pulled out a stack of envelopes.

"What are those?"

"The Christmas party invitations. I finished addressing them this morning."

She dropped them in the mailbox and sent up a silent prayer that she wouldn't be in jail for her party.

EIGHT

Everett Sanders stepped off the bus from the campus at his usual stop and walked the three and a half blocks home. Along the way he picked up his five white, short-sleeved shirts—boxed, no starch—from the cleaners. He owned ten such work shirts, kept five at home and five in the cleaners at all times. He made his usual stop before the front window of Raftery's Tavern and peered inside at the people gathered there in the darkness to drink away the afternoon and the rest of the evening. He watched for exactly one minute, then continued on to the Kensington Arms, a five-story brick apartment house that had been built in the twenties and somehow had managed to survive the Sun Belt's explosion of new construction.

He had the day's mail arranged in proper order by the time he reached his three-room apartment on the third floor: the magazines and mail-order catalogs on the bottom, then the second- and third-class mail, then the first-class envelopes. Always the first-class mail on top. That was the way it was done. He just wished the mailman would put it into his box that way.

Ev placed the mail in a neat pile where he always placed it: on the table next to his La-Z-Boy lounger, then made his way to the kitchenette. The apartment was small but he saw no sense in moving to a bigger place. What would he do with the extra room? It would only mean more to clean. He never had company, so what would be the point? This efficiency was fine for him.

He spotted a smudge of dust on the glossy surface of the tiny dining table as he passed and pulled out his handkerchief to buff it away. He glanced around the living areas. Everything was in order, everything clean and exactly where it should be. The television was over by the sofa and lounger in the living room; the computer terminal was dark and dumb on the desk in the dining area. The plaster walls were bare. He kept telling himself he should get something to hang on them, but every time he went to look at paintings he couldn't find anything that appealed to him. The only picture he had was an old photograph of his ex-wife that he kept on the night table.

In the kitchenette Ev measured out exactly half a cup of unsalted, dry-roasted peanuts into a paper cup. He returned with this to the lounger. This week's novel was Hawaii, a fat one. He'd have to get to today's quota of pages immediately after dinner. He nibbled on the peanuts one at a time as he began opening the mail. First class first, of course.

The invitation to Lisl's party surprised him, and pleased him to no end. What a sweet woman she was to include him in her plans. He was touched. He had a warm feeling for Lisl, and although her intention to prepare a paper for the Palo Alto conference was a direct challenge to his own bid for tenure, it did not alter his feelings for her. She had every right to go for it. And after what he'd overcome in the past, Everett was hardly afraid of a challenge, especially from a respected colleague like Lisl.

But he'd have to turn down her invitation. A party of that sort was out of the question.

He noted that the address was not Lisl's but a place in that exclusive new development, Parkview. Probably belonged to that Rafe Losmara she had been seeing.

Poor Lisl. She no doubt thought she was being so discreet and low-key, but her affair with that rich graduate student was the talk of the department.

Ev wondered what this Rafe Losmara saw in her. He too was reputed to possess a brilliant mind, perhaps the equal of Lisl's, but he was almost ten years her junior. Why was he pursuing an older woman? Lisl couldn't help him academically—she was in a different department than he. So what was his game?