"No…" he said, too softly and too quickly.

"Then it must be this one."

She flipped over a handful to let him see.

"Yeah — yes. That's it," and was still astounded with the memory.

She peeled the poster from its identical twin and began to roll it up. "It had to be. Until the new one comes in—" as jacket, genitals, knees, boots and background purple rose into the white roll turning in dark fingers—"these are all we have. Here you go. I'll get you a rubber band." She stepped to the desk.

"Hey," he said, putting belligerent stupidity in front of his disconcerted astonishment, "why do you—" He stopped because the idea came, interrupting his question, clearly and without ambiguity, to request the other poster as well. " — why do you have stuff like this here? I mean to give away."

Only later did it occur to him that her ingenuous surprise must have been as calculated to disarm as his naiveté. When she recovered from it, she said, "They're very popular. We like to be up to date, and posters are being used a lot … they were done for us free, and I suppose that's the main reason. We've given out quite lots of the first one you saw. That one," she pointed to the one he held, "isn't in quite as much demand."

"Yeah?"

She nodded.

"What I mean is, why…"

She picked up a rubber band from the desk and stretched her fingers inside it to slip it over his roll. The band pulled in the fingertips: he thought a moment of his orchid. With deliberation, as though she had reached a decision about him, she said, "The poor people in this city — and in Bellona that pretty well means the black people — have never had very much. Now they have even less." She looked at him with an expression he recognized as a request for something he could not even name. "We have to give them—" she reached forward—"something." The red rubber snapped on the tube. "We have to." She folded her hands. "The other day when I saw you, I just assumed you were black. I suppose because you're dark. Now I suspect you're not. Even so, you're still invited to come to our services." She smiled brightly again. "Will you make an effort?"

"Oh. Yeah." He doffed the poster: He'd realized before he probably would not come to a service. Now he resolved never to return at all. "Sure. What do I owe you for… this." One hand, in his pocket, he fingered the crumpled bill.

"It's free," she said. "Like everything else."

He said, "Oh," But his hand stayed on the moist note.

In the foyer he stepped around the dumpy black woman in the dark coat too heavy for the heat. She blinked at him suspiciously from under her black hat, pulled up her shopping bag, and continued toward the office door. Between what Nightmare had said earlier and what Reverend Taylor had just said, he found himself wondering, granted the handful he'd seen, just where all the black people in Bellona were. The poster under his arm, he hurried into the evening.

"Hello!" Mrs Richards said, eyes both wide and sleepy. She held her bathrobe at the neck. "Come in, Kidd. Come in. I didn't know what happened to you yesterday. We were expecting you to come back down. And eat with us."

"Oh. Well, when I got finished, I just thought…" He shrugged and entered. "You got coffee this morning?"

She nodded and went off to the kitchen. He followed her, letting his notebook flap his leg. She said, "The way you left, I thought there might have been something wrong. I thought perhaps you weren't going to come back at all."

He laughed. "I just went upstairs and finished my work. Then I went back to the park. I mean, you don't have to feed me. I do the work. You pay me for it, what you told Mrs Brown you would. That'll be okay."

"Of course," she said from the kitchen.

He went into the dining room and sat. "Coffee, I mean. And a sandwich, and letting me use your bathroom and stuff. That's nice. I appreciate it. But you shouldn't put yourself out." He was talking too loud. More softly: "You see?"

June, in pink slacks and robin's-egg sweater, a bird appliquéd near the neck, came to the door.

"Hey…" he said, quietly. "I have something for you. Upstairs, in nineteen."

"What—" then caught herself and mouthed: "What is it?"

He grinned and pointed up with his thumb.

June looked confused. Then she called: "I'll help you with the coffee, Mom."

"That's all right, dear." Mrs Richards came in with a tray, a pot, and cups. "If you want to bring in a cup for yourself. Darling?" She sat the tray down. "Aren't you drinking too much coffee?"

"Oh, Mother!" June marched into the kitchen and returned with a cup.

He liked putting his hands around the warming porcelain while the coffee went in.

"I did something, you know, perhaps I ought not to have." Mrs Richards finished pouring and spoke carefully. "Here, I'll bring it to you."

He sipped and wished it wasn't instant. His mind went off to some nameless spot on the California coast, carpeted with rust-colored redwood scraps and the smell of boiled coffee while a white sun made a silver pin cushion in the tree tops, and fog wrapped up the gaunt trunks—

"Here." Mrs Richards returned and sat. "I hope you don't mind."

June, he saw, was trying to hold her cup the same way he did.

"What is it?" On blue bordered stationery, in black, calligraphic letters, Mrs Richards had written out his poem.

"I've probably made all sorts of mistakes, I know."

He finished reading it and looked up, confused. "How'd you do that?"

"It stayed with me, very clearly."

"All of it?"

"It's only eight lines, isn't it? It sticks very persistently in the mind. Especially considering it doesn't rhyme. Did I make any terrible mistakes?"

"You left out a comma." He slid the paper to her and pointed.

She looked. "Oh, of course."

"You just remembered it, like that?"

"I couldn't get it out of my mind. I haven't done anything awful, have I?"

"Um… it looks very nice." He tried to fix the warmth inside him, but it was neither embarrassment, nor pride, nor fear, so stayed un-named.

"You may have it." She sat back. "Just stick it in your notebook. I made two copies, you see — I'm going to keep one for myself. Forever." Her voice broke just a little: "That's why I was so worried when I thought you weren't coming back. You really go and sleep out in the park, just like that, all alone?"

He nodded. "There're other people there."

"Oh, yes. I've heard about them. From Edna. That's… amazing. You know you haven't told me yet, is it all right that I remembered your poem; and wrote it down?"

"Eh… yeah." He smiled, and wished desperately she would correct that comma. "Thanks. You know, we can start moving stuff up today. You got everything all ready down here?"

"We can?" She sounded pensive. "You mean you've got it all ready."

"I guess I should have come back last night and told you we could start today on the moving."

"Arthur—" who stood at the door, tie loose—"Kidd says we can move today. By the time you come home, dear, we'll all be upstairs."

"Good. You really are working!" When Mr Richards reached the table, Mrs Richards had his cup poured. Standing, he lifted it. The cup's reflection dropped away in the mahogany, stayed vague while he drank, then suddenly swam up like a white fish in a brown pool to meet the china rim that clacked on it. "Gotta run. Why don't you get Bobby to give you a hand with the little stuff? Exercise'll do him some good."