He cocked his head. “I’m not sure, exactly.” His eyes trailed down, to there. To Amanda’s breasts.
She must be flat-chested, Amanda thought, crossing her legs.
He moved closer to her, coins still jingling. “Maybe I thought I was making a mistake,” he said. Amanda didn’t say anything. “Maybe I thought I had to be sure.”
Amanda sighed, looking down at the armrest. “I don’t think so,” she said finally, looking up. “There was never any pretense between us. That there was any more to it than…”
“Yeah,” he said, eyes narrowing. Jingle. Jingle. Jingle.
“Good grief,” Amanda said, shaking her head. She was surprised—was she really?—at the erection apparent in his pants. It was coming closer into view. Jingle. Jingle. Jingle. Amanda lunged out of the chair. “Roger—” she said again, whirling around, “what on earth do you think you’re doing?” She walked to the window, held onto the cross pane, and looked out at the river. “What about your girl? The one who adores you?”
“Cooking dinner, probably,” came the answer.
Amanda turned around and leaned back against the sill. “But she’s not enough for you, I presume.”
Jingle, jingle, jingle. He was on the move again.
“I was under the impression that you were going to marry this girl.”
“I might,” he said, smiling, moving toward her.
“This is a marvelous start for a marriage,” Amanda observed, folding her arms across her chest.
“Hmmm,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. Amanda dropped her head. He kissed the top of it. “What do you care?” he murmured. “You never pretended to care for me.” He lifted the hair away and pressed his lips against her neck.
Amanda’s mind raced. It was undeniable, what she felt. What she felt like doing. What she always felt like doing with Roger, and it wasn’t conversing. This unbearable, insufferable computer salesman also possessed an unbearable, insufferable member that was, at this moment, pressing against her. Only the words weren’t really “unbearable” and “insufferable”; they were “unbelievable” and “insatiable.” Like the compatible parts of her own body.
He had his hand on her breast and in a few moments Amanda was reaching down to feel the length and breadth of his excitement. He moaned into her neck, dropping his hand to press between her legs. “I am aching to get inside you,” he whispered in her ear.
The phone started ringing. Both of them froze. It rang and rang and rang. “Rosanne will get it,” Amanda whispered, their palms still pressed against each other.
But she didn’t. On the eighth ring, Amanda sighed, pulled away from Roger and smoothed her hair. “Hello?”
“I just wanted to remind you that Mr. Smith’s out here,” Rosanne’s voice said.
Amanda closed her eyes.
“You know, like he’s out here if you need him,” Rosanne was saying. Amanda also heard the sound of a zipper. She opened her eyes to see Roger lifting himself out of his pants. “I can knock on the door—” Roger moved in close and pulled Amanda’s hand down to hold him. She did. “Or maybe Mr. Smith could even yell for ya, ya never know. Or maybe he could break somethin’ in the kitchen ’cause he’s jealous or somethin’.” Roger slid Amanda’s dress up to her waist and managed to work her panty hose down. And her underwear. “Too bad there’s no gun around. A couple shots would do the trick.” Roger parted her legs with one hand, eased himself out of Amanda’s hand, and moved behind her. “How ’bout a light bulb? Sounds just like a gun sometimes.” He pushed her forward over the desk. “Amanda,” she finally said, “if you need some help you’re gonna have to say somethin’.” Roger felt for, and found, the right place and brought himself up into position.
And then Amanda cried, “No!” and tried to twist away.
And then Rosanne started pounding on the door.
She had been divorced for six years. Six years. Could it be? Six years since she had been Mrs. Christopher Gain? It was hard to believe.
If it had been six years since her marriage, then Catherine the Great had been living in her head for ten years, and existing on paper for—let’s see…five years. Could that be right?
That was right.
Amanda Miller was thirty-two years old. Thirty-two? That would make her mother—fifty-eight, her father…seventy?
Yes.
Yes, that was right.
In 1946 a WASP-y rich girl from Baltimore entered Syracuse University as a freshman. Tinker Fowles was her name. Tinker Fowles fell head over heels with her dreamy-eyed English teacher, and scandal ensued. Not only was this Associate Professor Reuben Miller twelve years older, but he was Jewish as well. (“His mother does not even speak English!” Nana Fowles had shrieked in Baltimore, pulling her hair out.) The Fowleses filed an official protest with the university, but to no avail. Tinker went ahead and married Reuben and, to her parents’ fury, Tinker transferred the million-dollar trust fund left to her from her grandmother to a Syracuse bank.
The year 1950 brought Tinker a degree in English; 1952 brought a master’s degree; 1954 brought baby Amanda; 1955 brought a doctorate in English literature; and 1957 found Professor and Associate Professor Miller both working in the English department. They were, as everyone on campus noted, the most ridiculously romantic couple ever seen in this century. The Professors Miller left poetry in each other’s office mailboxes; La Professora (as Reuben often called his wife) received flowers often; My Darling Own (as Tinker often called her husband) found silk ties and handkerchiefs hidden in his office; and every evening at six the two could be seen strolling out of the Hall of Languages, crossing the lawn, listening to the music students play the bells of Crouse Tower. They would stand there, hand in hand, smiling at each other. My Darling Own would, as he would describe, “dare to slip his hand around his dearest’s waist.”
Amanda, everyone agreed, was adorable, but certainly the oddest child around. To begin with, she was forever floating about in costume. One afternoon it would be as a princess, the next as a prince. Fridays usually found her streaking around the campus, laughing to herself, trailing multicolored layers of capes and scarves. She was reading by four and, by special arrangement, received her education at the hands of the students in the School of Education.
The Millers lived in a hundred-year-old Victorian house in Jamesville. Amanda had the entire third floor as her own. She spent hours up there by herself, reading and writing, playing music on her record player, and acting out plays that had no beginnings and no endings. She sang too (though terribly off key), and had a passion for what she considered dramatic dance (anything between ballet and the twist, or combinations thereof).
Adults were fascinated (and ultimately won over) by Amanda; children were decidedly leery of her. Upon introduction, Amanda was prone to break into merry song of her own composition and do a little dance—taking little leaps this way and that—to the usual response of her new acquaintances skedaddling but quick. But Amanda did not seem to mind; it was the attention of adults that made her happiest.
By age fifteen Amanda—strange as ever—took her SATs. And there was a bit of a problem. She scored a perfect 800 on the English part and 200 in the math (the 200 one receives for merely signing one’s name). Nana Fowles (now the widow dowager of Baltimore) pleaded with Tinker to give Amanda to her for a year—to get Amanda “stabilized,” to get this math problem straightened away and to prepare Amanda for something other than reciting poetry at the top of her lungs in the stairwells of the Hall of Languages.
Amanda begged to go. By this time Nana had made her year-round residence the Fowles Farm, a source of wonder and enchantment to Amanda all of her young life. And so Amanda traveled to Baltimore