Reprisal

Who'll notice?

She sca

He was. She spotted Will Ryerson's familiar figure leaning against the wide trunk of the knoll's only tree, a battered old elm. He was sipping a can of pop and reading, as usual.

Her mood buoyed at the sight of him. Will was a tonic for her. Ever since she had started dabbling with this idea of submitting a math paper, Lisl had found that her insides tended to twist into tight little knots of tension when she was working on it. Her underarms would dampen from the intense concentration, like someone doing hard physical labor. All that tension uncoiled within her now as Will looked up and saw her. A welcoming smile lit through his graying beard. He closed the little book in his hand and slipped it into his lunch box.

"Beautiful day!" he said as she joined him under their tree. Their tree. At least that was the way she thought of it. She didn't know how Will thought of it.

"That it is." She dropped the cushion on the mossy ground and sat on it. "What were you reading there?"

"Where?"

"When I came up."

Will suddenly seemed very interested in his sandwich.

"A book."

"I gathered that. What book?"

"Uh …The Stranger."

"Camus?"

"Yeah."

"I'm surprised you haven't read that one by now."

"I have. I thought I'd try it again. But it doesn't help."

"Help with what?"

"Understanding."

"Understanding what?"

He gri

Lisl smiled and shook her head. So typical of the man. She'd once heard something described as an enigma wrapped in a mystery. That was Will. The philosopher groundskeeper of Darnell University.

Lisl first met him two years ago under this very tree. It had been a day like today and she had decided to sit outside to correct some test papers. Will had come up and informed her that she'd taken his spot. Lisl had looked up at a tall bearded stranger in his late forties. His accent was definitely from somewhere to the north, he smelled of motor oil, his hands were heavily callused and looked to be permanently stained with engine grime, his green overalls were dusty and sweat-stained, his work boots were clumped with grass clippings. He had clear blue eyes and long, dark brown hair heavily streaked with gray, pulled back and fastened into a short ponytail with a red rubber band, a nose that had been badly broken, and a wide scar on the right side of his forehead. An aging hippie-type handyman who'd managed to land himself a steady job, she'd thought as she smiled and moved exactly three feet to her right. He'd seated himself and produced a sandwich and a Pepsi. Again, typical. But when he pulled out a copy of Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death and began reading, Lisl had to revise her assessment. And she had to talk to him.

They'd been talking ever since. They became friends. Sort of. She doubted Will had a true, deep friendship with anyone. He was so secretive about himself. The most she knew about his origins was that he was from "New England." He would tell her his deepest thoughts on life, love, philosophy, religion, politics—and listening to him it was quite apparent to her that he had done a lot of thinking in those areas. He would expound on any subject but Will Ryerson. Which made him all the more intriguing.

Lisl sensed that he was a lonely man and that she was one of the few people in his life with whom he could communicate on his own level. The other groundskeepers weren't in Will's league, or he wasn't in theirs. He had often complained that as far as his coworkers were concerned, if it wasn't in the sports section or didn't have big breasts, it didn't really matter. So he used his lunchtimes with Lisl to ventilate the thoughts that had accumulated during the time they were apart.

That was why she couldn't understand why he was being so evasive about the book in his lunch box. She was sure it wasn't The Stranger. But then what was it? Porn? She doubted it. Porn wasn't his style. And even if it were, he'd probably want to discuss it with her.

Lisl shrugged it off. If he didn't want to tell her, that was his business. He didn't owe her an explanation.

She watched him tear into his lunch. It was one of those belly-buster subs he favored, where anything within reach was sliced up and piled between two halves of a loaf of Italian bread and splattered with oil and vinegar.

"I wish I were like you."

"No you don't," he said.

"Metabolism-wise, I do. Lunch-wise, at least. Good Lord, look at the size of that sandwich—and I can imagine what you eat for di

"I don't sit at a desk all day either."

"True, but your body does a far better job than mine of burning calories."

"Not as good a job as it used to. I'm nibbling around the edges of fifty now and I can feel the machine slowing down."

"Maybe, but men age better than women."

Will was aging pretty well in Lisl's estimation. Maybe it was because he carried his weight so well: very lean and muscular, a good six feet in height, maybe a little more, with broad shoulders and no gut. Maybe it was his long hair and beard, both of which had grown grayer over the past two years, although his clear blue eyes remained mild and gentle—and impenetrable. Will had equipped the windows of his soul with steel storm shutters.

"Men just don't worry about it as much," he said. "Look at all the guys on the maintenance crew with beer bellies."

Lisl smiled. "I know what you mean. Some of them look eight months pregnant. And if I put on any more weight, so will I. If only I could shed the pounds like you."

Will shrugged. "I guess it's just like everything else about us—opposites. What you can't do, I can. What I can't do, you can."

"You know, Will, you're right. Together you and I make one well-rounded, well-educated person."

He laughed. "What I said: I know next to nothing about the sciences, and you might well be classified as culturally deprived as far as the humanities go."

Lisl nodded, agreeing fully. These pastoral lunch hours with Will had made her realize how painfully lopsided her education had been. She had her Ph.D., yes, but it was as if she had gone through high school, college, and graduate school with blinders on. Science and math, math and science—they'd been her whole life, all she'd cared about. Will had shown her how much she'd missed. If she had it all to do over again, she'd do it differently. There was a whole other world out there, rich, colorful, filled with stories, music, art, dance, schools of thought on ethics, morals, politics, and so much more that she'd missed. Missed completely. She still had plenty of time to catch up. And with Will as a guide, she knew it would be fun. Still, the thought of all that wasted time irritated her.

"Well, thanks to you, I'm certainly less deprived than before we met. Can we keep this up?"

She sensed his face soften behind the beard. "As long as you want."

Just then, Lisl spotted someone waving from the base of the knoll. She recognized Adele Co

"Yoo-hoo! Lisl! Look, y'all! I found them!" she said in her squeaky voice.

She trundled up the slope jingling a set of keys in the air.

"Your keys?" Lisl said. "Oh, good!"

Adele was one of the stalwarts of the secretarial pool. Lisl had found her wringing her hands and lamenting the loss of her key chain yesterday. Adele had searched most of the afternoon with no luck. Finally, since she couldn't start her own car without her keys, she'd ^sked Lisl to drive her home.

Which had vaguely a