Reprisal

Lisl felt her throat constrict at the memory. God, it still hurt. After all this time, it still hurt.

Lisl filed for divorce. This seemed to infuriate Brian. Apparently he had wanted to be the one to do the dumping. Lisl's lawyer told her that he was probably terrified, too, because of a recent legal precedent in which a wife who had supported her husband through medical school could demand a share of the future proceeds he reaped from that diploma.

Lisl wanted no part of that. She only wanted out. And she had gotten out.

But Brian made sure he had the last word.

When all was said and done, when all the papers had been signed and notarized, Brian had caught up to her as she'd fled the attorney's office.

"I never loved you," he said, then walked away.

No amount of physical abuse, no tirade of vituperation, no stream of curses, no matter how long, how loud, how vile could have hurt Lisl nearly as much as those four whispered words. Although she had said nothing and had walked coolly and calmly to her car, inside she'd been shattered, completely, utterly.

I never loved you.

The words had been echoing down the empty hallways of her life ever since.

Even now she felt her knees wobble with the hurt. And the worst part was that he was still around. He lived on the other side of town and was now on staff as an orthopedist at the county medical center.

Shaking off the memory, Lisl searched deep in her closet for something to wear, but stopped when she came across a familiar-looking shoe box. She lifted the lid and found her old shell collection from childhood. She smiled at the memory of how she'd once wanted to be a marine biologist.

Shells. All through her life she'd assigned shells to the people in her life. She picked up a beautiful brown-striped chambered nautilus. This was Will—big, mysterious, hiding who-knew-what in all those i

Like me, Lisl thought, picking up a chowder clam shell—common, uncollectible, its pale, dull surface windowed by a starfish burr hole. Me.

She lidded the box and continued her search for something to wear. She wound up squeezed into a pair of cream-colored slacks topped with an oversize lightweight sweater. She felt like a sausage from the waist down but it would have to do. A little makeup, five minutes with the curling iron, and she was set. All she had to do was get through the evening without splitting a seam.

Someday soon she was going to do something about these extra pounds.

* * *

Lisl noticed him as soon as she walked through the front door. She'd never seen him before. Young, not tall—no more than five feet ten, she guessed—and very slim. Hardly prepossessing physically, yet he was the first man she noticed. His movements were smooth, relaxed, and graceful. With his neat mustache, Latin coloring accentuated by the perfectly pressed white slacks and shirt that fit as if they'd been made just for him—and perhaps they had—he stood out in the crowd of paunchy, shaggy, patch-sleeved academics like a prince among peasants. This young man had style.

He was handing drinks to a pair of faculty wives who were blatantly gushing over him. As he turned from them, his eyes brushed past her, then returned. He smiled and gave her a tiny bow. Unaccountably, Lisl blushed, pleased that he had picked her out for a personal welcome.

Probably does that to every woman who comes through the door, she thought as he turned away to speak to someone.

Lisl sidled through the press of guests in the living room, nodding, smiling, saying hello to the faces she recognized. Her immediate goal was the bar—a card table laden with beer, jug wine, soda, mixers, and a few bottles of hard liquor. Lisl didn't drink much, but a half-filled glass in her hand made her look and even feel like someone who belonged.

As she moved, she noticed from the corner of her eye that the stylish young unknown seemed to be watching her. Who was he? Somebody's son?

At the bar she found Calvin Rogers, the host, a portly, jovial sort, an aging Puck who sported a goatee to offset the hair he was losing on top. He held up a glass and smiled.

"Hi! Want a drink?"

Lisl could see by his expression that he knew her face but couldn't quite co

"Sure."

"Wine, beer, or booze?"

"A white wine, please."

"Great!" As he poured from a two-liter bottle of Almaden he said, "House rule: I make you the first; after that you're on your own."

"Fine," Lisl said. "No limit?"

He raised his eyebrows and gri

"Oh, it's going to be one of those nights, is it?"

"Not really," Lisl said with a laugh. She hesitated a moment, debating whether she should ask him, then decided to plunge ahead: "Say, I see some new faces here. Some young ones."

"Yeah. I invited a couple of the new graduate students."

"I see," she said, glancing at the dark young man.

"That's Losmara," Rogers said, following her gaze. "Rafael. Bit of a dude, isn't he? But a brilliant mind. Brilliant. Comes out of Arizona State, which isn't exactly a heavy hitter in psychology, but he sent this proposal for a paper outlining a cybernetic model for schizophrenia that just blew me away. I knew right then this was a guy who was going somewhere. And wherever he was going, I wanted him to come from here. I couldn't offer him money—I understand his family's half as rich as Croesus—so I played coy and co

"That's nice of you."

He smiled and handed her the glass of wine. "I'm a nice guy. Or so they tell me."

Lisl wandered the cramped living room-dining room area, looking for someone she knew. She avoided the bookshelves, figuring she'd have plenty of time to inspect them later. One full circuit and she found herself standing alone by the sliding glass door that opened onto the backyard.

This wasn't working. She felt more out of place than usual here because there wasn't a single other person from her own department. She looked around and envied all these people with the knack for conversation. Nobody else seemed to be having problems. They all made it look so easy. Why couldn't she just stop by a group, listen in for a while, and then join the conversation?

Because I can't.

She stepped out onto the small flagstone patio. After examining what few of/Hal's roses hadn't been eaten by beetles, she turned to go back.inside.

And found the dark young man next to her.

"Hello," he said. His voice was velvet, deep but soft, melodious. His teeth were so white under the dark mustache, his eyes almost luminous in the dark. "I hear you're from math."

So simple. So perfect.

Small talk. Rafe—that was how he introduced himself—seemed to be a natural at it. Relaxed, exuding self-confidence, he gave her the feeling that no subject could be inconsequential if he was discussing it. They stood side by side for a while, then moved to the redwood bench by the picnic table. Rafe had a lot of questions about campus life at Darnell, especially as it related to graduate students. Lisl had a good store of knowledge on the subject because she'd earned her own doctorate here.