And then he smiled at her regretfully. “Not for much longer, I'm afraid, if that makes any difference to you. I'm being transferred to sales in two weeks. I just heard about it today.”

“How do you feel about that?” She was concerned for him. It was kind of a sidestep, and in his shoes she'd have been crushed, but he didn't look too disturbed as he shrugged and smiled at her.

“No big deal. I might like it better than where I am … except for you, of course. Will you see me more often then?” It would certainly make things easier for her, but she still wasn't sure if she should get involved with him. Life was so much easier living as a celibate.

Celibacy had become a way of life to her, and giving it up meant risking a part of herself. “Hilary?” He was looking down at her as they walked, and he gently took her hand. He seemed very young as he smiled at her, and in some ways he still was. “I want to be with you … you mean a lot to me …”

“Adam, you don't even know who I am … I could be anyone … La femme aux yeux verts …” The words slipped out and she laughed.

“What does that mean?”

“It's French.” She had revived her French in college, and was surprised to find it was still there, dormant but not dead, a final gift from her mother. “It means the woman with green eyes.”

“How come you speak French?” He wanted to know everything about her, and there was so little she wanted to tell him.

“I spoke it a long time ago … when I was a little girl. And I picked it up again in college.”

“Did your parents speak French?” She could have told him then, could have begun to open up, could have said something about Solange, but she decided it was safer not to.

“No, I just learned it at school, I guess.” He nodded, satisfied with the answer she'd given him, and when they reached her apartment, after a moment's hesitation, she invited him upstairs. They listened to Roberta Flack on her stereo, and talked for hours over a bottle of wine, and he stood up regretfully around one o'clock and looked down at her with a wistful smile.

“I'd like to spend the night with you, Hilary, but I get the feeling you're not ready for that … are you?” She shook her head, not sure she would ever be. People had tried to get close to her but she was not even remotely tempted. “Are you involved with anyone?” He had meant to ask before but he had put it off. She shook her head in answer, looking at him strangely.

“No, I'm not … I haven't been in … a long time….”

“For any particular reason?”

“A lot of them. Most of them too complicated to explain.” He sat on her couch and looked at her quietly.

“Why don't you try me?”

She shrugged again. She didn't want to tell him what she'd been through. That was nobody's business. She led a different life now, in another place, another world. She didn't want to drag those things with her, and yet she did, in spite of all her efforts to deny them. “I'm sorry, Adam … I can't….”

“Why not?” He reached out and took her hands in his. “Don't you trust me?”

“It's not that.” She felt her eyes fill with tears and she hated herself for it. “I don't want to talk about it … really….” She stood up and walked away, her. proud shoulders straightened against the world and all it had done to her. And without knowing it, she looked exactly like her mother.

“Hilary …” He walked up to her from behind and put his arms around her. “Why don't you let yourself go? I know how strong you are, I've seen it at work, but this is different … this is us … this isn't a war zone.”

Her voice was tired as she spoke to him with her head bowed. “Life is a war zone, Adam.”

“It doesn't have to be.” He was so gentle, and so innocent. She envied him his simple life. The most difficult thing that had ever happened to him was his wife's deciding she wanted to be free and no longer married. But he knew nothing of the agonies Hilary had endured. He couldn't even begin to understand them, “life can be so sweet … if you let it….”

“It's not as easy as that.” She sighed and looked at him. “I don't think you understand the kind of life I've led, and I don't think I could explain it.”

“Then why not go on from here? Isn't that possible, and leave the past behind you?”

“Maybe.” She wasn't sure it could be done, but she was willing to try it. He reached out and kissed her gently at first, and then suddenly with more passion. He had wanted her for weeks, months, since the first time he'd seen her, and now he couldn't hold back. He peeled her clothes from her and dropped his own, and carried her to her bed, where he began making love to her. But she lay distant and cold, and secretly frightened. Some of the things he did to her were the same things that Maida and Georgine had done … and some of the other things reminded her of the boys who had raped her the day after Maida and Georgine left. It was too much to overcome, even with a good man like Adam. And it didn't take him long to realize that she didn't want to go on. He pulled away, still throbbing with desire for her and unable to understand what had happened.

“What's wrong? …” His voice was hoarse, his eyes bleary with unspent passion. “I want you so much.”

“I'm sorry …” She whispered the words, and turned over on her side, staring at the far wall, wondering if she would ever be normal. Perhaps she would never overcome the past. She was twenty-five years old, and she was beginning to suspect that. There were too many people left that she hated … Arthur Patterson … Jack Jones … the boys who had raped her … Maida and Georgine … Eileen. the people at juvenile hall. and in the far distance, even her father. It was too big a burden to carry around and still allow her to function as a woman. “It's not you,” she tried to explain. “I just can't.”

“Why? You have to tell me.” He was trying to sit calmly at the edge of the bed, trying to reach out and understand her. And she sat up quietly and turned around. Maybe it was better to shock him than to hurt him.

“I was raped a long time ago….” She didn't want to say more, and hoped that would be enough, but of course it wasn't.

“How? … by whom?”

“It's a long story.” And which one should she tell him? Maida and Georgine, who were the first, or the boys who had come later? Or Jack who had done his best to precede them all and then had beaten her to within an inch of her life when he didn't get what he wanted. They were all possible candidates for the role, but she couldn't even imagine Adam able to withstand any truth she might tell him

“When was it?”

“When I was thirteen.” That much was true at least. They had all happened before her fourteenth birthday. She took a gulp of air. “And there hasn't been anyone since then. I guess I should have told you.”

“Christ.” He looked deeply shaken by what she'd said. “It certainly would have helped. How was I supposed to know something like that?”

“I didn't think it would matter.”

“Oh really? You were raped twelve years ago, haven't had relations with anyone since, and you actually thought it wouldn't make a difference? How can you do that to yourself, and to me, for chrissake? What about counseling? Have you had a lot of that since then?” He assumed she had, of course, everyone he knew was in therapy. He'd gone right back to his own shrink as soon as his wife left him.

“No.” She spoke very calmly, and got up to put on a bathrobe. She had a long, languid body and beautiful graceful legs that made him ache with wanting her again, but he tried to force himself not to think about it.

“What do you mean ‘no’? You got help after the rape, no? Yes? Right?”

She smiled at him. Hardly. “No. Wrong. I guess I didn't need it.”

“Are you crazy?”

“All right, let's say it wasn't available to me at the time.”

“Where were you? The North Pole? Where is there in the modern world that therapy isn't available?” Oh God, he understood nothing of what her life had been like. Therapy? Where? In Louise's home, or at juvie?

“I told you, Adam.” She was getting annoyed, but he was getting frantic. “I don't want to discuss it. It's too complicated.”

“Too complicated or too painful?” She averted her eyes, so he couldn't see the pain he had already inflicted.

“Why don't we just forget it?”

“What, the relationship? Why? You're not a quitter, Hilary.” Now he was sincerely angry. She would have done anything for her job, but not for him, or the relationship they might have, if she was willing.

“Why don't we just forget the problem, Adam. It'll go away by itself eventually.”

“Really? How long's it been now? Twelve years, you said, and I wouldn't exactly say you're cured. How long would you like to wait for it to ‘go away’? Thirty years maybe? Or how about fifty? You ought to feel a lot better by then, and Christ you'd only be sixty-three, you could have a great sex life, Hilary, be serious!” He took her by the hand and pulled her down on the bed beside him, but he wanted too much from her, and Hilary already knew she couldn't give it to him. He wanted everything, heart and soul, commitment and marriage and children. She could sense that in him, he wanted everything his wife had taken back and more. And she knew for a certainty that she didn't have it in her. She had nothing left to give him. All she could do was take, or maybe extend herself for a little while, if no one asked too much, but the rest was gone. All her love had been given too long ago, and all her energies were reserved for where she was going at the network. “I want you to go into therapy.” He sat staring at her, as though announcing he wanted her to have brain surgery, and she had no intention of obliging him. God only knew what they'd find there.