“I'd like to spend some time talking to her,” Professor Thomas said, and Mrs. Rosenstein smiled at him.

“If you were fifty years younger that would worry me, but I don't think it does now.” She had had a crush on him for years, but their relationship was strictly play tonic.

“I'm not sure I'm flattered.” He looked at her over his glasses. “I wonder why a girl with a degree from Columbia, and a mind like hers, is working as a waitress.

“It's not easy to find a job these days,” Mrs. Boslicki said practically, but he sensed more than that, and had an odd impression that there was some mystery about her.

He saw her leaving the house the next day, and stopped to talk to her. She was on her way to work, and wearing the same blue dress she had worn the day before. It was so unattractive that it looked ridiculous on her and only heightened the contrast between it and her good looks. As pretty as she was, he thought she could have worn sackcloth and ashes and still look lovely.

“And where are you off to?” he asked, taking a grandfatherly interest in her. She still looked tired and pale, and he couldn't help wondering if she slept well.

“Baum's Restaurant,” she said, smiling at him. His hair looked wilder and woollier than ever, as though he'd stuck a wet finger in an outlet.

“Good. I'll take a walk up there later. I'll be sure to sit at one of your tables.”

“Thank you.” She was touched by his obvious interest in her, and as she left the house, Mrs. Boslicki waved at her from the living room window. She was watering her plants, and one of her many cats was crawling all around her. It was an odd place, filled with funny old people, but Gabriella was surprised to find she liked them. It was a comfortable place to be, after the warm community she had shared for so long in the convent. And even if she could have afforded it, which she thought she never would, she would have been lonely in an apartment.

She arrived at Baum's ten minutes early for work, and put a clean apron on over her dress, while Mrs. Baum explained their procedures to her, and Mr. Baum checked the cash register, as he did constantly, and he was pleased to see that she looked nice. Her dress was unflattering but clean, her shoes had been shined, and her hair was immaculate, she had it pulled back from her face, and had gone to the 5 & 10 to buy a headband. She still needed to grow it, it was still fairly short from the convent, but it was clean and neat.

As far as the Baums were concerned, she was perfect. And by that afternoon, they were even more pleased. She was polite to all their customers, took their orders carefully, and hadn't made a single mistake in what she delivered to them. What's more she was quick, and seemed comfortable handling several tables. In some ways, it reminded her very much of serving meals to the Sisters in the convent. You had to be fast and neat and organized to serve that many people, and she was all of those things. By the time Professor Thomas came in, with Mrs. Rosenstein, Gabriella was feeling very much at home there.

They ordered strudel and plum tarts, and coffee with lots of whipped cream, and they left her a big tip afterward, which embarrassed her, but she thanked them both profusely. And on the way out, she saw them stop and chat with Mr. Baum, and heard them tell him how good the strudel was, and he promised to tell his wife that. They were still talking to him when she went back to the kitchen to pick up several other orders. And when she came back, they were just leaving. They told her they'd see her at Mrs. Boslicki's, and she waved and went back to delivering her orders.

They came in every day after that, at the same time. And it became a kind of ritual, but after the first day, she always refused to take a tip from them. She said that bringing her their patronage, and seeing them there, was payment enough. They didn't have to give her any money, all they had to do was pay Mr. Baum for the apple strudel

And on Monday, on her day off, as she walked back from the Laundromat, she ran into Mrs. Rosenstein coming back from the dentist. She invited Gabriella to sit with them in the living room that night, and she commented later to Mrs. Boslicki that the girl was looking better. She seemed stronger and healthier, and not quite as pale as she had been. And Professor Thomas thought she looked a little less grief-stricken when he saw her in the living room later. They were sitting side by side, chatting amiably, while the others played cards, when he turned to her and spoke in a gentle voice no one else could hear, and Gabriella looked up at him in amazement.

“Mr. Baum tells me you were a nun,” he said quietly. It had never occurred to her that Mr. Baum would say that. She had only told him that so that she would get the job waiting on tables, and she knew it was the only experience she had that might convince him. But the professor wondered now if that accounted for her sadness, or if there was another, deeper story. He suspected the latter.

“Not really,” she explained, looking away from him pensively, and then up at him again. “I was a postulant. That's not quite the same thing.”

“Yes, it is,” he smiled. “It's just a tadpole instead of a frog.” He grinned and she laughed out loud at the description.

“I'm not sure the Sisters would be happy to hear you say that.”

“I always had a priest or two in my classes at Harvard. Mostly Jesuits. I always liked them, they were well educated, intelligent, and surprisingly open-minded.” And then without pausing for breath, he turned the conversation back to Gabriella. “How long were you in the convent?”

She hesitated before answering him, there was a lot to explain, and she didn't really want to do that. Even thinking about all she had lost so recently was still far too painful, and he could see sorrow in her eyes again as she answered. But she liked him enough to be honest with him.

“Twelve years,” she said quietly. “I grew up there.”

“Were you an orphan?” he asked gently, and she had the feeling that he was asking her because he cared, not because he wanted to announce it to the others. He was a sensitive, kind man, and she was surprised by how much she liked him.

“I was left there by my parents. It's really the only home I've ever known.” Yet she had left there, and he was compassionate enough not to ask her the reason. And he could sense easily that she didn't want to tell him.

“It must be a difficult life, being a nun. I can't imagine it. Celibacy has never appealed to me much,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “until lately.” He glanced at Mrs. Rosenstein playing bridge intently across the room and they both laughed. He had been devoted to his wife for forty years, and although he had good friends here, he had never wanted to date, or remarry. “I had a number of very interesting conversations with my Jesuits on that subject, and they never convinced me of the validity of the theory.” But what he said reminded her instantly of Joe, and he could almost see her pull back in anguish, and he was immediately sorry. “Did I say something to upset you?” he asked, looking worried.

“No… of course not… I just… miss it a lot,” she said, turning sad eyes up to him, and he could see tears there. “It was hard to leave them.” Something about the way she said it told him she had been forced to, and he decided it was time to change the subject.

“Tell me about your writing,” he said warmly.

“There's nothing to tell.” She smiled gratefully at him. “I just write silly stories occasionally. Nothing worth talking about, and certainly nothing of the caliber you're used to at Harvard.”

“The best writers say things like that. The really bad ones tell you how great their work is. Beware of the writer who tells you how much you're going to love his novel. I guarantee you, you'll be asleep before the end of the first chapter, and snoring!” he said, wagging a finger at her for emphasis as she laughed at the description. “So, having said all that, when may I see your work, Miss Harrison?” He was gentle, but persistent, giving it an importance she knew it didn't deserve.

“I don't have any with me.”

“Then write some,” he said, waving a hand magically. “All you need is pen and paper, and a little inspiration.” And time, and perseverance, and the soul to put into it, still feeling as though her own had been extinguished when Joe died. “I suggest you buy a notebook tomorrow.” And then he hit a nerve again, without intending to, and he realized that talking to her was like tiptoeing through a minefield. “Have you ever kept a journal?” he asked innocently, and was devastated when he saw her look of sorrow.

“I… yes… I have… but I don't do that anymore.” He didn't ask her why she'd stopped. He could see it was a painful subject. For one so young, she had a great many scars, and many of them seemed fresh still.

“What do you enjoy most? Poetry or short stories?” He liked drawing her out, and talking to her. And he liked sitting next to her too, she was so young, and so pretty. It reminded him of a thousand years before, with Charlotte, when they had both been at the University of Washington, and had been barely more than children. He married her the week after they graduated, and his only regret with her was that they had never been able to have children. But for forty years after that, his students had been his children. She had taught music, theory and composition. She used to write him songs sometimes, with wonderful lyrics, and he told Gabriella all about it while she listened, smiling at him.

“She must have been a lovely person.”

“She was,” he said wistfully. “I'll show you a photograph of her sometime. She was very beautiful when she was young. I was the envy of all the young men who knew her. We got engaged when we were twenty.” He asked Gabriella how old she was then, and she said twenty-two. The memory of it made him smile, as he patted her smooth hand with his gnarled one.