“Hi, I'm Steve Porter,” he introduced himself. “I'm the new kid on the block.”

“It's nice to meet you,” Gabriella said coolly, unconsciously relieved that she didn't find him handsome. He had thick dark hair, and dark eyes, he was tall and slim, but he had powerful shoulders. He looked very clean-cut, but there was something she didn't like about him, and as she walked to work, she decided it was arrogance. He was too sure of himself, and entirely too familiar. He was nothing like Joe in any way, who had become, for her, as the only man she'd ever known biblically or otherwise, the standard of perfection. But she had known instantly that she didn't like this one. And she said so to the professor in no uncertain terms the next time she played dominoes with him.

“Oh, don't be such a grouch,” he said to her gruffly. “He's a nice kid, Gabbie. He's a good-looking guy and he probably knows it. So what? That doesn't make him a villain.”

“I don't like him,” she said firmly.

‘You're just afraid to get hurt again. You know, they don't all die, or walk away, they're not all going to hurt you,” he said gently, and she shook her head and refused to pursue the conversation with him. She pretended to be intent on winning, but they both knew she wasn't. And something about her told the old professor that she was frightened.

Steve Porters presence in the house was actually threatening to her. But it wasn't surprising after spending all of her adolescence and adult life in the convent. “Don't worry about him,” the professor said comfortingly, “he's probably not interested in you either.” And he could see that that relieved her, although he hoped that he was wrong and that Steve would become intrigued by her. He looked like a nice guy, and the professor thought it would be good for her to have a real date with someone. She seemed to have no desire whatsoever to see anyone but the professor, which was flattering for him, but not healthy for her. But he thought maybe if he left it alone, eventually the two young people would find each other.

But in the ensuing weeks, Gabriella seemed to do everything she could to avoid Steve Porter. If anything, she was rude to him, which was unusual for her. She was always so polite to everybody. But not to Steve. For him, she reserved her grumpiest behavior, but Steve seemed not to notice. He seemed to be in good spirits all the time, and he was particularly kind to all the old people. He bought a lovely Christmas tree for them, and set it up in the living room. He bought the decorations himself, because Mrs. Boslicki had never bothered, and she was always afraid to offend her boarders who were Jewish. But no one seemed to mind, they thought he was a lovely young man. He had just arrived from Des Moines, and he was looking for a job working with computers. He went out to interviews every morning and afternoon, and he was always nicely dressed, either in a sports coat or a suit. Everyone in the house, except Gabbie, approved of him. And they all thought it would be terrific if the two young people got together. And Steve was pleasant enough to her, but Gabbie made it clear that she had absolutely no inclination in that direction.

In fact, she was annoyed at him one afternoon on her way to work. He had bought little Christmas wreaths for everyone, and hung one on her door, without asking her. She didn't want to be indebted to him in any way or form, and she was very irritated that he had done it. But she thought it would be ruder still to take it down, so now she felt obliged to keep it. And she grumbled about it to herself all the way to work on Eighty-sixth Street.

“You look happy this afternoon,” Mr. Baum teased her as she walked in. It was rare to see Gabbie in a bad mood, but today she was definitely in one, and he didn't dare ask her what had happened.

Christmas was only a week away by then, and although some people were feeling stressed, most seemed to be in high spirits. The holidays seemed to bring out the worst and the best in everyone. He loved Christmas himself, and Mrs. Baum had been making beautiful gingerbread houses for weeks and selling them to people for their children. It was something she did every year, and they were always the prettiest ones on Eighty-sixth Street. Just seeing them in the window always brought people in, and today was no different. There were half a dozen people at the counter and the cash register, with their children standing near them, pointing to the specific house they wanted. There were little candies stuck all over them, and chocolate and spun sugar decorations. There were even tiny chocolate reindeer. Gabriella loved looking at them, and wishing she had had something magical like that in her childhood. But there had been no magic in Gabriella's childhood, no gingerbread houses, no visits to Santa. Christmas had always been a time when her mother was particularly malevolent and on edge, and never failed to beat her.

She was trying not to think about it, as she waited on a table and saw a woman come in with a little girl, who was pointing excitedly to one of the houses Mrs. Baum had made. “That one! That one!” She was about five years old and so excited she could barely contain herself as her mother held her hand and told her to calm down, they were going to buy one.

They stood in line behind several other people, and when it was finally their turn, the child started to jump up and down, clapping her hands in her little red mittens. She was wearing a funny little hat with a bell on it, and when she hopped around, it made a tinkling sound that, to Gabriella, seemed to be full of the magic of Christmas. But suddenly as she jumped, she stumbled and fell down, and without hesitating, her mother reached down and yanked her to her feet by one arm, and the child began to cry and hold her arm, while her mother shouted at her.

“I told you to stop that, now you got what you deserved. And if you do it again, Allison, I swear I'm going to slap you.” Gabriella stopped what she was doing, and stood and stared at them, forgetting all about the customers whose orders she had just taken. She was mesmerized by what she had just seen, and the familiar words, and she was watching the expression on the woman's face. There was something particularly vicious about it, and the child standing next to her was still crying. The quick yank on her arm seemed to have dislocated it, and she was crying ever more loudly as she held it. It had happened that way to Gabriella once, her mother had pulled hard on her arm, and pulled her elbow right out of the socket, and she still remembered vividly what it felt like. Her father had gently put it back for her eventually, with a sharp twist and a turn. Later her parents had fought about it, and then her mother had gone after her in earnest. But this woman was furious now as the child continued to wail, and Gabriella walked slowly over to her to suggest that the arm, or the elbow more precisely, might have been dislocated.

“Don't be ridiculous,” the woman snapped at her as the Baums watched, “she's just whining. She's fine.” But Allison looked anything but fine as she continued to clutch her elbow. “Now, do you want a gingerbread house or not?” she shouted at her then, yanking on the arm again, and everyone who watched them winced in unison. It was obvious that this time her mother had really hurt her. “Allison, if you don't stop crying, I'm going to pull your pants down right here and spank you in front of all these people.”

“No, you're not,” Gabriella said quietly, with a power she had never felt in her life, a rush of adrenaline that suddenly surged through her. But this was not going to happen twice, and she was not going to stand there and watch the woman do it. “You're not going to do anything of the sort.”

“What right do you have to interfere with my disciplining my daughter?” The woman looked outraged. She was wearing a mink coat and she had walked over from Madison, on her way back to their Park Avenue apartment. But the scene was all too familiar to Gabriella. And the word discipline set off a bell in her heart that sounded like a death knell to her as she listened.

“You're not disciplining her,” Gabriella answered her in a voice she didn't recognize herself, “you're humiliating her, and torturing her in front of all these people. Why don't you tell her you're sorry? Why don't you fix her arm? If you take her coat off, you'll see that it's dislocated.”

With that the woman turned to Mr. Baum with an aristocratic look of outrage. “Who is this girl? How dare she speak to me that way?” And with that, as the child continued to cry, the mother gave another hard yank on her arm, and the child let out a yowl that almost ruptured Gabriella's remaining eardrum. And without thinking twice, she gently pulled the child away from her mother's hand, and began taking her little red coat off. It came off easily and she saw instantly that what she had suspected had in fact happened. The arm dangled uselessly and the child screamed the moment Gabriella touched it.

“Take your hands off my child!” the woman was screaming. “Someone call the police,” and with that, Gabriella turned around, and spoke to her in a voice that almost sounded like the devil.

“Yes, let's call the police, and explain to them what you've been doing to her. And if you make another sound, I'm going to slap you right in front of all these people,” and with that, as the woman stared open-mouthed, Gabriella turned to the child, and quickly did what she remembered her father doing to her, praying it would work this time. There was a terrible snap and a frightening sound as she first pulled the arm away from the child and then sharply turned it, but within an instant, the crying stopped, and the little girl was smiling. The dislocated elbow had been put back in its socket. But the woman came alive again then, grabbed the child's coat from her, shoved it, trembling, onto the child again and yanked her halfway to the door, while screaming at Gabriella.