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He held out the roses again.

Ever thing inside me, including my too vulnerable heart, told me to toss them back in his face and shut the door. but I didn't. Maybe I was bored. Maybe I was just willing to think of something else beside the arrival of my mother: instead of closing the door. I took his roses and stepped back.

"All right. You can come in for a while. but I have people coming in about an hour for an important meeting."

"Thanks." he said entering. He gazed around with some surprise in his eyes as if he expected to see a house stripped of all of its valuables immediately after Grandmother Hudson's death.

"What?" I asked.

"Quite a house, quite a house. My mother always talks about this house. She'd love to buy it."

"Maybe she'll have the opportunity," I said dryly and led him into the drawing room. I set the flowers in a vast. They were beautiful, a creamy rich white with a strong, fresh scent.

"The word around is that you've inherited most everything. Is that so?" he asked without delay.

"So that's it." I said turning on him. "You're here to get all the good gossip to spread. I bet you bragged you could get me to tell you all the details. right. Corbette?"

He started to shake his head and I laughed.

"Go ahead. sit. Corbette," I said in the tone of voice I would use on a mischievous little boy. I nodded at the chair to his right.

He did and I sat across from him on the smaller settee. For a moment I just looked at him, fixing my eyes on him intently. It made him a little

uncomfortable.

"You are different," he said. "You seem very bitter. What happened to you in England?"

"I'm not any more or less bitter than I was before I went to England. What happened is I grew up a little more," I said. "You don't look like you have changed much." I didn't mean it to sound like a compliment, but that's the way he took it.

"Hey," he said holding out his arms. "why fix it if it ain't broke?"

"Who says it ain't broke?" I retorted, wiping the smug smile off his face.

He nodded.

"You were always a lot tougher than the other girls at Dogwood. I knew that right away and I liked it," he added with a wide-eyed smile. "You've got spunk. Who wanted just another Barbie doll?"

"Normally, that would be flattering, but coming from you, it almost sounds like an insult. Okay. Corbette," I said sitting back and folding my arms under my breasts, "catch me up on your life. How was your college year?"

"Oh. terrific. I was in a play and I won a big part, too. One of the first freshman to do so, it seems."

"What play?"

'Death of a Salesman. I played Biff You know it. right?"

"Of course." I said. I nodded, "I can see you as Biff"

What I was referring to was someone whose ego had been blown up way out of proportion to what he really was and was able to accomplish, but again. Corbette saw only what he wanted to see. I was beginning to wonder if that wasn't a disease of the rich and privileged in our world.

"I received a lot of compliments for my performance. I'm seriously thinking of going to Hollywood, maybe even before I finish college. A friend of mine at school has an uncle who's an agent and he told him about me. You might see me in the movies," Corbette predicted.

"Somehow, I think that would be very natural for you. Corbette."

He stared a moment, finally realizing that I wasn't being complimentary.

"You sure don't like me. I guess I can't blame anyone but myself "

"I don't think about you enough anymore to not like you. Corbette."