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"Maybe we didn't have a funeral for him, but he's gone, and that's no lie," he added as he rose and started away.

I tried to call to him, but my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I felt like I was shrinking right where I stood. A numbness washed over me. Had I been unfair, insensitive, after all? Was I wrong to assume he was full of deception just because he tried to make love to me? Beni used to accuse me of thinking so much of myself I wouldn't permit a boy to get too close. Had I done what she accused me of doing? Had I been so overly self-protective that I was just as unsophisticated and inexperienced when it came to boys as Audrey Stempelton was?

Why was it all so complicated? Why couldn't people be who they seemed to be? I felt like I lived in a world full of mirrors and lights, all of them deceiving.

Audrey was waiting for me when I stepped out of the theater. Everyone else was gone.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

I told her what Corbette had told me when I accused him of lying.

"I knew I was right," she said as if the veracity of the information was the issue.

"That's not important, Audrey. I felt terrible forcing him to tell me about his fight with his parents and his mother's attitude. It was as if I had invaded his very soul. He couldn't wait to get away from me."

"He still lied to you," she insisted. "Besides, he's got a reputation."

"Maybe. Or maybe it's just a lot of rumor and innuendo spread by jealous girls."

"You said he almost raped you!"

"I never said that. See what I mean? People don't listen and then they exaggerate. Who's to say it hasn't happened many times before?"

"Well, I still think you'd be foolish to trust him," she said. She had been so happy when I was angry at Corbette. Now she looked sad and depressed again.

"I don't know who or what to trust anymore," I complained. "And I'm tired. I'll see you tomorrow."

I started for the car. Jake was leaning against it, reading a copy of the magazine from the American Association of Retired Persons.

"You're not retired. Why are you reading that, Jake?" I asked and he folded it and laughed.

"For as much as I do these days, I can qualify, princess. How's it look?" he asked nodding at the theater. "Should I buy a ticket?"

"I don't know," I said.

"You're looking a bit glum this afternoon. Miss some lines?"

"I miss a lot of things, Jake, like my mama and my brother and the miserable life I once had."

He laughed.

"Come, on," he said opening the door, "I'll take you home a different way and show you something special."

I got into the car and sat back with my eyes closed. I had a terrible headache, probably caused by tension and nerves. Jake babbled about the weather, his lumbago, and the stock market. He had told me he had a little money invested and he was doing better than he had expected. He called it his scrambled nest egg.

"Here we are," he announced and I opened my eyes. We were on an unfamiliar side road. He slowed down and pulled to the side near a corral.

"Step out a moment," he urged.

I did as he asked and we looked over the fence. In the center of the field was a mare with a beautiful glossy brown colt. It had a white streak between its eyes and down to its nose and stood close to its mother, whose tail seemed to be waving flies off the colt. It looked our way curiously.

"It was born just a week ago," Jake said.

"It's beautiful.

Whose place is this?"

"Oh, a friend of mine. That's my colt," Jake said. "What?"