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"They’re the only tree I know that’s like that"

"Well, see, it makes them real easy to climb And that’s what they believe he did, climbed up into one of the trees to wait for a victioing"

"And then, because he had a so blood alcohol level, he lost his balance and fell, and he landed on his head and broke his neck and died"

"The world is a dangerous place"

"But a little less so," she said, "now that he’s not in it anymore"

Her name was Julia Emilie Roussard She’d written it on the fly-leaf of one of the books he picked up

It took him two days to use it For all the conversations they had, there was somehow never an occasion where he could fit her name into one of his sentences

He took her out to lunch after they picked up his eyeglasses (with a co the optonated strip of cloth for cleaning the lenses) On the way home she reminded him that he’d talked about two losses, his best friend and his most prized possession Who was the friend, she wondered, and as the possession?

He answered the second part first His staot into his apartment

"You’re a stamp collector? Seriously?"

"Well, it was a hobby, but I was pretty serious about it I gave it a lot of my time, and put quite a bit of money into it" He told her a little about his collection, and how the childhood hobby had drawn him back in as an adult

"And the friend?"

"It was a woman," he said

"Your wife? No, you said you’ve never been irlfriend It was never physical, it wasn’t that kind of a relationship I suppose you could say she was a business associate, but ere very close"

"When you say business associate…"

He nodded "She was killed by the sah she’d burned herself up in a fire, but they didn’t try too hard They set a fire any rookie investigator would spot right away as arson, and they left her with two bullets in her head" He shrugged "They probably didn’t care what the cops called it It’s not like anybody could do anything about it"

"Do you miss her?"

"All the time That’s probably the reason I talk so much I wouldn’t ordinarily, not on such short acquaintance There’s two reasons, actually, and one is that you’re very easy to talk to, but the other is that I’one"

"That was her naht it was Dorothy, and either I got it wrong or the papers did, because Dorothea was the way it appeared in the press coverage of the fire But all anyone ever called her was Dot"

"I never had a nickname"

"People always call you Julia?" There!

"Except for the kids, who have to call me Miss Roussard That’s the first time you’ve ever used my name, do you realize that?"

"You never told ured there’d be papers in the house, but I didn’t want to snoop around You’d tell ht you knew I just took it for granted we had that conversation You saved ot to watch you break a man’s neck and then you walked me home and we drank coffee in the kitchen How could you not know my name?"

"I opened a book," he said, "and there it was Oh, for God’s sake"

"What?"

"Well, how did I even knoas you? Maybe you bought the book secondhand, or maybe it came down in the family"

"No, it’s me"

"Julia Emilie Roussard"

"Oui, monsieur C’est moi"

"French?"

"On , didn’t I?"

"You told ray early"

"And died early, too Thirty-six years old, and she left the table one night and went straight to bed because she felt a little feverish, and the nextshe was dead"

"My God"

"Viral itis She was healthy one day and dead the next, and I don’t think my daddy ever did understand what happened to him To her of course, but also to him And to me, and I was eleven at the tiht now I’m two years older than she hen she died"

"And you don’t have a single gray hair, either"

She laughed, delighted He said he was several years older than that, and she told him he looked it "With your new haircut," she said "I think e’ll do is bleach it, and then dye it a nice medium brown If you’re not happy with the way it turns out, we can always dye it back to the way it is now"

But it turned out fine Mousy brown, Julia called it, and said that women supplied by nature with hair that color were oftenabout it "Because it’s kind of blah, you know? It doesn’t attract attention"

Perfect

If her father even noticed the difference, he didn’t see fit to cohter color ith the professorial effect, which the bifocals had reinforced big-ti used to them, were a revelation He hadn’t exactly needed the fine without them, but there was no question they i on St Charles Avenue, he could ns he’d have squinted at previously

He went for that walk on a day when Julia was teaching, and a plu of a woot hoed," he said "Lucille’s agreed to stay late, so let’s you and I go to an early movie and a nice dinner"