. . he's all I've been thinking about. After talking for awhile at the party, he gave me his cell phone number and told me to text him anytime, day or...night. I was very hesitate to even give him my number when he pulled my phone right out of my hand, as he entered his number into my contacts, then gave it back to me and smiled. I was shocked and embarrassed at the same time, as he winked at me and walked away. I waited two whole days and nights before I texted him for the fitst time. After. I watched them as they smiled and mouthed inanities about school life and the future prospects for expanding the school buildings. I returned their smiles until I gave the conversation a new twist. I turned to Claudia and said quietly, ‘Claudia, have you any idea what it’s like to learn that your fiancé has married another man, to read that when you’re supposed to fighting for your fucking country. Tell me Claudia, if you were such a man and got that letter, how would you feel?’ Claudia sat. "Downstairs as I was showing Benton out, I bumped into Gerda - this beinga Friday she had not gone down to her surgery. She was carrying a letterand smiling."It's from Leni," she told me. "She and Jacob were married in a smallfamily ceremony on the twenty-first. It will be you and Helmut next." Yes, it probably will," I agreed, giving an apparently happy smile.Helmut and I had sex that night. It had been several days since our lastcoupling, but we had now done it scores of times since Helmut. “But she didn’t say she was proud of me like you did.” Her eyes filled again. “Thank you, Toby.”“Right! How about half an hour’s Chopin?”“OK but I’d prefer half an hour of you and Rachmaninov first.”He smiled at her. “Off you get. Let’s go and do that.”An hour later Allie was fully recovered and her normal buoyant self. Nevertheless she brought the subject up again on Monday as they walked to school.“Toby? Why did Danny behave like he did when I’d told him that I didn’t want to be his.