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did not introduce himself.
    “Well, don’t you think that’s fair?” I asked. “This is a game, right? And games should be fair. You know my name”— and where I live —“but I don’t know yours.”
    His smile was indulgent, but his answer wasn’t. “You didn’t wish for my name. You wished you knew what to call me.”
    “Um…” I supposed that was true.
    “You’ll know what to call me when it comes to you,” he said. “ If we play again.”
    “If I call you, will we?”
    “Yes.” He paused a moment, looking away, then back at me. “When do you think you’d be most likely to call?”
    “Honestly? The way I’m feeling right now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to resist calling you the minute I get upstairs.”
    He laughed, delighted. “Thank you so much for brightening up an otherwise maudlin evening for me, Karina. How about this? Call me on Friday, at seven p.m. sharp. If you’re late, I won’t answer.”
    “I won’t be late,” I promised.
    Had we made a date? I wasn’t sure, like I wasn’t sure if we’d had sex or not. I mean, he hadn’t even touched me. I hadn’t even touched myself…well, not skin-to-skin contact. I had no idea what to call what had happened.
    I opened the door of the car, but with one foot on the curb I paused and asked, “What about the marble?” The marble he’d kept in a ring box in his jacket pocket.
    He thought a moment before saying, “It is as special as you are. Keep it as a token of my affection.”
    So I did.

Three: Where Things Are Hollow
    I n the light of morning, my mystery man might as well have been a prince of Elfland in a pumpkin carriage. That was how unreal it seemed. Stuff like that didn’t happen to people. Or at least it didn’t happen to me. I know they say the city is full of stories and strange things, but it hadn’t been a fairy-tale city in my experience. It was just a place to live, a place to work, a place to study along with eight million other people, including one very pissed off thesis advisor.
    I rolled out of bed at 7:30 a.m. I brushed out my hair, but I’d gone to sleep with it wet, collapsing into bed practically the minute I was out of the shower. So it was hopeless-looking unless I was going to wash it again. But there was no time for that if I was going to get to Renault’s by eight. I stuck a baseball cap on top of it, threw on some clothes, grabbed a granola bar, and hurried out.
    I ate while I walked. The streets were crowded at this time of day with tons of people trying to get to work. At least it wasn’t raining. The walk across town took about twenty minutes. There was no convenient way to travel by public transportation, so I hoofed it.
    I rang his doorbell at five after eight.
    Professor Renault yanked the door to his brownstone wide open. I guess he was still pissed off. He was a skinny man, with a pinched-looking face even at the best of times. “Take your shoes off,” he barked. “Come into my office.”
    He stalked to the back of the house while I untied my sneakers and put them onto the rack of other shoes by the door.
    I found him sitting at his desk in his cluttered home office, his back to the window that overlooked a small patio. His hands were folded on the desk blotter and he had a very stern look on his face.
    There was no chair for me, so I stood there on his oriental-style rug in my socks, wondering which one of us was going to speak first.
    I figured it should be me. “Look, I’m sorry about last night. My sister is the manager of that bar, and she begged me to work for her. I didn’t think it would be a big deal to reschedule the meeting with you.”
    He moved his mouth like he was sucking on something sour. “Your petty family problems are not my concern.”
    “I know, which is why I didn’t bother to tell you about it last night.”
    “Instead you lied, creating an elaborate fabrication. This is unacceptable behavior for a grown woman.” He looked me up and down, as if jeans, a