"Based anywhere in particular?"
"London. But I"m hoping to go on to Spain. I think things are
happening there."
"Bad things."
"I guess so."
Over the meal, Bradley told her what he knew about Europe, which
was considerable, and all the time he felt himself falling into her, as if
in a dream. She wasn"t like the women he knew she was rough-edged
and laconic but that very difference, which seemed more p.r.o.nounced
here, in these sophisticated surroundings, made her even more
attractive to him.
Talking about their first meeting in the Roswell hotel"s gloomy
lobby, she said, "You had the East Coast written all over you and I
thought that was cute." She also joked about how shocked he had
seemed when, after informing her that he was in Roswell to interview
the members of G.o.ddard"s rocket team, she responded by not only
telling him she had been Wilson"s mistress, but by describing in
drunkenly mischievous, intimate detail just what she and her
remarkably youthful sixty-year-old lover had done together in bed.
"You looked as shocked as a cheerleader trapped in a baseball team"s
locker room after a winning game. G.o.d, that was something!" Finally
she reminded him that he had found her attractive, that she"d seen it in
his face, and that his blushing response to her teasing had simply
confirmed it.
"Yes," Bradley murmured, "I guess it did."
He had never had an affair before and certainly didn"t plan to start
one now, but when he thought of her going off to Europe, probably
never to be seen again, he was filled with an unutterable sense of loss.
It was an unexpected, inexplicable feeling, and it left him bewildered. So bewildered, in fact, that he almost forgot to ask her about Wilson though eventually, over the coffee and brandy, he did get down to
business.
"You said you"d been to Cornell," he reminded her. "Is that true or
not?"
Gladys turned more serious then. "Yeah," she said, "it"s true." Opening her handbag, she withdrew two sheets of typed notes,