Author's notes at end.

"I'm freezing." I shivered in the October night, drawing breath that froze my chest with each lungful.

"You people," she laughed, her voice echoing off the sidewalks and buildings. "You all get spoiled by the summer, it's like you forget about winter once the snow melts, like it never really happened."

"We live in the moment," I answered, my voice indignant.

"Yeah, that or y'all have very short memories."

"Denial baby, if we don't think about it, it won't happen."

"That theory's not working out so well for you now is it?"

"Now that you mention it, no," I laughed back.

"Here," she flipped her scarf over her head and mine, settling it around my neck and throwing a loose end over my shoulder.

I buried my face into the soft knitting and inhaled the scent of eucalyptus. "Thanks," my voice came out muffled and distorted by the burgundy cotton.

"You're welcome," she threw her arm across my shoulder and steered us towards Market Street.

The wind blew, swirling the fallen leaves around our feet as we trudged across the cement. The autumn air was crisp and fresh, no longer bogged down by the heat of summer. Digging my hands into the deep pockets of my jacket I turned to her.

"How 'bout a friendly wager?"

"What's it going to be tonight?"

We routinely bet on people. How many blondes there would be in a particular coffee bar, how many bottled blondes? What he does for a living, where she was from; married, divorced, widowed, gay. For the times we needed a confirmation Andrea always walked right up and, without pretense, asked. She talked to anyone, about anything, and most of the time they talked back. More than anything it was something to do on those nights when neither TV nor homework managed to hold our attention. The payoff was always the same, a skinny vanilla latte if I won; and, more often, the special of the day for her.

"I bet you get hit on more tonight," I offered.

Andrea laughed out loud and pushed me away but quickly agreed. We walked up the stairs outside the coffee shop and into the refreshing warmth. Pulling my fingers out of the fleece gloves I ordered steamed milk and her special. Last time it was the origin of an unusual accent. The man was from Tanzania. I mean really, who would have guessed. But geographically her Botswana was closer than my Cameroon. A win by default reaps the same rewards I guess.

"Okay, start counting now."

We sat and talked for an hour about school and cartoons and boyfriends or, more accurately, the lack thereof before dressing to leave. As we walked out I grinned with victory. I'd won. Andie is, after all, gorgeous.

Somewhere between Larimer and Skyline Park we found ourselves sprawled in a small patch of grass tucked inside multiple layers, hats, gloves and scarves.

The moon was only a sliver on the horizon and despite the streetlights the stars twinkled brightly.

"Do you know anything about constellations?" she asked.

"No, not really. I mean I can find the Big Dipper but that's about it. You?" I already knew the answer because like the bets this too was a ritual. We always end up this way, sprawled and amused and talkative. She shows off and I let her. It's a trade off really, I help her with math and science and she tells me tales of imagination and truth. More often then not I can't tell which is which, she weaves them so well.

"As a matter of fact I do," she turned her head smiling. "Okay. So you can find the Big Dipper."

"It's right..." I craned my neck around searching the sky, "there." I raised my arm to point.

"Good. Now go up and right from there and you see those three bright stars in a row like this," she traced an invisible pattern with her long finger.

"No."

She moved her body so I could feel the heat of her shoulder against mine.

"Okay, right there. Do you see them?"

I nodded.

"That's Andromeda. Now look down and to the left. Right there," she moved her arm slightly above us like a big compass hand. "See that 'w', it's kind of upside down? That's Cassiopeia"

"Okay."

"Andromeda and Cassiopeia were inseparable. They were different in almost every way, but perhaps that's why they got on so well. They complimented each other. They were something more than friends and less than lovers."

Even lying on her back Andrea talked with her hands. She waved emphatically, punctuating thoughts with small thrusting gestures.

"Andromeda was born a beautiful child but not even the gods could predict how lovely she would grow up to be. Her beauty so displeased Hera that the goddess ordered her parents to offer Andromeda up as a sacrifice to the Kracken or face the fury of the sea monster."

"Andromeda was chained to a rock outcropping overlooking the sea. Her parents tried desperately to find a savior for their only daughter. As luck would have it Perseus had just wandered into town."

"So where's he?" I asked gesturing upwards.

"Right and down from Cassiopeia, see that triangle with that bright star at the bottom?"

I did.

"Andromeda's parents offered her hand in marriage if Perseus could save their daughter and kill the Kracken. Perseus agreed but upon seeing how beautiful Andromeda was, did not wish her for a wife."

"Wait, what?"

"Perseus didn't want to be with a woman who would always be pursued by men because of her beauty. Instead he asked for Cassiopeia. Brokenhearted over her friend, Cassiopeia relented. So long story short Perseus saved Andromeda and married Cassiopeia. He, however, longed for Andromeda and it wasn't long before he left Cassiopeia for her."

"But I thought he didn't want her."

"He didn't, not really. He's more in love with the idea of her than the actual woman."

She paused and I waited patiently for the rest of the story until I realized that she'd finished.

"Wait, that's it?"

"Yep. Perseus and Andromeda were never really happy together and Cassiopeia lost her friend and her husband."

"Oh." The air around us seemed to drop a couple degrees. "So how do you know all that?"

"I don't. I just made it up," she burst out laughing at her own little joke. "Pretty good, huh?"

"Yeah. So I just have one question," I exhaled slowly, watching my breath circle up in the night air. "Does Cassiopeia ever get the boy?"

She thought for a moment, debating something silently. "No."

The cold had crept around us, stretching its fingers into and under our sweaters. It was unbearable as we rose to our feet and walked silently back to the car.

I met Kevin two weeks later. He stood at the theatre entrance gesturing with an extra ticket he said was mine, if I wanted. He reached across the armrest and grasped my fingers in his and I felt a smile creep onto my face as we watched Lady McBeth go quietly mad. We walked silently to my car where he kissed me chastely on the cheek and wished me a safe drive home.

Three weeks after that we slept together. It wasn't eloquent or pretty but it was something.

We were down in his basement watching TV and talking about the second term president and graduation. And then it happened, a pause in conversation, this silence that begs to be filled. Taking initiative he clumsily pawed at my breast and kissed me hard. It wasn't so much that either one of us wanted to get laid; we'd just run out of things to say. I have this theory, all those girls who brag about waiting for the 'right time'; they aren't so much pious as they are verbose. Perhaps if they shut up more they'd get a little.

And then it was over and suddenly we were something new. It became so easy, this communicating without words. We both fooled ourselves into believing that's what it was. Love always sounds better than desperation; although, in us, they were built on each other. It was always easiest when he fell asleep afterwards and I lay staring at the ceiling wondering if I was the one using him or he the one using me. Sometimes the answers were clear, most of the time it turned out to be a little bit of each. I guess it doesn't matter, it never added up to anything respectable, anything like love.

"I love the way you're quiet. I mean you talk when you have something to say but you don't talk just for the sound of your own voice," Kevin said, not turning from the computer screen.

I just stared at him not quite sure if was really a compliment, not sure whether I should be proud. We'd been going out for three months and I still had no idea how to read him.

"Silence is golden right. I just like the way you respect that. Not like Andie. God, that girl can talk. Seriously, she just keeps going on and on about inane shit that no one cares about. And that thing she does with her hands, waving them around like a spaz," he gesticulated wildly with his own arms, apparently to demonstrate his point.

"Like a conductor," I said quietly. Kevin stopped his rant and just looked at me with a puzzled expression. "A conductor. You know, stands in front of an orchestra, directs the musicians."

"Whatever," he turned back to his computer screen not understanding what I'd meant.

"Maybe...maybe it's like a way to organize, like she's directing her thoughts so they come out right." It was not the first time I pictured Andrea arranging verbs and adjectives like some people arrange chords.

"It bothers the shit out of me," he began typing again, the clacking of keys filling time. He must have sensed me staring because he spoke to the computer screen and said not kindly, "I've got to do this now, so if you want to let yourself out."

I did let myself out, closed the big double doors behind me and trudged across the great expanse his family modestly called a lawn. The snow remained deep enough to find its way into my boots, melting against the heat of my skin. We'd had more snow this spring than all the years I've lived here.

Later he said he'd always been uncomfortable with the silences. He hated carrying the conversations. He and Andie, he said, had things to talk about.

"What are you afraid of?" I asked, draining the last swallow from my glass. The cheap vinyl seat stuck to the back of my sweater as I sweated in the overheated bar. We were taking a break from the newspaper to grab a bite to eat. Now that dinner was over, we sat killing time, avoiding having to go back.

"Spiders." Andrea answered.

"Really?"

"Yeah, although it's really creepy crawlies of all sorts. Anything with more than four legs is fundamentally wrong," she paused, looking around the room, sipping slowly on the drink sent to the table by a man hanging on the bar. He was older and balding but without the desperate look that usually comes after they turn forty. Andrea had chatted with him for a while but returned to our booth empty handed. Judging by the way he was staring at us unabashedly I figured she gave him the 'I'm sorry but I'm a lesbian' excuse.

"So, how 'bout you?" she asked turning again to face me.

'Ending up alone' is what I wanted to say, but I was 23 and it stank of self-pity so I said instead, "heights."

"The fall or the landing?" she asked.

"The fall," the answer came off my tongue before I'd even considered it. I mean it was something I'd never thought about, because I'm not really afraid of heights. But it was the right answer, the falling, flying, tumbling.

Andrea looked at me, cocking her head to the side like she had just made a decision. "So, seriously?" she asked.

I nodded staring intently at her. I noticed the small crow's feet around her eyes and was shocked for a moment. She took a long drink before starting again.

"Screwing up. I'm afraid of screwing up, making the wrong call about something big and living to regret it." Her eyes dropped to the table and her fingers were busy pulling the label off her beer in tiny strips.

She snorted a laugh and looked up, a smile replacing everything else on her face. "Pretty silly, huh? I mean to be afraid of answers to questions I haven't even been asked."

"No, not really." I smiled up at the waitress as she set another round down on the sticky table. Somewhere through the haze I could hear the jukebox switching records. A moment later Joni Mitchell sang out across the bar.

"I love this song." Andrea tilted her head as though to better hear the music. "I wish they would play more of her, you know, on the radio. They always play this or Chelsea Morning."

"You would think with all those records they could come up with a little more variety."

"Bet you can't tell me what album this came from." She knew better, but she threw it out there as a consolation prize anyway. Although we'd long since moved from caffeine to liquor. I was never quite sure if she was sorry that I never got strange men to buy me a round or if she felt bad for making me her alibi. Didn't really matter, a beer's a beer, and I'll drink to that.

"Ladies of the Canyon."

"Okay, smarty-pants, what'll it be?"

"Fat Tire...next time. We should be getting back."

"Yeah, all right."

We pulled on our jackets, tossed some money on the table, and headed out into the dark.

"So what're you afraid of?" she asked again.

"Seriously?"

She nodded as she pushed her hand through the crook in my arm, pushing her body close to mine.

"Not knowing what I've got till it's gone." I answered, Joni Mitchell still singing in my head.

She turned to smile at me, her eyes questioning if I was serious or just being cute. I guess she decided it didn't matter and let it drop. We walked the last five blocks back to campus in silence, arm in arm.

I sequestered myself in one of the small rooms with nothing more than a laptop and a can of Diet Coke. I always managed to put my column off until the very end. I waited to the last minute so I could be topical, incorporate the current events. It was good excuse, completely false, but still a good excuse. At those moments, with deadline looming near and a completely empty space under my name and picture, all I really needed was to be left alone for twenty minutes. It never happened that way, so I wasn't surprised when Andrea came in with Kevin in tow. I threw them both the most intimidating look I had, which had proved to be completely ineffective against Andrea several years ago. Fortunately, I still had the power to halt Kevin for a moment.

"We come bearing gifts." Andrea approached holding out a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in her outstretched hand.

"In that case all is forgiven."

After dessert I turned back to my computer intent on finishing.

"What's your editorial on this time?" Andrea asked. Sometimes I envied her job. Layouts had their own set of deadlines so she was always done except for the occasional touch ups while the rest of us ran spastically around trying to finish.

"The Bell Curve." I replied intent on the screen in front of me.

"By Sylvia Plath?" Kevin piped up, his candy no longer holding his attention.

"No. That would be The Bell Jar. This," I gestured to my computer, "is about The Bell Curve by Murray and Hernstein."

"Bell Jar, Bell Curve they're all the same."

"Yeah, essentially, except one is about the mental breakdown and hospitalization of a young woman and the other one not so much." I tried to keep my voice level.

"So what's it about?" Andrea leaned closer as if to read over my shoulder.

"Race and IQ."

"And?"

"And what?"

"What are you saying about it?" she was clearly enjoying driving me nuts. Next time I'd have to look for a more remote room.

"It's a fundamentally flawed book that draws conclusions from faulty hypotheses."

"Wow! Sounds exciting."

I smiled at her because it really didn't sound very exciting, even to me.

"I thought you were on board with all this genetics makes us what we are stuff anyway. You know nature above nurture," Kevin jumped in again.

"I am, to a point."

"So if race is genetically based what's your problem?" Kevin had this way of talking that made it seem like he was the smartest man in all the world and everyone else could just deal with it.

"Race is actually an arbitrary assignment of class based on personal preference and dictated by the society in which you live. These guys want us to believe that there is a causal relationship between being black and having a low IQ when no such relationship exists. Yes, African Americans score lower as a group on standardized IQ tests but it's not because of their skin color. It's because their opportunities for learning are less due to the socioeconomic rift that still exists in this country." I could feel my voice gain an edge and rise to an almost shout. "But here's the kicker, the IQ gap is narrowing; more opportunities equals more school equals more smarts equals higher IQ scores. So, yeah, I have a problem with a book that says that people are just the sum total of a string of amino acids and can never rise above where their genes put them."

"Okay," they both just looked at me like I had lost it.

"I mean it would be like...it would be like saying that if your parents are Irish you're destined to become an alcoholic or saying homosexuals can't keep their hands to themselves because we're born that way and can't control ourselves." My breathing echoed in the tiny room, drowning out everything else.

I heard my mistake even as it was coming out of my mouth and could see the question on their faces. I spoke before they had the opportunity to collect their thoughts. "They, I meant they...I just get so caught up in this stuff...it makes me so mad..."

"The Bell Curve?" Andrea asked quietly.

"Yeah," I turned back to the computer and tried to ignore the shaking in my hands. "Listen, I need to finish this like now so if you guys could..." I gestured to the door curtly.

"Sure." They said in unison and left me alone in the room, the clacking of keys and my ragged breath the only sounds.

At some point that night Andrea fell asleep on the couch. I turned from the computer and saw her. Her eyes were moving, under her closed lids, tracing the lines of her dreams. The whisper of her breath, barely audible above the hum of machines, came in measured time, keeping pace with some invisible metronome. I wished again that I could afford to go to England with them. I stared at her face, losing whole minutes, before I felt someone else's eyes on me. I wished for that minute that I could block everything and everyone else out, and stay just in this moment a minute longer. As the voyeur's gaze became more intense I felt the blush start in my chest and creep up to my cheeks. Suddenly my breath caught and I was sure my thoughts were on display for everyone in the room. I turned back to the computer eyes fixed to the monitor, mind swimming and lost.

When she woke, Andie slid out of the room without preamble, without any goodbye.

"Did you sleep with her?" I cringed at the quiet desperation in my voice.

"Let's not do this, not like this."

I couldn't answer him, couldn't make sounds come from my constricting throat. My mind filled with images of stolen looks and slight touches that suddenly seemed to be so much more than friendly.

"I'll...I'll talk to you when I get back Wednesday. Cass I...I'm...I'll talk to you later."

With that he hung up the line leaving me clutching the phone and wondering how it had all happened so fast.

The sharp beat of the disconnected line shook me from the moment, however, and I replaced the receiver carefully in its cradle and stood staring at the red LED display. 2:18.

I closed my eyes to stem the flood of tears that threatened to run down my cheeks. My mind worked overtime producing all the images I had of Andrea and Kevin by themselves and then together. It was all there, in snippets and scenes, the history of them. It spread out before me, an annotated time line that culminated in this moment. But I realized it didn't stop here. The time line continued on for them without me.

The days passed at a slow and smothering pace until one morning someone reminded me that it was Wednesday. I acknowledged it with only a small nod, trying to hide from my friends what they already knew. Friends heard from other friends and it seemed they all knew what had happened even before I was able to really grasp it. That morning I felt all their eyes on me, more so even then the previous days, watching and waiting for me to cry or rage or perhaps just break.

I locked myself in the publications room with the computer monitors the only illumination. I knew she'd come here first bearing gifts and contrite apologies. At one point I would have said it was because I knew her so well, better then she knew herself. Now I had to admit that it was just a bet.

She came in like a mouse sneaking into the feline convention, quiet and tiny and waiting to be torn to shreds at any moment. I knew it was her, the eucalyptus lotion she so loved had this way of announcing her presence from around corners and through doors. I couldn't turn around; I couldn't even take my eyes off the screen. We waited each betting the other would speak first. I won.

"I brought this for you," she walked towards me with the box outstretched, a shield to hide behind.

I reached up to grab the gift, our fingers touching briefly. As angry as I was I still had been waiting to see her. "How was it?" I asked, fingering the delicate bow.

"It was..." her hands immediately came up and danced in front of her. Before anything came out, though, she caught herself, apparently remembering how we'd gotten here. Her arms fell limply to her sides and then found their way into her jeans pockets. "It was absolutely beautiful." She murmured quietly.

I smiled sadly at her and turned back to my keyboard. "So I've got to finish this story, deadline's Wednesday."

"Yeah, okay," I heard her feet shuffle around on the carpet as she turned to leave. "I'm sorry."

It felt like a kick to the stomach. I wanted to scream at her about sorry and about love and friends and stars and coffee and bets. But I was sure my voice would crack and my heart would break, bleeding out everything I'd worked so hard to hide. I stared at the screen, fighting the tears building behind my eyes and all I could manage was, "Okay."

She slipped out as quietly as she'd come in.

I pushed the door open with more force than needed and winced as it cracked against the wall. Someone, startled by my entrance, jumped and issued a small yelp. My eyes adjusted to the brighter light and finally focused on Andrea. She was standing above the sink, gazing at the mirror. She jumped again when she realized I was the one invading the tiny washroom.

She unconsciously backed herself into the corner, like a mouse searching for asylum, hiding behind one of the sinks. Andrea looked down at her hands, her long fingers playing on the porcelain.

"I'm sorry," it was more of whisper than anything and at first I'm wasn't entirely sure she was talking to me. "I mean, for what its worth, it wasn't about hurting you," she looked upward and brought her hands out in front waving them in noncommittal little gestures. I watched her fingers dancing through the air and thought again that she must be directing words into coherent sentences. They had always fascinated me, her hands. Slim fingers and soft skin. I quickly sobered as I listened to my heartbeat in the small room.

I didn't say anything, didn't know what to say. So she just kept talking.

"It's just that we were there and you were here and it was so romantic and we kissed and just like boom I mean it felt so right and it was love."

At that moment I felt embarrassed for her. If she thought that was love how could I tell her this wasn't about him, it never had been. I had never dared call Kevin and I love. We were convenient. Standing there, staring at her hands, I wanted to tell her about loving and losing what you never had. I wanted to explain how I always knew when she was in the building. I needed to tell her that Perseus never belonged to that story.

But none of those words came. Instead I stepped forward closing the distance between us in an instant. I leaned forward capturing her hands in mine and brushed my lips against hers. It had never been him; it was always just her and the way she spoke in orchestrated phrases.

I kissed her and it was awkward and clumsy, everything it always was with Kevin. Somehow I had thought it would be different, better. Not awful and sloppy and not at all like it should be.

But she let me. She didn't push me away, she didn't kiss back, but she didn't push me away. Seconds stretched to hours and lifetimes. I closed my eyes and felt her fingers on my face tentatively, like she wasn't sure if I'd dissolve away into so much powder, blown away by the slightest breath.

Abruptly she withdrew her touch and time collapsed again. She stepped back and the place her body had been was nothing but cold space.

She brushed past me, her shoulder striking mine in her rush. The door slammed behind me heralding her escape.

I don't remember after that. The music and the light and everything blurred together, becoming nothing but blues and grays with no edges.

I slept with my Brian that night. I'd bet and lost and this was my punishment. In the morning it wasn't respectable but he looked me in the eye and said he loved me and I fell into that. I decided to make it respectable, to make it love.

I tried for two years and two months and then called the game on account of rain. Love it turned out, like anything else, couldn't be conjured from nothing.

Andie left Kevin two weeks later.

I found the scarf not long after I moved into my own apartment. I pulled it out of the closet, running the soft knit through my fingers; amazed I still had it after all this time. I took my own threadbare emerald scarf from around my neck and folded it neatly into quarters. I wound the gift around my neck tucking it into my pea coat. As I stepped into the hallway I buried my face into the threads and was overcome by the smell of California, beaches and sunny days with warms nights under eucalyptus leaves. For a moment my body was heated through and the bitterness of November was a faraway reality. But the sensation faded just as quickly as it had come. The scarf had been sitting in my closet for two years, surely the scent of her was not still embedded in its fibers. I wanted so much for it to be there but the fragrance was nothing more than the stink of wood shavings and moth balls. Glancing at my watch I picked up my pace towards the lobby.

"Hi, sorry I'm late," I smiled.

"No worries, I only just got here," she smiled back and opened the door, following me out onto the street.

"I like your scarf, its such a pretty color, like wine," Catie reached out to touch the soft weave around my neck. Her fingers were soft and slender, long and tapered at the nail. Elegant.

"Thanks. It was a gift."

"From whom?"

"An old friend," it wasn't a lie, after all. I'm just not sure it was the whole truth either. But it was the only answer I gave because there are just some things first dates don't need to know. Later, if there were a later, maybe Andrea would come up in the inevitable ex's discussion. Although, strictly speaking, she didn't belong there. Perhaps it was appropriate; she had always defied definition. And maybe I'd just keep Andie all for myself.

I walk past these bushes with leaves of crayon green everyday on campus. They're just plain and unremarkable and not at all pretty. Until fall. All of a sudden, overnight really, one bush will change. The leaves become these small shards the color of plush burgundy. The shade of red that makes holly berries jealous that they're so plain. And it's a cascade, each day the next bush turning, like a tide washing over the campus. Sometimes I find myself staring at these bushes, trying to picture the green leaves again. But I can't, it's like the memory of them has been washed from my brain to make room for this new exquisite version. I can't remember how she was before I loved her. I can't remember how I was. I realize now that I bet the wrong game, I asked the wrong questions for the given answers. And sometimes, on clear and crisp nights, I find myself wondering if Cassiopeia ever gets the girl.