Chapter 1

There she was, as welcome in this insular community as fresh air in a multiplex, a woman who, rumor had it, risked being happy. Tom had heard the most about her from Russell Jacobs, his colleague in the English Department, and now he was looking at her in the flesh, at this tall, slender, dark-haired creature, oddly stylish in her ill-fitting, baggy trousers and white T-shirt.

She stood not twenty feet away from him in the new coffee room, listening attentively to one of a coterie of retired faculty members who, according to Russ, had glommed on to the Book Store’s new assistant director as soon as she’d set foot on campus. For Tom it was a moment to treasure. Here, at this isolated seat of southern learning, where everyone clung to busy-ness as though it were proof of an importance in the larger, more meaningful world, was a person who dared to seem relaxed, as though she had time to draw breath and listen to what someone was saying and even think about it for a moment or two. Imagine that!

Her name, Tom knew, was Rose C