"I don't," he replied without thinking. "Not any further than the Corps, I mean. I know I'm going to be in the Corps. It doesn't matter where I'll be. It'll still be the Corps."

She looked as if she didn't understand him, but the question she asked was perfectly normal: "Where were you last Thanksgiving?" she asked.

"Shanghai," he said. And added, "China."

"So that's where Shanghai is," she said brightly. "I knew it was either there or in Australia."

I knew fucking well that I would show my ass if I tried to talk to somebody like this. What a dumb fucking thing to say!

She saw the hurt in his eyes.

"Sorry," she said.

"It's all right," McCoy said.

"No, it's not," she said. "There are extenuating circumstances, but I shouldn't have jumped on you."

"What are the extenuating circumstances?" McCoy asked. "I'm an advertising copywriter," she said. "I don't know what that is," McCoy confessed. "I write the words in advertisements," she explained. "Oh," he said.

"Our motto is brevity," she said. "Oh," McCoy repeated.

"We try not to say anything redundant," she said. "It's okay to jump on somebody who does." "Okay," he said.

"I had no right to do that to you," she said. "I didn't mind," McCoy said. "Yes, you did," she said, matter-of-factly. When she looks into my eyes, my knees get weak. "What did you do in China, last Thanksgiving?" "I was in a water-cooled Browning.30 crew," he said. "Browning machine gun, you mean?" she asked. He was surprised that she knew. He nodded. "I somehow didn't think you were up in Cambridge with our host," she said.

"I guess that's pretty obvious, isn't it?" She understood his meaning.

"Different means different," she said. "Not better or worse." The door to the sitting room opened, and six or seven people came onto the patio and headed for them.

They sure as hell don't know me, which means they're headed for her. Probably to take her out of here. And if she goes, that's the last I'll ever see of her. "Prove it," McCoy said. "Huh?"

"Go somewhere else with me," McCoy said. "Where?" she asked, warily.

"I don't know," McCoy said. "Anywhere you want." She was still looking at him thoughtfully when Pickering's friends came over to her.

"We wondered what had happened to you," one of the girls said. "We're going over to Marcy's. You about ready?" "You go along," the most beautiful female McCoy had ever seen said. "I've other plans."

She looked into his eyes and smiled. He realized that his heart was throbbing. Like the water hose on a Browning.30.

(Three)

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, as they walked through the lobby of the Foster Park.

"I don't know anyplace to take you," he said. "I've never been in New York before."

"I have sort of a strange idea," she said. "Chinese food."

"Huh?"

"I guess your 'Thanksgiving in Shanghai' speech triggered it," she said. "Or maybe I'm over my ears in turkey."

"You'll have to show me," he said. "I don't know anything about this town," he said.

"I think we could find a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown," she said.

"Let's get a cab," he said.

"Let's take the subway," she said.

"I can afford a cab," McCoy said.

Which means, of course, that you can't.

"I like to watch the people on the subway," she said, took his arm, and headed him toward Sixth Avenue.

"Why?" he asked.

"You ever been… No, of course, you haven't," she said. "You'll see."

His eyes widened at the variations of the species homo sapiens displayed on the subway. And they smiled at each other, and somehow she wanted to touch him, and did, and put her arm in his, her hand against the rough fabric of his overcoat.

Maybe it is the uniform, she thought. Men in uniform are supposed to get the girls.

She let herself think about that. It was not her style to leave parties with men she had met there. Especially friends of people like Malcolm Pickering. What was there about this young man that made him different?

A drunk, a young one in a leather jacket and a knitted hat with a pom-pom, walked past them and examined her with approval.

And something happened to the eyes of the young man whose arm she was holding. And, my God, whose name I don't even know! His eyes narrowed, just a little, but visibly. And they brightened and turned alert. And menacing. She was more than a little frightened. My God, he is a Marine! And all I need is to have him get in a fist fight with a drunk on the subway.

She watched, fascinated, as the drunk sensed the menace, put on a smile, and walked further down the car. McCoy's eyes followed him until he was sure the threat had passed. Then his eyes moved to her, and they changed again. The menace disappeared and was replaced by something much softer. It was almost as if he was now frightened. My God, he's afraid of me! "I don't know your name," she said. "McCoy," he said.

"McCoy Smith?, McCoy Jones?" she asked. "Kenneth McCoy," he said.

She took her arm from under his and gave him her hand. "Ernestine Sage," she said. "My parents obviously hoped for a boy. Please don't call me either 'Ernestine' or 'Ernie.' " "What can I call you?" Kenneth McCoy asked. Not ' 'what do I call you,'' she thought, but, ' 'what can I call you." He's asking permission. He doesn't want to offend me. I don't have to be afraid of him.

"Most people call me 'Sage,' " she said. "Sage means wise."

"I know," he said.

She slipped her hand back under his arm. And she saw the skin of his neck deepen in color.

They walked down Mott Street with her hand very much

aware of the warmth of his body, even through the overcoat.

"There is a legend that young white women should not

come here alone," Sage said. "That they will be snatched by

white slavers."

He did not sense that she was teasing him. "You'll be all right," he said. When she looked into his face, he averted his eyes. "They say the best food is in little places in the alleys," Sage said. "That the places on Mott Street are for tourists. The trouble is that they speak only Chinese in the little places."

"I speak Chinese," he said, and while she was still wondering whether or not he was trying to pull her leg, he led her into one of the alleys. Fifty feet down it, he stopped in front of a glass-covered sign and started to read it.

He's really very clever. If I didn't know better I'd almost believe he knew what he was looking at.

"See anything you think I'd like?" she asked, innocently.

"No," he said. "This is a Szechuan restaurant. Most Szechuan food is hotter than hell."

An old Chinese woman scampered toward them.

McCoy spoke to her. In Chinese. Sage looked at him in astonishment. But there was no question he was really speaking Chinese, because, chattering back at McCoy, the old woman reversed direction and led them farther down the street.

"Her nephew," McCoy explained, "runs a Cantonese restaurant. You'll like that better, I think."

The restaurant was on the fourth floor of an old building. There were no other white people inside, and the initial response to the two of them, Sage thought, was resentment, even hostility.

But then McCoy spoke to the man who walked up to them, and smiles appeared. They were bowed to a table, tea was produced, and a moment later an egg roll rich with shrimp.

"This is to give us an appetite," McCoy said. "Hell, I can make a meal of egg rolls." Then he heard what he had said. "Sorry," he said. "You have to remember, I'm a Marine. We get in the habit, without being around women, of talking a little rough."

"Hell," Sage said. "I don't give a damn. If it makes you feel any better, cuss as much as you goddamn well please."

He looked at her without comprehension, then he smiled. When he smiled like that, he looked like a little boy.