a mischievous smile, abandoning his attempts to revitalize the piano. It never occurred to him that she might not have gone to college at all.
“Columbia,” she said quietly.
“That's a fine school.” He smiled at her. They had heard about her from Mrs. Boslicki, though none of them had seen her even once in the week she'd been there.
“And what are you up to now, young lady?” he asked, looking a little wild and woolly with his fuzzy hair and droopy trousers. He definitely looked like an eccentric old professor. He was visibly older than the other guests there, and Gabriella correctly guessed him to be close to eighty, but his wits were still sharp, his eyes clear, and he seemed to have a good sense of humor.
“I just got a job working in a restaurant on Eighty-sixth Street,” she said proudly. It had been a real victory for her, and one she needed very badly. “I start tomorrow.”
“One of those cozy places that sells pastry, I hope. Mrs. Rosenstein and I will have to come to see you, when we take a stroll in that direction.” He was fascinated by the stories she told about her past, and he had lived there for almost as long as she had. His wife had died eighteen years before, and he had moved to the boardinghouse when he gave up his apartment. He lived on a pittance now, and had no relatives, and he enjoyed the company of Mrs. Boslicki and her boarders. But this latest addition to the group he found both fascinating and lovely. And he commented to everyone in the room afterward that she had a face like an angel and a noticeable natural elegance and style.
But for now he asked her what sort of things she had studied at Columbia, and embarked on a long, interesting conversation with her about the novels she'd read while she'd been there. He was intrigued to discover that she did a bit of writing. But she was very modest about it and said that it was nothing anyone would want to read. She was sure, although she didn't say it to him, that only the nuns who knew her would like her stories. Joe had read some of them, of course, she had given them to him one afternoon when they met in the park, and he had told her he thought they were terrific. But like the nuns, he knew and loved her.
“I'd like to see some of your work one day,” the professor said, giving it an importance she knew it didn't deserve, and she smiled shyly.
“I don't have any of it with me.”
“Where are you from?” he asked, fascinated by her. It had been a long time since he'd had a chance to chat with a girl her age, and he found it incredibly refreshing. It reminded him instantly of his years at Harvard. There was something about youth and the excitement of their minds that still invigorated him, and he would have loved to sit and talk to her for hours.
“She's from Boston,” Mrs. Boslicki answered for her, and Gabriella looked suddenly nervous. If he had taught at Harvard, he knew the city well, and of course she didn't.
“My mother lives in California,” she said by way of a distraction. “My father lives in Boston.” And she lived nowhere. Only here now.
“Where in California?” one of the women asked. She had a daughter in Fresno.
“San Francisco,” she said, as though she had seen her mother, or at least talked to her, only the day before, instead of the twelve years it had been since she'd seen her last.
“They're certainly both lovely cities,” Professor Thomas said easily, watching her eyes. There was something about her that touched him, something deep and sorrowful, and excruciatingly lonely. Mrs. Boslicki would have put it down to homesickness, but it was far deeper, and something far more raw than that, and he sensed an aura of tragedy about her.
Her gentleness touched all of them, and she chatted with each one, and then went upstairs finally, with a set of fresh towels Mrs. Boslicki had handed her, and for which she thanked her politely.
“Lovely girl,” Mrs. Rosenstein said, and one of the other women said she reminded her of her granddaughter in California. “Very well brought up. She must have nice parents.”
“Not necessarily,” Professor Thomas said wisely. “Some of the best students I had, and the most decent ones, came from people who were slightly