Free Fast Courting by Barbara Delinsky Page B

central Harvard University crush. Most days she walked the ten minutes into the square, hopped the rapid transit, and was downtown in a matter of another ten or fifteen minutes. If it rained, she could get a bus at the end of her street. On days like today, with appointments away from Boston, she took her car.
    Pulling into the gravel drive of the two-family house, she parked alongside the battered Volvo owned by her tenant, Frederick Maxwell. Dr. Max, as he was affectionately called by the academic community, was professor emeritus in history at Harvard. A remarkable man despite his almost eighty years, he went to “work” every day, spending hours reading and gathering his thoughts for the masterpiece he still planned to write. Friends and colleagues indulged him both his eccentricities and his age, picking up papers he unknowingly dropped in his shuffle down the hall, flipping light switches off after him, seeing that the tail end of his car was tucked safely alongside the curb.
    Now Nia smiled as she stepped from her own car to turn off the headlights Dr. Max had left on, saving him the hassle of a dead battery the next morning. As his landlord and friend, she was glad to do things for the old man whenever she could, though his pride and determination kept him from asking. He had lived in the house when she and David had bought it ten years ago; he was as unobtrusive a tenant as one could hope to have.
    Briefcase in hand, shoulder bag in place, she climbed the porch steps and unlocked her front door. From the lower apartment came the faint sound of the evening news. It was a noise akin to the occasional distant siren, one she had easily learned to ignore. On this night, however, it sparked thoughts of another program shortly to go on the air. He had asked her to watch the game; should she? The very thought sent ripples of tension through her, a purely reflexive response conditioned by years of waiting and wondering. David had never wished to include her in his professional life, preferring that she remain at home on the grounds that he was working and couldn’t be distracted. On occasion she’d turned on the television set to catch sight of him; finally, she gave that up as well and sought refuge in her own life, gradually basing a full-time career on her writing skill. Eventually she had no time to watch televised games …much less the desire to do so.
    Kneeling gracefully, she scooped up the mail from the floor and thumbed through the pile as she mounted the stairs. One more key in the lock at the top and she was home free.
    Her briefcase and bag landed softly on a chair as she passed through the living room; the mail sailed on to the dining room table. Shrugging out of her coat, she hung it in the hall closet, then proceeded to her room to change.
    Within minutes she was barefoot, wearing jeans and a turtleneck sweater, rummaging through the contents of the freezer for the steak she was sure remained. Then she paused, closed the freezer, opened the lower refrigerator door and extracted two eggs and a slice of American cheese. A simple omelet would be all she’d need, what with the large lunch she’d had with Daniel.
    Daniel. Her eye flew to the small television set propped at the end of the kitchen bar. She rarely watched, save for the news, and then only if she happened to be eating at the time. Her slim gold watch read seven twenty-five. Nearly time for the opening jump-off. Would the pregame interviews be over? Would Daniel be back at his bench by now?
    Gnawing on that same overworked lower lip, she fished a frying pan from the cabinet, dug for the butter, then put them both down with a muffled curse. Her arm snaked toward the television, her fingers turned the knob to “on,” then roughly twisted the channel selector until she hit on the proper one.
    The arena was darkened; the spotlight was at mid-court. Standing reverently atop the blue Breaker emblem was a dark-haired woman with a mike. Relative silence