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want a bigger place to intern? It’s not such a great station. Too much bluegrass music and too much talk.”
    “I’m hoping I’ll get to do more here. Besides, I wanted to live alone in the cabin. That’s my real reason—to get out of Chicago for a few months.”
    “Running away from something?”
    “Responsibility,” he said, articulating and accenting each syllable.
    “The radio station won’t be happy to hear that.”
    “Oh, I’ll be very responsible at work. But after hours, well, it’s my game.”
    Beamer again thought of the list of girls. Did they play his game? She sipped her tea and made a face. It was strong and bitter.
    “You disapprove?” said Martin.
    “Oh, no, it’s just the tea. It’s a little strong.”
    He sipped. “You’re right. Do you want yours weaker?”
    Beamer handed over her mug. Martin returned to the kitchen and continued talking while he boiled more water. Beamer watched him but was soon not listening, ignoring the explanation of journalism school requirements while she memorized his relaxed stance, his casual gestures, the way the worn clothes hung on the muscular figure, the pattern of freckles on the handsome face. College junior, she thought. That would make him about twenty-one.
    Martin stopped talking, and Beamer realized she had been caught staring. She nibbled quickly on a bread crust. “This place looks so different,” she said.
    He handed her the tea mug and sat down. “You’ve been here before, then?”
    “Sort of. Deserted places are always interesting. We’d come by on picnics and just look around.”
    “It was a real mess.”
    She unintentionally raised her eyebrows and smiled. He laughed. “Messier than this, even. Lots of dirt and litter and broken glass.” He held up the bandaged hand. “That’s how I did this—inserting new windowpanes.”
    “Well, I never broke anything.” She noticed a pile of photographs next to the hearth, and she picked up several. They were black-and-white shots of scenery. “Yours?” Martin nodded. “They’re really nice. This one especially. You’ve got the snow and shadows just right.”
    “Thank you. Are you a photographer?”
    “No. But a friend of mine is an artist. I’ve picked up a few things from him. He’s always looking at ordinary things and seeing something different.”
    “He’s probably a good artist, then.”
    Martin’s eyes gazed steadily at her. She definitely did not want to start talking about Andy with this guy. “So you shoot pictures,” she said. “And if you’re in journalism you can probably write. And you bake bread. Is there anything you can’t do?”
    Martin looked questioningly at her, searching for sarcasm. Beamer flushed; she hadn’t meant it the way it sounded. He smiled, removed a boot, and placed it on the hearth, then tugged a second boot free and massaged his foot. Two toes wiggled through a large hole in the gray wool. “Sure,” he said, displaying the foot. “I can’t darn socks.”
    They talked for an hour, and for the second time that week Beamer began revealing the secrets of her life. Yet even as she talked she knew this time was different: Martin listened, she felt, without judging. And he didn’t take notes.
    As the conversation moved along, Beamer relaxed, soothed by the tea, the talk, and the fire. She was somewhere the Woodies had never been; she had escaped them.
    Someone knocked at the door. Martin rose and answered it. It was Mr. Flynn. “Could I speak with my daughter? I believe those are her skis.”
    Beamer glanced at her watch and died twenty times. She had been gone for nearly two hours. Gone by herself, skiing in the deserted, cold, treacherous forest. She quickly imagined what her parents had imagined—her body floating lifelessly in a patch of open, icy water, or some other morbid scene. She rose and went to the door.
    “Sorry, Dad,” she said, then introduced her father and Martin. She could guess what he was thinking as he studied