I Is for Innocent

it. I don't want to hear the rest."
    "Good choice," she said complacently.
    The dish she brought was actually what my aunt used to call "galoshes," cubes of beef simmered with onion and thickened with sour cream. It really was wonderful and the tart salad afterward was the perfect contrast. Rosie allowed me to have a glass of mediocre red wine, some rolls and butter, and a cheese tray for dessert. The dinner cost only nine dollars so I couldn't complain. Dimly I wondered if, for total obedience, I'd sold out too cheap.
    While I drank my coffee, she stood by my table and complained. Her busboy, Miguel, a sullen lad of forty-five, was threatening to quit if she didn't give him a raise. "Is ridiculous. Why should he get more? Just because he learned to wash a dish like I teach him? He should pay me."
    "Rosie!" I said. "The man started washing dishes when Ralph quit six months ago. Now he's doing two jobs and he ought to be paid. Besides, it's nearly Christmas."
    "Is easy work," she remarked, undismayed by the notions of fair play, justice, or seasonal generosity.
    "It's been two years since his last raise. He told me that himself."
    "You taking his side, I see."
    "Well, of course I am. He's been a good employee. Without him, you'd be lost."
    Her look was stubborn. "I don't like men who pout."
    The Adult Education facility where Rhe Parsons was teaching was located on Bay Street, on the far side of the freeway about two blocks from St. Terry's Hospital. Once an elementary school, the complex consisted of some offices, a small auditorium, and countless portable classrooms. Room ten was at the rear of the parking lot, an oversize art studio with a door on either end. Light poured out onto the walkway. I have a natural aversion to educational institutions, but drawing seemed benign – unlike math or chemistry. I peered in.
    The interior was unfurnished except for easels and a few straight-backed wooden chairs. In the center of the room there was a low platform where a woman in a bathrobe, presumably the model, was perched on a tall wooden stool, reading a magazine. Students milled about, their ages ranging from late thirties into the seventies. In Santa Teresa, most adult education courses are offered free of charge. In a lab class like this there might be a two-dollar fee for materials, but most enrollment is open and costs the students nothing. I stood in the back of the studio. Behind me, cars were still pulling into the parking lot. It was 6:52 and people were still arriving, chatting as they entered the classroom. I watched as several women dragged additional easels from a small supply room. A coffee urn had been set up and I could see a big pink bakery box, probably filled with cookies to have with coffee during the break. A tape of Kitaro's Silk Road was playing, the sound low, infiltrating the room with a seductive tone. I could smell oil paint and chalk dust and the first bubbling evidence of strong coffee perking.
    I spotted the woman I assumed to be Rhe Parsons emerging from a small supply closet with a roll of newsprint and a box of pencils; jeans, a denim work shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pack of cigarettes visible in her left breast pocket. No makeup, no bra. She wore heavy leather sandals and a hand-tooled leather belt. Her hair was dark, pulled back in a French braid that extended halfway down her back. I placed her in her late thirties and wondered if she'd been at Woodstock once upon a time. I'd seen clips of the concert and I could picture her cavorting barefoot through the mud, stark naked, with a joint, her hair down to her waist and daisies painted on her cheek. Growing up had made her crabby, which happens to the best of us. She set the pencils on the counter and carried the newsprint to a big worktable where she began to cut off uniform sheets, using an industrial-size paper cutter. Several students without sketch pads formed a ragged line, waiting for her to finish. She must have sensed my scrutiny. She looked up, catching sight of me, and then went on about her business. I crossed the room and introduced myself. She couldn't have been more pleasant. Perhaps, like many habitually cranky people, her irritation passed in the moment, to be replaced by something sunnier.
    "Sorry if I seemed short with you on the telephone. Let me get these guys going and we can talk out in the breezeway." She checked her watch, which she wore on the inner aspect of her wrist. It was seven straight up. She