Strangers

would not come back. Maybe she would just keep going until she found a place she liked better than Nevada, until she met a man who was handsomer, richer, and smarter than Ned. He knew that he was being unfair to Sandy by harboring such suspicions, that she was incapable of infidelity or cruelty. Maybe his fear lay in the fact that he'd always thought Sandy deserved better than him.
        At nine-thirty, when the dinner crowd thinned to seven customers, Faye and Ernie came into the Grille with that dark, good-looking guy who had caused a scene earlier in the evening when he had wandered through the door as if in a dream and then had turned and run out as though hell hounds were at his heels. Ned wondered who the guy was, how he knew Faye and Ernie, and whether they knew their friend was a little weird.
        Ernie looked pale and shaky, and to Ned it seemed as if his boss was taking considerable care to keep his back to the windows. When he raised a hand in greeting to Ned, there was a visible tremor in it.
        Faye and the stranger sat facing each other across the table, and from the looks they gave Ernie, you could see they were concerned about him. They didn't look so good themselves.
        Something peculiar was going on. Intrigued by Ernie's condition, Ned was briefly distracted from thoughts of Sandy leaving him.
        But when Sandy stopped at their table, she was so long taking their order that Ned's concern rose again. From his post behind the counter, with a hamburger and a pair of eggs sizzling noisily on the griddle, he could not hear what they were saying over there, but he had the crazy notion that the stranger was taking undue interest in Sandy and that she was responding to his slick patter. Jealous nonsense, of course. Yet the guy was handsome, and he was younger than Ned, closer Sandy's age, and apparently successful, just the kind of guy she ought to run off with because he would be better for her than Ned could ever be.
        In his own view, Ned Sarver was not much to brag about. He was not ugly, but certainly not handsome. His brown hair had receded from his forehead in a deep widow's peak; unless you were Jack Nicholson, such a hairline was not sexy. He had pale-gray eyes that perhaps had been startling and magnetic when he was a young man, but with the passing years, they merely made him appear tired and washed-out. He was neither rich nor destined to be rich. And at forty-two, ten years older than Sandy, Ned Sarver was not likely to be gripped suddenly by the driving need to make something of himself.
        All of this dismaying self-criticism roiled through his mind as he watched Sandy finally leave the stranger's table and come to the counter. With an odd and troubled expression, she handed the order slip to him and said, "What time we closing? Ten or ten-thirty?"
        "Ten." Indicating the few customers, Ned added: "Two profit hanging around tonight."
        She nodded and went back to Faye, Ernie - and the stranger.
        Her brusqueness and her speedy return to the stranger aggravated Ned's worries. As far as he could see, he had only three qualities that gave Sandy any reason to stay with him. First, he could always make a decent living as a short-order cook because he was good. Second, he had a talent for fixing things, both inanimate objects and living creatures. If a toaster, blender, or radio went on the blink, Ned set to work with a tool kit and soon had the appliance back in operation. Likewise, if he found a panicky bird with a broken wing he stroked it until it grew calm, took it home, nursed it back to health, then sent it on its way. Having the talent to fix things seemed important, and Ned was proud of it. Third, he loved Sandy with all his body, mind, and heart.
        Preparing the order for Faye, Ernie, and the stranger, Ned glanced repeatedly at Sandy, and he was surprised when she and Faye started moving around the room, lowering the Levolor blinds over the windows.
        Something unusual was going on. Returning to Ernie's table, Sandy leaned forward in earnest conversation with the good-looking stranger.
        It was ironic that he was worried about losing Sandy, for it had been his talent for fixing things that contributed to her transformation from duckling to swan. When Ned first met her at a diner in Tucson, where they worked, Sandy was not just bashful and self-conscious but painfully shy, fearful. She was a hard worker,