"I have."
"They offer MFA programs—non-resident, or close to it."
"It's an idea. I'll think about it."
Time slipped by. Mo told stories about summers on Nantucket where her grandmother had a twelve room "cottage" on the water. So that's where she developed her beach strut, Joe thought. Mo's father had slyly dominated the family even though her mother had all the money. Mo was ambivalent toward her father. She was proud of his intellect and accomplishments, but she had an inside view of what he had taken from every one around him and the price he himself had paid for academic success. She was looking for a way to be like him without being like him, Joe decided.
Mo tried her new espresso machine. She was having dinner guests the following evening. Joe visited the bathroom and noticed that she had left open the door to her bedroom. The bed was freshly made with lilac purple sheets. A huge white flower by Georgia O'Keeffe waited on the wall.
He thought it would be nice to listen to music, but he didn't say anything. He was tuning into Mo's way of inhabiting her space, her large eyes, quiet, cat-like. He talked about Kate and Max and then fell silent.
"So how's your love life?" she asked suddenly. Her eyebrows were raised. She bent forward, making herself smaller.
"Nothing to write home about—if I had a home."
"You're a good looking man, Joe Burke. Just the right amount of gray in your mustache. Aristocrat. Rebel. How did your nose get that crook in it, by the way. I've been meaning to ask."
"Oh, that," Joe said, "the rebounding wars—in high school." She had surprised him. He thought she was moving away from him, and now he sensed the outlines of an offer, the second one in two months. He and Mo could be lovers; he would ride shotgun, do things her way, and she would do her best for him in time left over from her busy life. The lilac sheets beckoned, but as suddenly as it had come, the offer, if it had been one, was gone, swept off the table with the crumbs she brushed with one hand into the other.