"What a stinking way for Timmy to go. He was a nice guy. We got along fine, right up into the second year of high school, and then he started considering his social position and brushed me off. I don't blame him. He was too young to know any better. He left me to take a big hack at the dancing-school set. My reputation wasn't exactly solid gold." She grinned. "Nor is it yet." "He mentioned you while we were in camp." "Did he?" "He called you Cindy." For a long moment she looked puzzled, and then her face cleared. "Oh, that. You know, I'd just about forgotten that. It was sort of a gag. In that eighth grade we had a teacher who was all hopped up about class activities. I was the rebel. She stuck me in a play as Cinderella. Timmy was the prince. He called me Cindy for quite a while after that. A year maybe. A pretty good year, too. I was a wild kid. I didn't know what I wanted. I knew that what I had, I didn't want. But I didn't know how to make a change. I was too young. Gee, I'm sorry about Timmy. That's depressing. It makes me feel old, Tal. I don't like to feel old." "I came back and tried to find a Cindy. I didn't know your right name. I found a couple. Cindy Waskowitz--" "A great fat pig. But nothing jolly about her. Brother, she was as nasty as they come." "She's dead, too. Glandular trouble of some kind." "Couldn't you go around wearing a wreath or singing hymns like Crossing the Bar?" "I'm sorry. Then there was Cindy Kirschner." "Kirschner. Wait a minute. A younger kid. Teeth like this?" "That's right. But she had them fixed. Now she has a husband and a couple of kids." "Good for her." "She was the one who remembered the class play or skit or whatever it was. And the name of the eighth-grade teacher. Miss Major. She couldn't remember who played Cinderella. So I found Miss Major. She went blind quite a while ago and--" "For God's sake, Tal! I mean really!" "I'm sorry. Anyway, she identified you. I went out and saw your sister. I came here hunting for Antoinette Rasi. The way your sister spoke about you, when I couldn't find you, I tried the police. They told me the name you use. Then it was easy." She looked at me coldly and dubiously. "Police, eh? They give you all the bawdy details?" "They told me a few things. Not much." "But enough. Enough so that when you walked in here you had to act like a little kid inspecting a leper colony. What the hell did you expect to find? A room all mirrors? A turnstile?" "Don't get sore." "You look stuffy to me, Tal Howard. Stuffy people bore me. So what the hell was this? A sentimental journey all the way from prison camp to dig up poor little me?" "Not exactly. And I'm not stuffy. And I don't give a damn what you are or what you do."