The problem was this: he didn't seem to recognize her talent. They'd spent all of last week reading the news from a teleprompter. Each time she finished, she immediately looked at him, but he barely glanced up from his notes. Rather, he spooled off a criticism as if he were relaying a recipe to a troublesome neighbor, then called out, "Next."

By the end of her sophomore year, there was no doubt in Tully's mind that Chad Wiley knew who she was. She'd taken two of his classes: Broadcast Journalism I and II. Whatever he taught, she took; whatever he asked of her, she did. Full-bore. Balls to the wall.

Day after day, week after week, class after class, Tully waited for him to respond to her obvious talent, to say, You're ready for KVTS. Now it was the first week of May. With about six weeks left in her sophomore year, she was still waiting.

Plenty of things had changed in her life the past two years. She'd cut her hair shoulder-length and gone with bangs. Her style icon had gone from Farrah Fawcett-Majors to Jessica Savitch. Nineteen eighty was made for Tully: big hair, bright makeup, glittery fabric, and shoulder pads. No pale colors/sorority-girl styles for her. When she walked into a room these days, people noticed.

Except, of course, for Chad Wiley.

But that was about to change; Tully was sure this time. Last week she'd finally racked enough credits to apply for a summer internship position at KVTS, the local public programming station that was housed on campus. She'd gotten up at six A. M. so that her name appeared first on the sign-up sheet. When she'd been given the audition piece, she'd gone home and practiced it endlessly, trying it at least a dozen different ways until she found the tone of voice that perfectly matched the tone of the story. Yesterday she'd nailed the audition. She was certain of it. Now, finally, it was time to found out what position she'd earned.

Kate didn't look up from The Thorn Birds. "Awesome."

"How do I look?"

Tully felt a flash of irritation that was more and more familiar these days. Sometimes she just looked at Kate and felt her blood pressure skyrocket. It was all she could do not to yell.

The problem was love. Kate had spent all of their freshman year mooning over bad-haircut Brandt. By the time they finally dated, it was a letdown that ended fast. Still, Kate didn't seem to care. Through most of sophomore year, she'd dated Ted, who supposedly loved her, and then Eric, who most certainly did not. Kate went to one fraternity dance after another, and though she never fell in love with any of the doofuses she dated -- and definitely didn't have sex with them -- she talked about them constantly. Every sentence lately seemed to start with some guy's name. Even worse, she hardly ever mentioned the broadcasting plan. She seemed perfectly happy to take classes in other departments. Whenever one of their sorority sisters got engaged, Kate rushed to be a part of the crowd that swooned over the ring.

"I don't have to."

In truth, Tully was sick of it. She kept writing news stories that the school paper wouldn't publish and hanging around the campus TV station, where no one would give her the time of day, and throughout all of this failure, when she could really use her best friend, Kate just kept yammering on about her latest date. "You totally aren't looking."

"You don't know how important this is to me."

Kate finally looked up. "You've been practicing one news story for two weeks. Even when I got up to pee in the middle of the night, I heard you rehearsing. Believe me, I know how psyched you are."

"I'm no Joanie. I just know you'll get the anchor job."

"So how come you're so Joanie about this?"

"Can't. I'm meeting Josh for a study group in Suzzallo."

Tully grinned. "I will, won't I?"

"Of course. You're wicked good. You'll be the first junior to actually be on air."

"Professor Wiley will have to admit it this time." Tully grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. "Want to come with me?"

"That pretty much falls in the blows-chips category of dating, but to each his own." Tully snagged her sunglasses off the dresser and headed out.

The campus was bathed in cool sunlight on this mid-May day. Every plant was in bloom and the grass was so thick and lush it looked like patches of green velvet tucked neatly between strips of cement. She strode confidently through campus to the building that housed KVTS. There, she paused just long enough to smooth her sprayed hair, then went into the quiet, utilitarian-looking hallway. To her left was a bulletin board thick with notices. Roommate wanted: pot smoker only was the first one that caught her eye. She noticed that all the phone-number tabs had been ripped off of it, while the ad next to it (Roommate wanted: Born-again Christian preferred) looked sadly intact.

Room 214 was shut. No slice of light ran along the floor beneath the door. Beside it, a piece of paper was tacked to the bulletin board.

SUMMER INTERNSHIP POSITIONS/DEPARTMENT

News/Anchor -- Steve Landis

Sports -- Dan Bluto

"I imagine you're talking about me."

Tully felt a surge of disappointment, then anger. She yanked open the door and slipped into the dark auditorium where no one could see her, muttering, "Chad Wiley, you sorry-assed loser. You wouldn't know talent if it grabbed your tiny pecker and squeezed --"

She jumped at the sound of his voice.

She could either keep her pride or risk her future. By the time she made her decision and hurried after him, he was backstage.

Afternoon Planning -- Eileen Hutton

Marketing & Community Relations -- Gretchen Lauber

He was not twenty feet away from her, standing in the shadows. His dark hair was even messier than usual; it hung in curly disarray to his shoulders.

"I couldn't care less why."

Research Desk/Fact Checking -- Tully Hart

"Really?" He looked at her for another long minute, unsmiling, then walked away from her, down the aisle and up onto the stage.

Weather -- Jane Turner

He moved closer, his fingers trailing on the back of the chair to his right. "Ask me why you aren't an evening news intern and I'll tell you."

"Okay…" The word seemed to catch on something in her throat. "Why?"

He was looking at her now, seeing her. And she could see him, too. Past the shaggy unkemptness to the sharp bone structure that had once made him so handsome. But it was his eyes that grabbed her; liquid brown and sad, they spoke to the empty places inside of her. "Yeah. So?"

He stepped toward her. For the first time she noticed the lines on his face, the creases in his cheeks. The dim overhead lighting accentuated every flaw, every hollow and mark on his skin. "Whenever you come to class, I can tell you've chosen your clothes carefully and spent a lot of time on your hair and makeup."

No stammering, no desperation. He was cool and steady. Unlike the boys she met at frat parties or on campus or in the taverns playing pool, he wasn't half drunk and desperate for a feel.

"I'm talented, too."

"You know you're beautiful," he said.

"Maybe someday."

The way he said it pissed her off. She was gathering her wits for a scathing comeback when he closed the distance between them. All she had time for was a bewildered, "What are --" before he kissed her.

She knew what he was asking. As hard as she'd tried to conceal her innocence, he'd sensed it, tasted it. "Woman," she lied, with only the barest wobble on the w. She knew now, after just one kiss, that whatever there was to know about sex, her pathetic rape in the woods had taught her none of it. Although she wasn't a virgin, she was something worse somehow, a reservoir of bad and painful memories, and yet, now, with him, for the first time she wanted more.

That was how she'd felt with Pat that night, too.

He kissed her again, murmuring, "Good." This time the kiss went on and on, deepening into something that pulled at her insides and made her ache with need. By the time he began pressing his hips against hers, igniting a fire between her legs, she'd forgotten all about being scared.

At the touch of his lips, gentle yet firm, she felt something exquisite and tender blossom inside her; for no reason at all, she started to cry. He must have tasted her tears, because he drew back, frowned at her. "Are you a woman, Tully Hart, or a girl?"

No. This was different. She was a long way from that desperate, lonely girl who would have gone into any dark woods to be loved.

"Yes."

"You want more?" he whispered.

It took Tully almost two hours to find Kate. She began her search at the study tables in the basement of the sorority. Next, she spun through the TV room and their bedroom; she even checked on the sleeping porch, although at four o'clock on a sunny May day, it was understandably empty. She tried the undergraduate library and Kate's favorite carrel, then the graduate reading room, where several hippie-looking older students shushed her just for walking through the stacks. She was about ready to give up when she remembered the Annex.

He swept her into his arms and carried her to a broken-down sofa tucked against the shadowy back wall. There, he laid her down onto the bumpy, scratchy cushions and slowly, gently began to undress her. As if from far away, she felt her bra unsnap, her underpants peel off. And still his kiss went on and on, stoking this fire inside her.

She saw her own desire reflected in his eyes, and for the first time she wasn't afraid in a man's arms. "Is that what you're going to do -- take your time?"

When they were both naked, he lowered himself to the sofa and took her in his arms. The springs sagged beneath their weight, pinged in protest. "No one has taken time with you, have they, Tully?"

He brushed the damp hair away from her face. "I'm going to teach you things, Tully. Isn't that what you wanted from me?"

Tully grabbed a pair of TaBs from the fridge and went upstairs. In a back bedroom, the window was open. She leaned through the opening and looked out on the roof of the carport.

Of course.

She opened the front door and called out Kate's name. Someone in another room answered. "I think she's on the roof."

She ran through the sprawling campus to the small, two-story, peaked-roof house that they called the Annex. Sixteen lucky upper-class girls got to move out of the main house and into this place every quarter. It was party central. No house mothers, no one to monitor the doors; it was as close to the real world as any of them were likely to get until they left the sorority altogether.

There was Kate, all by herself, in a skimpy white crocheted bikini, lying on a beach towel, reading a paperback novel.

Kate cocked her head and squinted into the sun, smiling. "The Promise by Danielle Steel. It's really sad."

Tully climbed out onto the ledge and crossed the carport roof, which they all called Black Beach. "Hey," she said, offering Kate a TaB. "Let me guess: you're reading a romance novel."

Tully grabbed one of the towels that had been left there and stretched out on it. Trying not to smile, she stared up at the blue sky and said, "Three times, to be exact."

"You don't have to go on a date to have sex."

"Most people do."

"Wow. What did you do? What did he do? Did it hurt? Were you scared?"

"You're going to say we're not supposed to have sex with our professors. I think it's really more of a recommendation. A guideline. Still, you can't tell anyone."

"I'm not most people. You know that."

"You had sex with Chad Wiley."

"I was scared," Tully said quietly. "At first all I could think about was… you know… the night with Pat. I thought I was going to get sick, or maybe run, but then he kissed me."

"Like you would know anything about it. You haven't gone on a date since we got here."

"But you were just going to check on the summer internship…" Kate gasped and sat up. "You didn't."

"Yeah, right," Kate said. "Like I'm supposed to believe you got laid."

Tully sighed dreamily at the way that sounded. "It was totally cool, Katie. I mean it."

"You want to hear about real romance?"

"It's not like we can double-date."

"Well, that's good."

"Why? I'm not good enough to fall in love with? That's for nice Catholic girls like you?"

"I need to meet him," Kate said firmly.

"Did it hurt?"

"And… I just sort of melted. He had my clothes off before I was even paying attention."

"Then I guess I'll be the third wheel. Hey, he can probably get the senior rate if we go out to dinner."

"Did he say he loved you?"

"He's your prof, Tully."

Tully laughed, but deep inside, it wasn't as funny as she wished it were. "No."

"Oh, that. I don't care about stuff like that." She looked at her friend. "I thought you'd go all romance-novel on me and say it was some kind of fairly tale."

"Yeah, but not like before." It surprised Tully how easy it was suddenly to mention the night she was raped. For the first time it was a more distant memory, something bad that had happened to her as a kid. Chad's gentleness had shown her that sex didn't have to hurt, that it could be beautiful. "After a while it felt amazingly good. Now I know what all those Cosmo articles are about."

"And?"

"Maybe, but I'm a bitch who wants more details. I want to know everything. Can I take notes?"

Tully laughed. "Bitch."

Kate got off the bus and stood on the sidewalk, looking down at the directions in her hand.

This was the address.

All around her, people milled about the sidewalk. Several jostled her as they passed. She squared her shoulders and headed for the door. There was no point in worrying about this meeting -- she'd been worrying for more than a month, and for most of that time she'd also been nagging. It had not been easy to get Tully to agree to tonight.

But in the end, Kate had said the magic words -- thrown the Yahtzee: Don't you trust me? After that, it had only been a matter of scheduling.

Sleeping with a professor.

So now, on this warm evening, she was moving toward a building that looked like a tavern, on a mission to save her best friend from making the biggest mistake of her life.

Really, what good could come of that?

Inside the Last Exit on Brooklyn, Kate found herself in a world unlike anything she'd ever seen before. First off, the place was huge. There had to be seventy-five tables -- marble ones along the walls and big, rough wooden ones in the center of the room. An upright piano and stage area seemed to be the centerpiece. On the wall beside the piano, a graying, curling poster of the "Desiderata" poem grabbed her attention. Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

That was when she saw him.

Kate eased past a woman smoking a clove cigarette and sidled around a post.

A thick blue-gray haze hung suspended, collecting in the high ceilings. Almost everyone was smoking. Cigarettes zipped up and down throughout the room, caught between fingers that gestured with each word. At first she didn't see any empty tables; every one was full of people playing chess, or reading tarot cards, or arguing politics. Several people sat in chairs around a mic, strumming their guitars.

Tully sat at a table way in the back, tucked in the shadowy corner. When she saw Kate, she stood up and waved.

She made her way through the tables toward the back corner. Through an open door, she could see another area out back filled with picnic tables, where more people sat around talking and smoking.

Not that there was peace or silence in here. Or breathable air.

Chad Wiley.

He wasn't at all what she'd expected. He sat lazily in the chair, with one leg stretched out. Even in the smoke and shadows, she could see how handsome he was. He didn't look old. Tired, maybe, but in a world-weary kind of way. Like an aging gunslinger or a rock star. The smile he gave her started slowly, crinkling up his eyes, and in those eyes, she saw a knowledge that surprised her, made her miss a step.

"Sometimes. Sometimes it's forced upon you."

Kate looked at Chad; he eyed her back, smiling as if at some secret. "This is an interesting place," she said to make conversation.

She flinched at the unexpected use of her nickname. It was a forcible reminder that Chad knew Tully, too.

"Sit down," Tully said. "I'll go get a waitress." She was on her feet and gone before Kate could stop her.

"It's like a tavern without beer," he said. "The kind of place where you can change who you are."

He knew why she was here: a best friend coming to save a girl making a mistake by dating the wrong man.

He drew his leg back, sat up straighter. "So that's how you want to play it. Good. I like direct. Yes. I'd lose this career, too."

"I thought change started from within."

His words caused something to darken his eyes, an emotion of some kind. She was reminded of his backstory suddenly, the bright career he'd lost. "They'd fire you -- the university -- if they found out about you and Tully, wouldn't they?"

"You must be Chad," she said.

"And you must be Katie."

Kate didn't know which upset her more -- his description of Tully as fragile or the way he said our Tully. "She's a steamroller. I don't call her Tropical Storm Tully for nothing."

"Are you some kind of risk junkie?"

He laughed. "Hardly."

"She's special."

"Good for you, Katie. You should be looking out for her. She needs that. She's… fragile, our Tully."

"No."

"That's on the outside. For show."

Kate sat back, surprised. "You actually care about her."

"You came here to find a way to convince her not to see me anymore, didn't you? You can certainly say I'm too old. Or the prof angle is always a winner. Just so you know, I drink too much, too."

"So, why?"

He glanced sideways, at Tully, who was at the crowded coffee bar, trying to order. "You, of all people, shouldn't have to ask that. Why is she your best friend?"

"Have you slept with your students before?"

"About what?"

"Indeed."

"But what about her career? She'd be ruined if word got out that she was with you. They'd say she slept her way to a degree."

"More's the pity, I imagine. What will you tell her?"

He looked at her. "No. I don't want you to tell her those things."

"You want me to tell her those things?"

"So," she said, frowning and a little breathless, "are you friends yet?"

Behind them, a young man with wild hair and ratty-looking pants stepped up to the microphone. He introduced himself as Kenny Gore-lick, then began playing a saxophone. His music was wildly romantic and jazzy; for a few moments the talk in the place died down. Kate felt swept up in the music, transported by it. Gradually, though, it became background music and she looked at Chad. He was studying her intently. She knew how much it meant to him, this conversation, and how much Tully meant to him. That turned the tables neatly; she was surprised by the suddenness of the switch. Now, sitting here, she was worried that Tully would ruin this man, who frankly looked as if he didn't have the stamina to take another hit like that. Before she could answer the question he'd posed, Tully was back, dragging a purple-haired waitress with her.

"Definitely cool." She started to walk away, but Tully grabbed her sleeve, stopped her, and spun her around.

Kate bit her lip, stalling for time. She didn't want to hurt Tully's feeling or piss her off, but what kind of friend would she be if she lied? The truth was, she had liked Chad and she believed he truly cared about Tully; it was also true that she had a bad feeling about their relationship and meeting him had only made it worse.

"But?"

"And cool, right?"

"Well?" she demanded suddenly, turning to Kate. "He's handsome, isn't he?"

Chad was the first to look up. "We're friends."

"Excellent," Tully said, sitting on his lap. "Now who wants apple pie?"

Chad dropped them off two blocks from the sorority house, on a dark street lined with aging boardinghouses that were filled with the kind of students who paid no attention to what sorority girls did.

Finally, Tully got out of the car and waved goodbye as Chad's black Ford Mustang drove away.

"It was nice to meet you," Kate said as she got out of the car. She stood on the sidewalk, waiting for Tully to quit making out with him.

"Did you like him?"

"Of course I liked him. He's got a great sense of humor."

Kate nodded. "He sure is."

"I wasn't going to say anything, Tully, but since you're forcing me… I don't think you should be going out with him." Once her opinion broke through the dam, she couldn't stop. "I mean, he's thirty-one years old. He has an ex-wife and a four-year-old daughter he never sees. You can't be seen publicly with him or he'll get fired. What kind of relationship is that? You're missing your college years."

"Come on, Katie, you're scaring me."

"Maybe we should just agree to disagree…"

Tully took a step back. "Missing my college years? You mean going to dances in Tahitian costumes and shotgunning beer? Or dating guys like the nerds you seem to choose -- most of them are only slightly smarter than a pet rock."

"Wait!" Kate called out, but Tully was already gone, running down the dark street.

"You think I'm with him for my career, don't you? To what -- get better grades or a spot at the station?"

"Aren't you? Just a little bit?" Kate knew instantly she shouldn't have said it. "I'm sorry," she said, reaching for her friend. "I didn't mean it."

Tully wrenched free. "Of course you meant it. Miss Perfect with the best family and the flawless grades. I don't even know why you hang around with me: I'm such a slut career hound."