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Show touch. Another, composed entirely of whorls, did not only show the curved flesh of horses, as her earlier ones had done, but showed as well the horse in motion, charged with energy. One was dramatic as only a horse can be when he lifts his head high to look at a point off in the distance, but not at all melodramatic or sentimental. A couple were done with wit and humor. She had even made a few anatomical sketches as if to show that muscles and bones are also beautiful-, that a horse's structure is lovely clear through. And as I studied them all I began to appreciate how much she had had to trust herself for each line. There was no erasing, each ink line was permanent, and in them I felt the confidence with which she had executed them, the courage, the boldness. After I put the portfolio away I sat in the sling chair in the living room and thought about how badly John Tobin wanted me out of her apartment. I didn't blame him. I knew I was causing friction between them and I resolved to pretend to look harder for a place. I got up earlier, checked the ads, rushed out to look. One good place I lost to a couple just before me. Carrie Calvin made me look harder. I hated walking up the stairs under the eyes of any of the tenants but she looked at me as if I was a rat sneaking up from the basement. When I came in from shopping she would come out on the landing and look at my sack of groceries as if I was carrying in a load of disease, polio or cancer, maybe syphilis. Inside, the door locked, I felt better, but was still too aware of her. I learned her schedule to avoid her, sneaking in and out like a lodger who is not paying his rent. Soon she came for a visit, stern, but Kate treated her calmly. "Sit down, Carrie, and I'll get us some coffee. Want some, Chess?" "No thanks," I said, nervous enough. Carrie sat on the daybed and looked at me in the sling chair. "I |