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Show 170 Valley-but considered San Francisco the only c i v i l i z e d place to l i v e and hoped to relocate there as soon as she had taken her master's. She and Simon had been neighbors a l l year. Last night she had had a f i t of the blahs, and after an argument with her roommate had gone outside to s i t on the veranda and had found Simon leaning against the r a i l in front of his own door watching a loud party in one of the downstairs apartments across the courtyard. They decided college students were obnoxious and neither of them liked anybody at that moment. Simon said he guessed he was going to go over to the Coach and Seven and play chess since he couldn't get any work done with that going on, and she wanted to know what the Coach and Seven was and could she go with him. It was bad form to i n v i t e yourself, wasn't i t? Anyway, they'd stopped by another apartment building in the Village and picked up Harry and Shannon. She'd ridden squeezed between Harry and the gear s h i f t in the MG and Shannon had ridden in back, folded up l i ke a grasshopper. "He t o ld me some other friends of theirs ran i t , " she said. "He told me about Noel and-what's the other man's name? Paul? He mentioned you too." " I 'm the i n v i s i b l e partner," said Lorin. He suspected Simon had not mentioned his name, because she hadn't recognized i t when she had gotten here and seen i t on his canvas. He wasn't going to say anything, but when he had introduced himself she had had the opportunity to say something about his painting. She l i k ed Harry, she said; he t r i e d so hard that your heart went out to him. But she f e l t uncomfortable around Shannon. Was he always like that? He had offered to let her wear that awful poncho tonight when the four of them had decided to come here again, and she was afraid she had offended |