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The Child - Nine The Child - Nine “Alabama,” he managed to reply. “My name is Ted Rice.” “Your accent is rather different, isn’t it?”’ she laughed. Ted laughed, too, and relaxed. “Well, yours is pretty dif- ferent, too,” he said. “It isn’t southern, but you don’t sound like the people from around here, either. Where are you from?” “Oh, my people live up in the mountains,” she replied with a vague wave of her hand. “T’ll tell you all about them some time. What brings you to Sun Valley? And tell me all about Alabama.” Her manner was very mature, Ted noticed, considering her young age. She was much more self-confident than most of the girls he knew, and he intuited a strength and serenity in her that put him at ease. They sat down beneath the tree together, and Ted began talking, pleased that this gorgeous woman found him so interesting. He told her of his cotton fields and childhood escapades, even of his dreams of Sun Valley years before his arrival there. Maya smiled at this account, encouraging him to contin- ue. She watched his gestures and listened attentively, as if each word were important. But when Ted realized that almost two hours had passed, he was a little ashamed of hav- ing dominated the conversation. In all fairness, he had tried several times to ask Maya some personal questions and draw her out, but she always replied in generalities and gently steered the focus back upon him. At last Maya said she had to leave for work, so they part- ed, and Ted went back along the nature trail alone. As he walked and thought about the chance encounter, he realized that in a very short time he had told her many things about himself. Yet from her all he had learned was her first name and that she came from the mountains. He chided himself for forgetting even to ask her last name. It was almost a week later before he ran into her again. They were rushing past each other in the kitchen hall, but Ted managed to delay her long enough to ask if they could make a date, maybe go to a movie in town sometime. “Sorry, Ted,” Maya declined, “TI have to work tonight.” “What about later, then? Another night. Just name the Masquerade of Angels 78 date,” he persisted. “We can go out any time you'd like.” Maya walked away from him. “Don’t worry,” she called back, “we'll see each other soon. I promise!” And then she was gone. Ted left the trays in the kitchen and rushed back to the dining room. He wanted to find out her last name and her dorm, for future reference. But Maya was nowhere in sight. Another waiter passed by, and Ted pulled him aside. “Hey, Jack, you know that beautiful brown-haired girl that just went through here?” he asked. “In a waitress uni- form? Which way did she go?” “Can’t help you,” Jack shrugged, “I didn’t see anybody like that around here.” “Okay, thanks anyway,” Ted said, but he didn’t under- stand how Jack could have missed Maya. He asked the other employees, too, and got the same negative reply. That’s how it always seemed to be, a series of sudden appearances and inexplicable vanishings, with Ted as the only witness. Maya kept her word, and they did run into one another thereafter, although not frequently enough to suit Ted. Days would pass without any sign of her, and Ted would just about give up. Then suddenly there she would be, out on the nature trails as if waiting for him. They would walk together and talk, far away from the Lodge, deep in conversations unlike anything Ted had ever discussed before. Instead of the usual trivia that made up a young girl’s interests and conversations, Maya preferred to talk about feelings and ideas, approaching topics seriously, without the silliness that Ted usually found in eighteen- and nineteen- year-old friends. Time after time, she amazed him with her remarkable insights, or philosophical questions. And she talked about things that Ted had never considered. “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly out into space?” she asked him one day as they lay back looking into the sky. “To really see the stars up close?” Ted had not thought about it before, but now he did. Gaz- ing up past the clouds, imagining all the billions of bright stars, he wondered what it would be like to fly through them, careening across the cosmos in pure freedom. It was as if Masquerade of Angels 79