Sixteen

Sheri looked up as the warden returned, his face red with morning air. Another man accompanied him, a man with a longer, softer face—a composite visage, she thought, of the entire Georgetown humanities department. His grey hair hung in long feathers on either side of his matching turtleneck. He looked at Sheri with veiled interest, making an effort to appear nonchalant. Tourists usually left the town untouched and, should they chance to pass through, they were invariably older, fatter and louder than he. None of them, he had learned over the years, cared for Chomsky or poetry. A criminal tourist might be a welcome change.

“Hello,” he said, in a soft tone of richly feigned boredom, “my name Adrianne. I’m here to translate for you, since you evidently don’t speak Romanian. He’ll need to know your name and where you’re from.”

She felt her color rise. That the man was insufferable, there was no question. And probably a Princeton washout. But he certainly wasn’t a bureaucrat, which meant that the warden hadn’t called the embassy yet.

“Thank god,” she said, with the realization that half-truths were her only option. “how is the man who was attacked? Is he ok?”

Adrianne shrugged his shoulders. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry, my name is Sheryl. Sheryl Peary. It’s nice to meet you.” She held out her free hand, but he was already leaning back, cultivating a stale air of hippie chic against the peeling wall.