the landlord was trying to padlock them out after he had found out that one of them was a Negro. Yes, Dave and Sel belong to the future all right.

It was because of all these things and others that I had decided to tell them. about my secret-whose name was Eve.

Why did I want to tell them so badly? Who knows? I guess you just want to tell people about what is important and lovely in your life. People you love anyway. It finishes you out, makes you whole when people know that you love someone. It's so much a part of being human that they worry if they don't think you love someone. And they should.

That's why Sel sat down finally that evening and folded her hands in her lap and said, "Rita honey, we got a fella' for you."

I grinned easily at my cousin, "Is he rich?"

That was the way it always went. I always made jokes when Sel brought up this or that bachelor she thought she might get me interested in. I would insist on wealth or twelve toes and we would laugh some and Sel and Dave would take off and tease me about my "college-girl" standards that were going to make me a spinster yet. Then presently it would drop and we would talk about some new French movie or the latest thing that little Davie had learned to do.

But not this particular night. Sel had made up her mind about something and she sat there and looked at me with her wonderful smile, "I mean it, Rita, I've found just the guy. Friend of Dave's. I've invited him for next Saturday night when you're supposed to come."

Dave looked newly informed but pleased. "Who honey?"

"Kevin," Sel said, quite as if she had just announced the solution to world

peace.

A little shadow flickered across Dave's eyes and disappeared. "Honey," he said, "matchmaking went out with the last century."

"Who the hell is Kevin?" I exploded, laughing with food in my mouth.

Sel rolled her eyes to heaven, exactly the way she used to do when she was fourteen and still talking about movie stars. "Oh, he's just a doll. Available and a doll!"

I purred some as I knew I should and asked. “Really, how old?”

"Thirty. Next month."

"Maybe the guy's got a girl, Sel." Dave said.

"Nope," said my cousin, "I asked him last week.”

"You did?" Dave and I asked together and laughed with mild exasperation. "Yes. And then I told him all about my beautiful cousin the careerist, and asked him if he'd like to meet here." Sel looked as happy as a Christmas tree as she said it. "And he said yes?" Dave asked her.

"Of course he said yes," Sel bubbled. "If somebody had ever described Rita to you wouldn't you have wanted to meet her?"

"Sure I would have-" Dave said with an odd solemnity.

Sel took a playful sock at his jaw then. "I always thought so!"

We laughed.

"Please," I begged playfully, "who is this Kevin, aside from what he looks like?" "A teacher of course. That's all Dave knows-teachers and more teachers. Most of 'em are married for years with pounds of children. Kevin is only recently

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