she doesn't, she'll think it's my fault. I was so tired. And I had just taken some sleeping pills. I just fell back on the pillows and went out of this world. And kept you standing out there another hour."

"If you were so tired, why did you take the pills?" Beebo asked curiously.

Paula's dainty face contracted with a private pain. "Oh, I haven't been sleeping much lately. The doctor gave them to me.

"Are you supposed to take so many they send you into a coma?" Beebo asked, wondering why she should worry about this girl she didn't know at all.

"No. But one doesn't work. Three or four don't work, sometimes. I just keep swallowing them till I drop off."

"One of these days you're going to drop too damn far," Beebo observed, and was suddenly dismayed to see Paula put her head in her hands and cry. Her sobs were short and hard, and she pulled herself together with a strong effort of will as fast as she could. Beebo watched her, frustrated with an odd desire to touch and reassure her.

"But that's no excuse for leaving vou out in the rain all that time," Paula said, lifting her face. Her hair was a fine rich red, reflected in her paler freckles.

Beebo pulled a piece of tissue out of her jacket pocket, heaved herself up from the sofa, and walked over to Paula with it. "Here, honey," she said. "Blow."

Paula accepted it gratefully, and Beebo stood there looking down at her, wondering what so fragile and feminine a creature was doing in a pair of over-sized plaid print men's pajamas. "You always wear these?" she asked, taking a bit of the sleeve between her thumb and index finger.

"Only lately," Paula said, still

one

breathless. "They aren't mine, really. They belong to somebody else."

"Oh," Beebo said, catching on. "I didn't think they were your type.

"They aren't. They're her type. And she's gone. And this is all I have left of her." Paula said with mournful self-control.

"Seems to me that's the answer to your insomnia," Beebo told her. "Switch to nighties-your own-and get some rest. You'll look better and you'll sleep better." God, I sound like Old Man Mose, she thought with a wry inward smile. But she knew the advice was sound; she could tell that by the simple feel of the situation.

"I know it," Paula admitted. "I just needed to have somebody else say it."

"You can't fill her old pajamas any more than her old shoes, whoever she was," Beebo said kindly. She held out a pajama sleeve fulllength. "Looks like she must have been another damn giraffe like me.

Paula laughed a small unsure sound and broke into a smile which made her remarkably pretty. Beebo returned it while Paula said, "That's the first time I've laughed in almost a month."

"Looks like I got here just in time," Beebo said. And didn't realize till after she spoke what an ancient come-on that was. Paula's beautiful blush clarified things for her.

"Well, I suppose you'll want to be getting home now," Paula said, rising from her chair and concerned for the first time to see how large her visitor was: something the anxiety had obscured when Beebo first entered the room.

"You remind me of a friend of mine," Beebo said with sudden frankness, studying Paula at close range. "A boy. Named Pat. He's a very loveable thing. Delicate, with fine