Autumn had clearly come to Kansas City and Marienthal College. The leaves of the cottonwoods around the campus were in a brilliant glory, and each puff of wind brought more to the ground. Trey found himself shuffling through them on the bright October day as he walked from the student union over to Milliman Hall.

Trey was well aware that the leaves turning color signified not glory, but death, the passing of a summer -- a wonderful and memorable one, the best he'd ever known. He'd done things many would never have dreamed of, himself included, learned things that he would never have thought possible -- and made friends that he never would have believed. That long sea kayak trip with Blake on a nice day on Spearfish Lake lay six weeks in the past, and now it barely seemed real. The Grand Canyon was months ago, and it seemed like a dream. He could close his eyes and the scenes would come to him -- but the ones that stuck with him were of him hunched over the recorder, watching silently while Myleigh pulled miraculous music out of the air. The Canyon, Spearfish Lake, Jennifer, Blake -- they hardly seemed real, confronting the rather dull reality of this college campus on the edge of Kansas City. His eyes had been opened to a wider world, even more so than they had been in the Army -- and now it seemed so far away.

The future seemed pretty unreal, too. He'd already taken a look at the MBA courses over at U-MoKC, in fact, had dumped a couple classes at Marienthal for a couple of them. It wasn't a done deal yet, but it looked like that was what he'd be doing once December was past. It'd put off the reality of what he had to do for a while longer. The sort-of offer from Blake was still in his mind, but it seemed a little unreal too, and probably impossible. It seemed pretty unlikely to him that the offer would stand unless Myleigh was involved, and there seemed no way that she would be involved.

As far as that went, a future with Myleigh seemed pretty unreal, too; it always had, an impossible dream. What could a person like her see in someone like him? It didn't seem like it had any possibility of ever working out. The day they drove back into Kansas City and went to her apartment to load his things into his car for the trip over to the dorm seemed like the day that the carriage turned back into a pumpkin. Back to the real world. Damn.

Yes, they had been close friends for months. They had literally lived in each other's pockets for the four months of the summer, and the four months had made her no less fascinating to him, only more familiar. They'd slept side by side in sleeping bags for weeks along the banks of the Colorado River, shared the house with Randy and Nicole the rest of the summer, and on a few occasions had shared a motel room, although in separate beds. He'd become comfortable with it -- and now, it seemed so far away. Sharing a room with Justin again, with him farting and scratching and telling dirty and juvenile jokes in foul language only underlined to him how far down he'd come in the world.

Carrying a couple of books under his arm, he went up the stairs to the second floor of Milliman, down the now familiar hall to her office, and knocked on the open door. "Dr. Harris?" he asked. "I was heading over from the student union and thought I might drop by and see if you were here."

"Oh, Mr. Hartwell," she said. "How pleasant to see you. I was so hoping you'd stop by. I have interesting news."

Even her words made him sad. Yes, now that they were back on campus, they were "Dr. Harris" and "Mr. Hartwell" to each other. They didn't see each other off campus very much, where it was getting a little hard for them to call each other by their given names. In the spring, she'd called him Trey -- but they'd both become more formal, to deny to the world of the college the friendship that they'd shared for months.

"Might I inquire what that is?" he said. It wasn't mocking her unique way of speech -- it just became infectious, and he'd found himself picking up and using some of it, especially when he was with her. It had only gotten worse since they weren't seeing each other as much; maybe it was his way of keeping her in his mind. It would spread further if he didn't watch himself -- just this morning, he'd told Justin, "I confess that I think I shall skip breakfast for some sleep," and gotten an extremely funny look from him.

"I just received a call from Jennifer and Blake," she said. "They announced that she's pregnant again."

"Making up for lost time, aren't they?" he grinned.

"Oh, my, yes," she smiled. "Blake commented that it is terribly lonely being an only child, and that he did not wish to inflict that status on Jeremy. Jennifer quite agrees."

"Better late than never," he smiled. "I'm glad to hear it. I'm looking forward to seeing them sometime."

"As am I," she said. "Also, she called with regard to the Ball State University concert. Would your schedule be flexible enough to accompany me late next week?" Myleigh was back to doing college concerts, like they'd done in the spring. They had to be squeezed in around her own schedule, and in discussions with Blake and Jennifer up in Spearfish Lake, they'd decided to limit them to one weekend a month, which basically meant Friday and Saturday night concerts. The first one, in mid-September, had to be cancelled in the wake of September 11. Those wiped out by that event were at Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana, not far from Trey's home, and another at Defiance College in northwest Ohio -- not a long jump, but it would mean a long trip back by car on Sunday. Dr. Harris had worked it out with Dr. Hamilton to take Friday off, and still it would have been a long drive to Muncie and arrive in shape for the show. They'd planned to go together, and Trey had looked forward to getting together with her away from the oppressive atmosphere of Marienthal. Both colleges had agreed to a reschedule sometime in the indefinite future, but the details hadn't been worked out yet. Well, apparently one was, now.

"It would depend on how late, but I might be able to," he said. "I take it they've decided to reschedule?"

"Yes," Dr. Harris smiled, "Subject to approval, of course. We're considering tacking it onto the trip scheduled for next week, but on Thursday evening. Dr. Hamilton has tentatively approved my absence on Thursday. Would you be able to accompany me?"

"It's possible," he said. "It'd mean I'd have to skip a couple classes, but with planning I should be able to work it out."

"It would be a dreadful amount of driving," she said. "The October schedule still stands, of course, Pettisville on Friday, and Weatherford on Saturday. I had thought perhaps to save exhaustion it might be possible to fly to Indianapolis, rent a car, then fly here from Camden, taking Brown Bess, of course."

"A month ago, that might have worked," Trey said. "But every night on TV they've got stories about the three-hour waits in airline terminals. I know it's a bear here, and a place like Camden might be just as bad. Add that to the flight time, and we might as well drive anyway and not have to mess around with a rental."

"Yes," she said thoughtfully. "I fear I had not considered that. Mr. Hartwell, I do appreciate your practicality at times. I suppose there is no choice but to drive."

"That's how I see it," he said. "It's close to 600 miles to Muncie. Even if we lean on it pretty hard, that's still ten hours. Then, another seven hours or so to Pettisville. It's only a couple hours on to Weatherford, but add another three if we go on to Spearfish Lake, even if we only drop in and say hi."

"And, it's ten hours, at least, from Weatherford to here," she said. "You are correct. That's a lot of driving."

"Why not just see if we can squeeze out a separate weekend for Ball U?" he said, using the local slang term. "It'd mean over there on a Saturday, back on a Sunday, if we can get the show on Saturday. We might be able to pair it with Defiance, too."

"I agree, that would be the ideal solution," she said. "But Jennifer says it seems unlikely that the Defiance concert can be rescheduled until spring. I should not like to put the Ball State show off that long. Besides, Mr. Hartwell, I should say that I could easily stand an extra day out of here, even if it's spent behind the wheel."

"You do make compelling arguments, Dr. Harris," he smiled. "Maybe we can head right on up to Spearfish Lake after Pettisville, arrive late, and then get a bit more relaxation in Spearfish Lake before we head for Weatherford."

"It's a possibility," she conceded. "But we should still have to arrive at Weatherford early. There's to be an afternoon reception."

"I hadn't heard that," he smiled.

"That was among the things Jennifer just told me," she said. "There are several Weatherford alumni among our friends at Spearfish Lake, Nicole leading the list of course, but others, too. I do believe a string or two has been pulled to make me feel welcome. That close to Spearfish Lake, of course, I should not be surprised that Jennifer and Blake will be among the guests, and Nicole and Randy, of course."

"That'd cut out the need to go to Spearfish Lake, I guess," he said. "We still could, of course, even hang around a while there. It'd mean driving most of Sunday night, but it wouldn't be the first Monday eight o'clock I've slept through."

"You might be able to sleep through a class, my hero," she smiled. "But I cannot, though I fear I could deliver that lecture in my sleep should the need arise."

* * *

At least they were still "Trey" and "Myleigh" in the car, he thought as he wheeled the Cougar up US-31 north around the east side of Indianapolis.

The trip hadn't gotten off to a good start. There was no particular reason, just a number of things that added up. Myleigh's office hours had run late -- there were a number of students waiting to see her. For one reason or another it went an hour past the scheduled time, with Trey waiting out in the Cougar, things already packed, Blue Beauty already strapped into the back seat. Then, Dr. Hamilton had come wandering by as she got rid of the last student, and they wound up talking some more -- nothing in particular, Myleigh reported, but she could see that he was just a little irritated at her disappearing for two days. That meant that they got out on the streets at the height of rush hour, and a traffic accident caused a huge logjam that probably ate up another hour. Then to top it off, they'd stopped at an extremely slow restaurant for dinner. The plan had been to run to somewhere around St. Louis, spend the night at a motel, get moving early and arrive in Muncie with plenty of time for a quiet dinner and some relaxation from the car trip and still have time to set up leisurely before the concert.

But, getting behind had irritated Trey, and he decided to push on a little more before stopping. One of the things he'd learned in the Army was how to get along for a while without a lot of sleep; they blew through St. Louis quite late, and he pressed on across Illinois with Myleigh asleep in the seat beside him. It was a ridiculously early hour in the morning before he pulled in among some eighteen-wheelers near Terra Haute and corked off in the seat for a couple hours.

Air brakes from the truck next to him woke him just as the sun was coming up. Again, the Army training took over -- it was time to get up and get moving. With Myleigh still sleeping, he grabbed a cup of coffee and headed on up the road. He knew he could go for a couple days on catnaps, longer if he needed to -- last January, he'd proved down in Montgomery that he still had that talent. A decent night's sleep tonight, or even the next night, would square things up, although he was pretty sure he'd need at least one good one if they planned to drive all night Sunday night.

But essentially driving all night had brought them from well behind schedule to well ahead of schedule. They'd stopped for a leisurely breakfast outside Indianapolis, and it wasn't even noon when they were on the outskirts of Muncie. "We probably ought to find out where we need to go, that we do not need to hunt for it later," Myleigh suggested.

"No big deal," Trey replied. "I know Ball U pretty well, I can drive right to it."

"Oh yes," she said. "You're from around here somewhere, aren't you?"

"Just up the road," he said, a little noncommittally. "Maybe forty miles."

"My hero," she said. "Since we have time to kill, perhaps you might care to visit home."

"Not especially," he said. "There's no need. Mom and Dad might be working, anyway. Or sleeping. They work some odd hours, sometimes."

"Perhaps you would care to pick up your surfboard. I believe you said you left it at your parents," she said.

"I did," he said. "I know we haven't worked out how we're going to Buddha and Giselle's over the holidays, or even if we're going for sure. If we fly I don't know that we'd want to take it. Besides, I don't really have a place to store it at Marienthal."

Though Trey had known back as far as the originally scheduled Muncie-Defiance trip that they'd be going close to his home, he'd never planned to visit for the simple reason that he did not want to have to admit to Myleigh just how bad a part of town he was from. It was a small house, not in the worst part of town but far from the best of a not very great neighborhood, down by the tracks -- really, the wrong side of the tracks. He'd realized that, if things continued to get serious with her, sooner or later she'd have to know the truth -- but he dreaded the day that she found out just how low-class his background was. He'd talked of his family to her but little -- and much of that had been back at Christmas, when he'd given a very brief account of the troubles he'd had with his sister Carolyn.

"Perhaps," she said. "But still, being this close with free time, should it not be worth the attempt to see them? I know it's been since Christmas for you."

"Yeah, sometimes it's been a couple years, the past few years," he admitted. "I do try to call home every now and then."

"Trey, though you may not see them often, I know you care for them," she said. "Please, do not pass up the opportunity."

"Well, all right," he said with resignation, realizing that a dream might be crumbling in his hands. It wasn't like there hadn't been others that had faded in the last few weeks. Wishing now that he hadn't gotten so bullheaded about driving all night, he headed on north.

It was like old times. He turned off short of the main exit to take the short cut through town. Bumfuck, Indiana, he thought. Here we are again. Damn. He drove on down familiar streets, bumped across several tracks at the yard throat, drove on past Square D, which once seemed like the pinnacle of his career ambitions, and pulled to a stop in front of his house. "Looks like someone's home," he sighed. He was going to have to go through with this. "Probably Mom. Dad walks to work over at the yard."

With Myleigh following him, he walked up between the tiny garage and the side of the house, just like always, and knocked on the side door. If he'd been by himself he'd have let himself in, but that probably wasn't a good thing to do with Myleigh along.

He heard movement inside, and his mother opened the door. "Trey!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I happened to be in the neighborhood," he said. "We thought we'd stop by."

"Well, don't just stand there like a bump on a log," she said, stepping back. "Come on in. Your father's inside."

"He's home?"

"Just got back, he's on split shift this week," she said. "And who's this young lady?"

"This is Dr. Myleigh Harris," Trey said, stepping back to let Myleigh go ahead of him. "She's giving a concert down at Ball U tonight. I've been helping her out with driving and setting up the show."

"Dr. Harris?" her mother smiled. "Oh, yes, you're that college professor Trey told us about. I remember you from those pictures Trey sent us from the Grand Canyon." Trey followed them inside, acutely aware of the smallness and grubbiness of the house, of the worn furniture.

"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Hartwell," Myleigh said nicely as they walked into the kitchen. "Your son has been a big help to me. I wouldn't have been able to teach and do the concert schedules without his help."

"We were just getting set to have some lunch," Trey's mother said. "Would you like to stay?"

"Oh, if it's no problem," Myleigh smiled. "I wouldn't want to put you out."

Trey's father came in from the living room. "Son, it's good to see you," he smiled. "You're looking good."

"You're looking good too, Dad," he said, throwing his arms around him briefly. "It's good to see you again. He stepped back. Dad, this is Dr. Myleigh Harris," he went on. "She's doing a concert down in Muncie tonight, and I'm helping her out."

"You must be the woman that plays that harp so nice," his father said. "Trey sent us a copy of your album. You really make that sing."

"She's got another album coming out this winter," Trey said. "It's even better."

His father turned to Myleigh. "Trey told us something about that," he said. "It's really a pleasure to meet you."

"Thank you, Mr. Hartwell," she said. "I could not have done the album without Trey's help. I owe a lot to him for his help."

As they sat and talked, Trey noticed a curious thing -- Myleigh was holding her normally flowery language down to an absolute minimum. He knew she could do it, although he hadn't often seen it. Slowly, he began to realize that she was trying to be friendly and not seem over his parent's heads. He appreciated that.

Lunch was nothing special, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup from a can. But, even knowing that Myleigh was trying to be nice, Trey realized that she was trying to be nice to him, too. He hoped that she wasn't too disappointed to see the truth of who he was.

After lunch, they sat around the kitchen table and talked a bit. There was some new family gossip, nothing too earth-shattering. It looked like Robbie might be home for Christmas this year, but it was hard to say; Carolyn, probably not. There was still some ouchiness from last year. Trey said that his plans for the holidays were pretty up in the air, but he'd like to at least try to drop by if Robbie made it back, even though he couldn't guarantee it.

"Mrs. Hartwell," Myleigh said after a while. "I'm afraid we drove all night, and I have a concert tonight. Is there any chance I could use your bathroom for a while? I need to take a shower and clean up before the show."

"Oh, by all means," his mother said. "Come on, I'll dig out a towel and washcloth for you."

"I better run out to the car and get some things," Myleigh said.

In a few minutes, she was in the shower, and Trey and his father and mother were by themselves. "That's quite a nice lady you brought home," his father said.

"She's something else," Trey said. "And yes, quite a nice lady." He sighed. "A little too much of a lady for my blood, I'm afraid. I like her a lot, and I really respect her talents and her intelligence. I just don't think I could ever measure up to her." He sighed, and went on. "I spent the summer with her and some other people who I could never measure up to. Very impressive people, and I liked them all a lot. But, I'm not in their league, and I know it."

"Son, I think you're cutting yourself short," his father said. "Don't put yourself down. You can be as good as anyone else."

"I like to think so," he sighed. "Sometimes I can make myself believe it. But, when I step back and take a look at the truth, well, the truth shows."

* * *

They didn't talk much on the way back to Muncie. Trey was still depressed about seeing the reality of Myleigh in comparison to his background, and she was trying to get herself mentally prepared for the show. It had been several months since she'd given a solo concert, so when they did talk, it was about the upcoming show.

As it turned out it came off pretty well. Earlier in the summer Myleigh had had some trouble actually re-creating the music she'd recorded in the Grand Canyon, but in Jennifer and Blake's basement she'd worked out a brief medley of the music, and this was the first time she'd performed it live. Somehow, to Trey, it lacked the punch of the actual recording, but it was still powerful music, after all, and the audience seemed to like it.

After the show -- and the CD sales of Harp Strings, and the autographing and the usual palaver, they got back on the road. They didn't run far, only over to Lafayette, where they had a motel for the night, but it was late when they got in, and they faced a big day the next day. As it turned out it was a football weekend, with a home game at Purdue Saturday, and they were lucky indeed to find one double room -- two were out of the question. It wasn't the first time they'd shared a motel room in separate beds, and besides, they were both tired.

Despite the lack of sleep from the night before and a moderately tiring day, Trey had difficulty getting to sleep. Depression was on him now. Oh, he'd had some dreams, but the shock of reality had pretty well crushed them for him. Myleigh had to be disappointed in who he was, where he'd come from, as disappointed as he was. Finally, he managed to get to sleep, but it was poor sleep; in his dreams, he saw Carolyn picking at him for thinking he was good enough to be involved with a woman like Myleigh. Well before dawn he was awake. He lay in bed for a while, trying to get back to sleep, but gave it up early on, fired up the little coffeemaker, and sat on the edge of the bed, a cup of lousy coffee in his hand, looking at Myleigh's sleeping form, so near, and yet so far away.

Perhaps it was the smell of the coffee that woke her. "My, you're up early, my hero," she said sleepily.

"Couldn't sleep," he said, not wanting to talk about what he was thinking.

"Then, since we're both awake, perhaps we should get under way," she suggested. "It is a long way to Pettisville, and I should not like to pull in there at the last minute."

"Works for me," he said glumly.

So, once again they were on the road before dawn. For once, there wasn't a lot of talking; Trey was aware that he was being curt with her, but in his dejection about her discovering the truth about him, he had difficulty caring. It had been a futile dream, he realized, to even imagine that there might be a future with a woman like her. There had been a time in his life when getting a job at Square D was about the best he could have asked out of life, and that morning, he felt again like it was the best thing he was suited for, compared to sharing it with a woman like her.

They hit Chicago at the height of the rush hour, and then there wasn't a lot of time for talking, but once they finally made it through the city and out to a highway that was merely busy, the silence set in with them again. Finally, out of nowhere, came the question: "Trey, are you angry with me?"

"No," he said. "I could never be angry with you, Myleigh. Just disappointed in me."

"Oh," she said quietly. "I feared that you were angry with me for pushing you into visiting your parents yesterday."

"Angry with myself that I let you, maybe," he admitted. "Look, Myleigh. My folks are OK, we get along, but I didn't want you to know what kind of a life I came from."

"You're feeling shamed, aren't you?" she said. "Trey, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Admittedly, your parents are not wealthy, but they are nice people. They are obviously hard workers, and they are obviously decent people. They had to have been, to have raised an honorable, sensitive person like yourself. You need not feel shamed."

"I can't help it," he said. "Like I said, they're OK. Dad dropped out of school in the seventh grade. His folks moved, and he just never went back after they moved. Otherwise he'd have had to stay in school till he was sixteen. But, he's done well compared to his own folks, and the reason that he dropped out was that he had several brothers and sisters, and they needed every penny they could get to survive. Mom, well, Mom struggled through till she was sixteen before she dropped out. The same thing, the family needed money." He took a deep breath and went on. "It was awful poor while I was growing up. It wasn't till I was in, oh hell, third or fourth grade, that Dad managed to get a job down in the yard, and things got a little better. He still worked two jobs most of the time until I left for the Army. Mom worked too, any number of things. She has a decent job now, cooking in a little restaurant. Well, decent in that she makes more than minimum wage. They managed to get the three of us through high school, not without almost breaking our heads at times to make us finish. Carolyn was all set to drop out and marry Aaron, but they forced her to stick it out. They're good people, Myleigh, and they've worked for everything they have, and I can't take that away from them."

"You should not," she said. "In fact, it is something of which you should be proud. Why should you feel shamed?"

"Maybe I shouldn't," he sighed. "But, it made me what I am. When I compare the kind of life I come from to the person you are, I can't help but feel shamed."

"I see," she said quietly, obviously with thoughts of her own.

"Myleigh, ever since I've met you, I've realized what a class act you are," he said, realizing what he was doing but unable to do anything but state the truth. "I've often told you how much you awe me. Your talents, your brilliance, your class, everything about you. You scare me, Myleigh, you always have. You scare me because I know that I could never measure up to the quality of person that you are. Yesterday only drove it home to me. I always knew it, but I never wanted to admit it, especially to you. You didn't leave me any choice."

"I see," she said again, very quietly. Trey could see a tear rolling down her cheek. After a while, she looked down at her lap but said nothing.

They drove on silently for many more miles. Several times, she started to say something, and Trey was dead sure that she was trying to find some way to politely say something like, "I think it'd be better if we broke it off." The thought saddened him, but it was inevitable after yesterday. She was the most exciting, most awesome woman he'd ever met -- but what gave him any right to think that he could be a part of her world?

Finally, she broke the silence she'd been in for over an hour. There had been at least the beginnings of tears several more times, he knew. "Trey, we have time for a side trip, do we not?" she said in a surprisingly calm voice.

"Yeah, we're well ahead of schedule," he said glumly. Here it comes, he thought.

"Then please take the next exit, and go right," she said.

He glanced over to see more tears than ever before. Confused, he glanced up at the sign for the approaching exit. Franklin lay to the right; he remembered her once saying that it was where she was from. "I thought you didn't want to go there," he said gently.

"I don't, Trey. I really don't. But there are things there that I must do, and the most painful of them must be done today."

"We could skip it," he offered, the exit fast approaching.

"No, Trey," she said. "There's no putting this off any longer. Please take the exit."

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