A light flickered on in the apartment building. It was on the fifth floor, in the center of the building. Only light on that night, on his street, at least. It was, after all, three in the morning.

What was Chance still doing up? He asked himself this question most nights. Wakefulness. It wasn't a desire so much as a need. A curse. Insomnia.

Music rose from somewhere down there, somewhere in jungleland. Couldn't make it out clearly. Somber music, not quite blues. Melancholic, though, that was for sure. Perhaps he would interpret any song tonight as melancholic.

Chance thought about life when he was a boy and when the moon was a pearl and when the sun was a yellow gold. He'd lived a carefree life, would lie in the sun beside the river, would watch as the trout jumped from the water here and there, teasing his friend Buck, who would stand there at the river's edge with his fishing pole, the stringer in the water there at his feet, barren of fish.

He remembered also, suddenly, Lola, his first love, if he could call her that--they were only thirteen at the time. She had just begun to develop noticeably, while he was still an awkward little guy. Not so little, actually--he was tall for his age--but he felt small, new, unaware of and apart from that limitless world out there.

And innocent--he was innocent, so innocent. Lola, however, was not. Even though she wasn't experienced--that wouldn't come till a couple years later, when he was out of her life, when the closest they'd come to each other was at the school dances, or in the classes they shared, no choice of their own; and when she began to become something of a legend on the high-school campus--she was, and had always been, mischievous, daring, and a little too curious for her own good. There was to be no sex--that much was clear--but that didn't prohibit them from doing those other secret things young lovers do while the parents are away, or in the backs of cars. It didn't prohibit discovery.

Chance saw a movement down on the street. An image took form, and he tried to blink it away--but there she was, standing there smiling, her dress fluttering in the night wind: Lola de la Torre.