2.1 Ben sat in the audience and marveled at the confidence of the young woman who marched to the microphone and spoke without notes, in complete sentences, with casual but forceful articulateness. She recounted her journey, her work, and the significance of her meetings and discussions with those personages of high repute: H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael. She could not have been more than twenty. He noted the sheen of her hair curled behind her ear, the elegant gestures of her hands and long fingers, the sense of her stature despite her height.

2.2 At another event, Olivia heard the intensity in the voice of the young man who introduced the labor organizer from the farmworkers' movement, Philip Vera Cruz. She heard his voice, but she watched his eyes, which seemed to her almost stunning in their bright beauty, the way his look across the crowd sparkled with both kindness and fury.

2.3 First impressions may both deceive and perceive.