“Likewise,” Sylvan said. “I’m glad Finny decided I was presentable.”

“Only now that you’ve gotten a haircut,” Finny said.

Sylvan blushed. “I was hoping the rat’s nest would come back in style,” he said.

Earl explained that Poplan was inside, saving tables for them. They walked under the neon sign, into the restaurant. It was dark inside. The room was cavernous, with wooden rafters in the ceiling, and fishnets hanging from the rafters, to give it the look of a ship’s hull. To the left was the family section, booths with hanging lights over them, tables covered with paper and the carcasses of crabs. The pungent smell of Old Bay drifted through the restaurant.

Earl pointed to the right, which was the bar section. Here the round tables were much smaller—they fit only two people—and the main attraction was a stage area toward the back of the room. Even though the music hadn’t started yet, there were a few dedicated drinkers already seated at the tables. One man was nodding to an unheard beat, and a woman with teased hair and a considerable amount of tattooed cleavage kept licking her lips like she had food on them.

“In front,” Earl said.

Then Finny saw Poplan, who was wearing a visor. She had two tables reserved, right in front of the stage. She waved to them, and they walked toward her. The floor in this section of the room was made of cement, painted a rust color, what must have been a last-minute budgetary decision by the owners. The wooden stage was elevated about two feet, and on it sat an upright piano and a straight-backed chair.

“Hey,” Finny said to Poplan, and gave her a hug. Poplan hadn’t gotten up—she must have been worried about keeping her seat. Now that Finny was close, she could appreciate the full effect of Poplan’s wardrobe. In addition to the visor, Poplan was wearing a white button-down shirt, tuxedo pants, and a black vest—like two pieces of a man’s three-piece suit. She also had a black armband around her left arm.

“Is it poker night?” Finny asked Poplan.

“What are you talking about?” Poplan said.

“Your outfit.”

“This,” Poplan said, giving her shirt collar a tug, “is what I wear to all of his performances. It is my manager outfit. I believe it imparts a sense of respect to anyone who might observe me.” She nodded significantly when she finished saying this, as if it were clear that many people were observing her.

“This is my brother, Sylvan,” Finny said.

Sylvan held out his hand.

“Have you washed that?” Poplan asked.

Out of Poplan’s line of sight, Finny nodded vigorously.

Taking the hint, Sylvan responded, “Yes, of course.”

“Then it’s a pleasure,” Poplan said, shaking Sylvan’s hand.

“And I’m Earl,” Earl said to Poplan.

“What a beautiful name,” Poplan said, shaking Earl’s hand, which she must have been sure was washed. Finny was happy to see that Earl and Poplan had developed a rapport with each other.

“Since there’s not enough room at this table for all of us,” Poplan said, “you boys are going to have to make due with that one.” She nodded at the table next to them. “And by the way, you may order what you like to drink, but just make sure it looks enough like a soft drink that I won’t have to answer to anyone.”

Finny was a little nervous when she realized that Earl and Sylvan would be sitting alone, without her there to guide them through conversation. Finny was still afraid that Sylvan would dislike her friends, this other family; but when they sat down, Finny noticed that Sylvan and Earl fell almost immediately into conversation.

In a minute they all ordered drinks from a waitress who was chewing gum and called everyone “hon.”

“So tell me about this act,” Finny said to Poplan when their drinks arrived.

“Well, he’s backstage now,” Poplan said. “The act really isn’t anything special. I don’t want to tell you too much. You’ll just have to see.”

It was then that the stage lights went up, and Mr. Henckel walked onstage. Some of the chairs behind Finny had been filled—it was a solid little audience—and everyone clapped enthusiastically. Mr. Henckel took a gracious bow, as if he were onstage at the Meyerhoff, rather than the Tender Crab. He was wearing a full tuxedo, with cummerbund, and he had his comb-over slicked across his scalp.

“Doesn’t he look handsome?” Poplan said.

Mr. Henckel’s first piece was a Chopin mazurka (Poplan had the set list), a jaunty piece that set the audience hooting and applauding. He gave a little nod of acknowledgment, then launched into the final movement of the Moonlight Sonata, playing it in an agitated fury. The audience was silent, captivated. Mr. Henckel knew how to pause just long enough in the rests to make you yearn for that next note. He knew how to set off across the keys, his fingers running like the legs of centipedes. And he knew how to strike down on chords, making them ring in the large room. It was funny, Finny thought, but the music, which might have seemed plain in an auditorium, felt special here. In a way, it was more beautiful than it ever could have been in Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center; it lifted you above the noise and clutter of your everyday life.

Then the piece ended. The audience clapped and whistled. And Mr. Henckel nodded, once, twice, three times. Only now the nod was different from before. Finny recognized it from her lessons, all those years ago. She saw him drifting, drifting. And then he was asleep, his chin resting on his chest. His comb-over stayed where it was, fixed by whatever hair product Poplan had used to slick it down.

“Oh no,” Finny said, looking at Poplan in alarm. The audience was completely silent. Poplan sat there, lips tight, waiting. When Finny tried to speak again, Poplan held her finger to her lips. Finny looked back at Earl. Earl shrugged. They waited some more. Finny felt awful for Mr. Henckel, embarrassing himself like this in front of all these people. She knew that soon someone would get up, lift him off the stage. She wondered why it hadn’t happened yet. Were they calling an ambulance? Was there a doctor on the way? It would be humiliating, whatever it was, and probably the end of Mr. Henckel’s new performing career.

Finally, after an excruciating five minutes, Mr. Henckel snorted awake. He looked around the room dazedly, cleared his throat, then said to his audience, “You’ll have to excuse me. It just comes upon me.”

What happened next was a miracle to Finny: the audience burst into applause. They cheered and cheered, stomped, smacked their hands on the tables, gave him a standing ovation. What’s going on? Finny thought.

Then Poplan leaned over and said in Finny’s ear, “You see, this is the business part of what I do. I knew he’d be falling asleep once in a while during performances. He can’t help it. So we set up this arrangement. There is a man backstage who times how long Menalcus sleeps. If it’s more than five minutes, everyone who’s attending the show gets a free drink. The regulars all know. It keeps them coming back. That’s how you turn a liability into an asset. Like I said before, it’s all in how you see it.” Poplan winked at Finny after she said this, and it might have been then that Finny first appreciated what a woman of vision Poplan truly was.

After the show, they chatted a bit. Mr. Henckel came out from backstage and enjoyed a cup of coffee with everyone. They told him what a wonderful job he’d done, and he said, “Oh, no, no.” Though a string of smile-frowns betrayed how proud he was of his newfound success.

Soon it was time to go, and everyone said goodbye. When Finny was giving Earl a hug, he said to her, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’m going back to France in a week.”

“What?” Finny said, pulling back from him. How could he say it so casually, like he was running out to grab some milk at the supermarket? She felt as if a trapdoor had opened beneath her, and she was falling, falling. “That’s terrible.”

“I know,” Earl said, “but I really should spend the holidays with my mom. She doesn’t have anyone else. And New York is getting expensive.”

“When am I going to see you again?”

“Soon,” Earl said. “The thing I wanted to ask you is whether you might consider coming to Paris over the holidays to stay with me.”

Finny thought of the holidays at her own house—listening to her mother and Gerald thumping to the rhythm of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”—and Finny said to Earl, “Of course I’ll spend the holidays with you. I’d love to!”

“So, what did you think?” Finny asked Sylvan while they were driving home from the performance. Sylvan had his eyes on the road, and didn’t turn toward Finny when she spoke.

“The performance was great,” Sylvan said. “I had no idea your friend was so talented.”

“And what about Earl?” She almost pinched herself after saying this. What if Sylvan didn’t like Earl? Would she never mention him to her brother again? She wasn’t sure she was ready for Sylvan’s judgment.

But he offered it before she could stop him. “Earl’s great. I have a lot of respect for what he’s doing. The writing, I mean. I could never put myself on the line like that. I’ve always played it safe with my choices. He’s really got courage.”

She could hardly believe what her brother was saying. As a child, she’d never known him to be a particularly modest person, but here he was, showing admiration for Earl. People had an endless ability to surprise Finny.

“What did you guys talk about?”

“Mostly about you,” Sylvan said, and raised his eyebrows in a way that let Finny know he was kidding. “Actually,” he went on, “we just talked a lot about what we’re doing. And a little about Judith, since I gather you guys have seen her. I was just curious what she was up to.”

“What did Earl say?” Finny asked quickly.

“Not much. Just that you met at a party, then had brunch together.”

“Yeah,” Finny said, grappling with herself over whether to go further. She decided to ask her brother some questions. “So I hear you’re going to be stopping by.”

“Tomorrow,” Sylvan said. “I think Maryland has done what it can for me. I’m going to stop for a night in New York, then head back up to school.”

“What are you guys planning on doing?”

“Just hanging out. Maybe catch some movies, or a museum or something.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I actually hadn’t really thought about that. I figured I’d, uh, see how it goes.”

“Do you guys see each other a lot?”

“You have a lot of interest all of a sudden,” Sylvan said, glancing at Finny as he settled into the middle lane of the Jones Falls. They were heading out of the city, past the broken factories and warehouses, the teeth of the shattered windows glittering in the expressway lights.

“I was just curious—”

“Then let me tell you everything,” Sylvan interrupted. “If you want to know. I need to say it anyway. The story is that I’ve been going down to New York every couple months since Judith started at Columbia. Usually we just hang out for the day, and sometimes I spend the night in her apartment. Or else I head back up really late and sleep on the Chinatown bus. I don’t think either of us was really sure what we wanted, but we liked spending the time together. And you might not want to hear this, Finny, but Judith was the first girl I ever slept with. Actually, the only one, if I’m being completely honest.”

“It was that time she came down to visit in the new house, right? When you two were acting so strange at breakfast.”

Sylvan nodded. “That was the, uh, first time, yeah. And it wasn’t that I felt awkward with her afterward. It was more that I really liked her—more than I expected.”

“I know what you mean,” Finny said. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“But anyway, the reason I’m telling you all this is that, in a funny way, your boyfriend was an inspiration for me. He’s dead set on becoming a writer, and he hasn’t given himself a way out. He’s going for it, damn the consequences. And I realized that I don’t have anything like that in my life, anything I’m that passionate about. Except Judith. I can’t be a writer or an artist or anything like that. But I can learn to put myself on the line a little, Finny, if it’s for something I care about.”

Now they were winding into the suburbs, past the Cold Spring Lane exit, the Exxon sign twirling on its pole like a lollipop in the big dark mouth of the sky. Finny felt, with every breath she took, like a balloon was expanding in her chest. She couldn’t stand to watch her brother set himself up this way. She’d always joked that he was a pretentious jerk, but in truth she knew him to be as delicate as that cracked candy plate Laura used to keep on the marble buffet in the old house.

“Do you know what else is going on in Judith’s life now?” Finny asked.

“Nothing in particular. She always says she’s busy with classes. She talks about her friend Carter a lot. Other than that, I don’t think she hangs out with a lot of people.”

“Listen,” Finny said, unable to bear the weight of her knowledge any longer, “there are some things I want you to know about Judith. It’s just that—” And she thought how to go on. She felt as if she were plunging into some dark, cold water—like the water outside the Tender Crab. “You have to understand that Judith is a little reckless sometimes. She’s a very close, dear friend of mine. I owe her everything for helping me fit in and get along the first time I left home. She’s full of energy, and good intentions. But sometimes she doesn’t see all the consequences of what she’s doing.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Fin?” Sylvan said.

And suddenly a memory struck Finny. It was that time Poplan sat Finny down in her room at Thorndon, after Finny had delivered that awful note, and Poplan said, Judith is a bad influence. Finny hadn’t wanted to believe it could be true at the time, and she didn’t want to believe it now. She couldn’t betray her friend, as much as she couldn’t betray her brother.

So she said to Sylvan, “I’m not trying to tell you anything, except what I said. Which is that Judith is a good person, but I don’t want you to expect too much of her. I’m glad you guys have fun together. She’s great for that. But in the long run, I’m not sure what kind of wife she would be. Once she loses her figure, she’s liable to get cranky.”

“That’s good to know,” Sylvan said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

And Finny left it there, hoping what she’d said was enough.

Chapter22
Finny Goes to Paris

Two hurdles before winter break: Laura and finals.

Finny had already gotten her passport the week after she’d left home, just in case the opportunity for a trip arose. So she didn’t have that to worry about. It turned out Laura wasn’t anything to worry about either. When Finny told her mother she was thinking about going to France with a friend for the holidays, Laura said, “Sounds great, honey. I’m jealous. I guess Gerald and I might be opening presents alone, if Sylvan doesn’t come.” And Laura must have been excited enough about that prospect that she didn’t even ask Finny who the friend was.

Finny called Earl, told him everything was clear at home, wished him a safe trip back, told him she’d see him soon.

The next day she called a travel agent and spent half her life savings on a round-trip ticket to Paris.

Then she was caught in a haze of studying and paper-writing, a fog of days and nights in the library, short naps that she optimistically called “sleep.” She saw a lot of her roommate; Dorrie studied in the room, so as not to be distracted by Steven Bench.

During this time Finny got a quick note from Sylvan. She had written to tell him she wasn’t coming home for winter vacation, in case it affected his plans. He thanked her, saying that he probably wouldn’t go home for too long in that case. I’m not sure where I’ll go. Maybe I’ll spend part of the time here, and part in New York. Then maybe Baltimore for a week or two. And by the way, things went well with Judith the other weekend. Just thought you’d want to know.

Finny wondered what “well” meant. She had to fight the urge to call Sylvan and talk the whole situation over again. But she saw Dorrie, hunched over a chemistry textbook, and it was enough to yank Finny’s mind back to where it needed to be. She’d give Sylvan a call as soon as she got back from France.

Then finals were over. No time to organize, she just threw some clothes in a bag. She boarded the plane a little after seven, and promptly fell asleep. She didn’t wake up until she was in France.

Earl was there to meet Finny’s plane. In the airport they kissed, held on to each other like they’d been apart for years, rather than a few weeks. He took her through Charles de Gaulle, through what seemed an endless series of buses and escalators and walkways, until they finally got to the B3 metro, which would shuttle them into Paris.

“My mom wanted to be at home to meet you,” Earl said when he and Finny were on the train, “but she had to work.”

“I completely understand,” Finny said. “I don’t want to put her out at all.”

“She’s just excited to meet you.”

“That’s cute.”

“And anyway,” Earl said, “this is better because now you can go back and nap, and you don’t have to feel like you need to stay up and talk. You must be exhausted.”

“Actually, I’m wide awake.”

It was true. Whether because it was Finny’s first full night of sleep in a week, or whether it was just the excitement of being here, on this new continent with Earl, Finny couldn’t even imagine sleeping. Every little thing thrilled her: the language, the beautiful women, the sour odor of the man holding the pole next to her, the little crank on the metro door you had to turn to get the door to pop open when the train stopped.

After one transfer, they walked upstairs, onto the street. Earl rolled Finny’s suitcase for her, and she kept her backpack strapped on her shoulders. She was surprised to see that the streets looked pretty much like the streets in a big American city. Except there were bakeries on the corners instead of delis. And the magazines on view in the magazine booths showed pictures of actual topless women, their breasts displayed like meat hanging in a butcher’s window. She and Earl walked up a small hill, until they reached the address Earl had written on the envelopes of his letters to her when they were in high school. There was a double wooden door that must have been ten feet tall, with brass handles that looked like they were made for giants’ hands. Earl punched in a code on the call box next to the door, there was a small click, and then they pushed through the doors into the building.

The space they walked into was dark, and very cold, and soon Finny realized that they weren’t inside at all. They were in some kind of tunnel, their feet on a stone walkway, and Finny could see light ahead of them. Earl pressed a switch on the wall, and the tunnel lit up. There was a small apartment to their right, which Earl explained was a superintendent’s room. As they walked forward, Finny could see that the bright space ahead of them was a courtyard. They walked into it, a gorgeous green square of lawn. Around it were garages for the cars of the presumably wealthy people who lived here. A stone path bordered the grass, where the cars could drive. It was quiet here, walled off from the city. Finny looked up at the majestic building, its beige walls nearly golden in the bright winter sun.

“In France, it’s a big deal to live on the third floor, which they call the second,” Earl whispered to Finny. “There are a few ground-floor apartments here that are smaller and a little less expensive. A photographer lives in that one.” He pointed to a window through which Finny could see a television set. “And a lady who works as an, uh, escort, lives there.” He pointed to another window, which was shielded by a curtain at the moment. “For a while I didn’t understand what she did. I kept asking my mom, and she would always laugh. The lady advertises as a massage therapist. She sometimes has different guys waiting in the courtyard at lunchtime. It’s pretty funny. No one really cares. One time, just for fun, my mom went in to ask for a massage, and the lady said she was all booked up. Even though there was no one inside.”

It seemed like here there was a frankness, an everydayness to sex, which Finny liked. She said to Earl, “Have you ever gone in for a ‘massage’?”

“Um,” Earl said, turning red.

“Really?”

“My mom bought me one for my eighteenth birthday. It was kind of awkward, but I told her I’d go through with it.”

Finny laughed, clapping a hand over the ugly jealous voice in her head. She didn’t want to acknowledge all that pettiness. What was the big deal about a “massage”? And it wasn’t like she hadn’t thought of other boys during the last four years either.

So she said, “Your mom sounds funny. I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

“Well, if you’re not tired, we can go over soon and visit her at work. She said she wanted you to come by when you woke up anyway. Let’s just go stick your stuff upstairs.”

Earl led Finny to a door on the far side of the courtyard, which he opened with a key. It was still cool inside, and he had to hit another switch to get the light to go on.

“We gotta move fast,” he said. “Or else the light goes off and I have to grope for the switch.”

They hustled up a very narrow, tightly wound staircase. Earl said that it was only five flights, but it felt like it would never stop because they were turning so much.

“The regular staircase is nicer,” Earl said. “But this one is the only way to get to the maids’ rooms.”

He pointed at the door on the third floor and said, “That’s the American lady my mom rents from. I don’t even think she’s around.”

When they reached the top landing, there were doors on either side of them, and a door behind Finny, which Earl said was where the toilet was. He opened the door to their right with another key, and they walked into the room.

It was stuffy, as Earl had said—and unbelievably small. There was a kitchen counter, with a sink and two burners in it, a small refrigerator beneath it. A table was pushed into the corner between the counter and the wall, and there was only enough room for two chairs beneath it. There were some red cushions stacked against one wall, which Earl explained could be spread out to make a bed for them later. And on the far wall, a little window through which Finny could get a view of the rooftop next door.

“Where does your mom sleep?” Finny asked.

“She’s renting the other room, across the hall, too. The lady who was living there moved out, and my mom had saved a little money. She decided she needed the extra space. So we have this room to ourselves.”

“Wow,” Finny said. “An apartment in Paris to ourselves.”

“Not bad,” Earl said, “right?”

“I can hardly believe it.”

Earl’s mom worked in a hair salon on Rue La Fayette. It was only a five-minute walk from Earl’s apartment. The salon occupied a very small storefront, sandwiched between a jewelry store and a chocolate shop. The sign on the door said Salon deCoiffure, and then beneath that: Ramon de la Peña. Earl led Finny inside, a bell on the door ringing as they entered. The shop was tiny, only two barber’s chairs and two chairs with the heated domes that came down over your hair for drying, one sink for washing hair. There was a small desk in front, which was empty at present. In fact, there was no one in the shop. Finny and Earl placed their coats on a coat rack by the door.

Then Finny heard a woman’s voice from the back of the store, which was shielded by some black silk screens with pictures of purple cranes on them. “Bonjour!” the voice said.

“Hey, Mom,” Earl said.

The woman who emerged from behind the screens was taller than Finny had expected her to be. Probably because Earl and Mr. Henckel were so short, Finny had expected Earl’s mom to be, too. But this woman had the opposite of their squashed frame: she was almost unnaturally elongated, with arms and legs that seemed stretched like taffy—so thin and white. Her pallor was accentuated by the simple black dress she wore, and by her dark hair, which was pulled back in a tight bun, moistened by some kind of hair product. She had a strong nose, and thick, somewhat square eyebrows. Her whole body seemed pliable as dough when she walked, and Finny had the feeling she could pop into a handstand at a moment’s notice.

“Hello, hello,” Earl’s mom said to Finny and Earl, waving dramatically, like they were much farther away.

“Hi,” Finny said, and held out her hand to shake.

But the woman took Finny in her slender, surprisingly strong arms and gave her a long hug. “Finny,” Earl’s mom said while they were still hugging, “I’m so, so happy to meet you. I’ve been waiting so long for this day.”

“Me, too,” Finny said, a little taken aback by the intensity of the greeting. She wasn’t sure what to call Earl’s mom, since she knew she wasn’t a Henckel.

Finally, Earl’s mom let go. Finny had to take a deep breath, since all the air had been squeezed out of her lungs.

“I’m Mona Trebble,” Earl’s mom told Finny. “But you should call me Mona.”

“You should call me Finny,” Finny said.

“You’re stunning,” Mona blurted out. “One of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever seen.”

“Uh, thanks,” Finny said, though she wanted to say more, as if there’d been some obvious error she needed to explain.

But Earl saved her. “Finny slept her whole flight,” he told his mom, “so she didn’t need a nap. We decided we’d come right down and see you.”

Mona’s reaction to this statement was a bit more pronounced than Finny would have expected: her eyes flooded with tears. “This is the most wonderful day of my life,” she said, sniffling and trying to collect herself.

Finny supposed that she hadn’t realized the importance of this visit to Earl’s mom, how honored Mona must have been that Earl would bring his girlfriend all the way to France to meet her. Only later did Finny see how extreme Mona’s emotional reactions were to everything; you could have held the door for her and she would have burst into tears.

“I’m really happy to be here,” Finny said.

“To have my son and his love together in my home. Who could imagine a greater joy?” She was beaming, her eyes reflecting the overhead lights.

“Not me,” Finny said.

“My son is such a wonderful, thoughtful child,” Mona went on.

“Mom,” Earl said.

“I’m just so excited,” Mona said. “To think that under a roof I have provided, you and your lover will be snuggling up together, kissing, petting, whatever else you do—it’s the greatest accomplishment I could hope for.”

“So inappropriate, Mom,” Earl said, his cheeks glowing.

“Anyway, I have a surprise for you,” Mona said to Finny. “It’s something very, very special, to welcome you to France.” She looked at Earl. “Is now a good time, honey?”

“Sure,” Earl said. Finny could see he was already tired from this visit with his mom. “Why don’t you see if Finny wants to do it, though?”

“Oh, of course, of course,” Mona said, clasping her hands over her heart like she was trying to catch a scurrying mouse on her chest. “Of course we wouldn’t do it if Finny wasn’t interested. But it’s such an honor.” She looked at Finny. “I couldn’t imagine you not being interested.”

“I promised I wouldn’t tell,” Earl said to Finny. “But definitely don’t feel like you have to if you don’t want to.”

“What is it?” Finny asked.

“Ramon has agreed to cut your hair. For free.” Mona whispered these last two words, as if they were too unbelievable to say at full volume.

“Actually, I just got a haircut not that long ago. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“Ramon comes all the way from Madrid,” Mona said. “People normally pay two hundred dollars for a trim. This is not a haircut. This is”—she seemed to hesitate, struggling for words—“a blessing.”

“I really just wash and go,” Finny said. She felt uncomfortable being fussed over. But she looked at Earl, who shrugged and raised his eyebrows, like he couldn’t help the situation. Mona was practically panting with excitement.

“But yeah,” Finny went on, “why not? It’s worth treating yourself once in a while, I guess.”

Mona sighed. She smiled, then called out, “Rrramon!” rolling her R’s in the Spanish style.

Almost instantly he appeared from behind the silk screen, in a sort of flourish, like a flamenco dancer at the first strum of a guitar: a handsome man hardly five feet tall, with earrings in both ears, his black hair slicked back from his face the same way Mona’s hair was slicked into her bun. He wore all black, too, which was evidently the dress code in the salon; his wardrobe was made up of a black T-shirt and some extremely tight-fitting slacks that produced a considerable bulge at his crotch. He walked toward Finny, around the drying chairs and the sink, and Finny noticed he had an odd way of navigating a room, walking in very straight paths, with short quick steps, and making sudden turns, only at ninety-degree angles.

“El Maestro,” Mona said to Finny as he approached. It took him a bit of time to get to Finny, considering all the objects in his way, and the fact that the room was not conducive to perpendicular walking. When he finally arrived in front of Finny, he offered a quick nod to Earl, who nodded back.

“Bonjour. Buenos días. Hello,” Ramon said to Finny, who held out her hand to shake. Again she was disappointed in her attempt, though, because instead of reaching for Finny’s hand, the maestro grabbed a tuft of Finny’s hair and said, “Esplendid.” He then let go of her hair, made a quick ninety-degree turn, and held out his hand toward the chair in front of the sink.

After Mona had washed Finny’s hair, Finny sat in the empty barber’s chair, the other being occupied by Ramon. She expected him to get up and start cutting her hair, but instead he stayed seated, watching her with his eyes barely squinted.

“Oh,” Finny said. “Just a little trim. Kind of like it is now, but maybe with some more layers and—”

Ramon shook his head. Mona waved Finny off frantically, as if she were stepping in front of a speeding truck.

Ramon kept watching Finny. She wondered what was happening.

Just when the staring contest was becoming painful, Ramon got up from his chair and walked over to stand in front of Finny. He stepped on a bar, and her chair went down, nearly to the ground. He leaned over her, looked straight down at her scalp. Then he stepped on the bar and her head came back up to nearly the same level as his. He bit his lower lip and looked hard at her temples, her hairline.

Then, for no reason Finny could discern, he began to nod. He held out his hand, palm up. Mona placed a comb in the hand. He took several swipes at Finny’s hair with the comb, parting it strangely in the center of Finny’s scalp.

“Ah,” Mona said.

“Ouch,” Finny said.

After several more swipes with the comb, Ramon transferred it to his left hand, then held out his right again. This time Mona placed a pair of scissors in the open hand. Ramon shook his head, grimaced, looked tortured. He sighed. He put his hand on his chin.

And then, out of nowhere, inspiration struck. He nodded and grinned, raised the scissors to Finny’s bangs, and took four decisive snips. He then walked around behind Finny and took a series of eight or ten snips in what seemed to be random places around Finny’s head.

Then he stopped, rubbed his forehead and breathed loudly, put his fists against his waist and stomped.

But here inspiration seemed to find him again, because his eyes widened and he made a final snip just above Finny’s left ear. He then gave Finny a quick nod, like he’d given to Earl when he’d walked out from behind the silk screen.

“Ah,” Mona said.

The maestro looked pleased with his work. “Esplendid,” he said again, handing the scissors and comb to Mona. He then zigzagged his way to the rear of the shop, his shoulders back, hands on his hips, his substantial pelvis thrust forward like a bullfighter exiting the ring.

“It looks fantastic,” Mona said, with a kind of childlike awe.

To Finny it looked exactly the same as it had before it was cut, but since she didn’t want to hurt Mona’s feelings, she said, “It’s the best haircut I’ve ever gotten.”

“He’s a minimalist,” Mona explained. “It’s as much about the cuts he doesn’t make as the ones he does.”

“Interesting,” Finny said. “What do you think, Earl?”

Earl looked up from his magazine. “Nice. I really like it,” he said. She could have been sporting a mullet and he would have said the same thing.

“Well, you two should go enjoy the afternoon now. I’ll meet you back at the apartment before dinner, Earl?”

“Yeah,” Earl said. And they walked into the Paris streets.

Chapter24
La Maison des Fantaisies

“So that’s my mom,” Earl said as they headed down a street called Rue Montorgueil toward the Seine. They’d walked into a market area and were now passing shops displaying cheeses of every shape and color, some looking like they were dusty, even covered with mold; or meats of vibrant reds and pinks, little roasted hens or rabbits tied to spits, spinning round and round; or pastries, lacquered with butter or sugar and bursting with fillings. Even on this winter day, some of the shops were open to the cold air. Finny saw one store that sold only foie gras, the stuff Earl had told her about in one of his first letters from Paris. Colorful tins lined the walls.

“She’s great,” Finny said about Earl’s mom. “I want to get her something to thank her for setting up the haircut for me.”

“Come on, tell me the truth. Do you even notice a difference?”

Finny smiled. “It was still nice.”

“Ramon said he’s going to take her in as a partner in the business soon. They’re going to call it Ramona.”

“That’s great.”

“It gives her something to look forward to,” Earl said.

“Is she not happy?”

Here Earl took a breath, then let it out slowly. “It goes up and down with her. She can be excited and bubbly, like today. Then there are times when I catch her crying for no reason. There’s a lot I didn’t understand about her for a while. She’s not the most stable person in the world.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, she has a history. When she was with my dad, it was right around the time she had a breakdown. She was barely eighteen. She cut all her ties with her family and joined that traveling act my dad told you about. Part of the reason she couldn’t see me after I was born was that she was in a psych ward. I think my dad didn’t tell me that stuff because he wanted to spare me—or at least to respect Mom’s privacy. But gradually the story came out. She told me some weird stuff, Finny. She started hallucinating when she was in the hospital and she said that all day she could smell the color purple, and when she ate, it tasted like the sound of birds chirping.”

“Jeez,” Finny said. “I had no idea.”

“I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, but that’s one of the reasons I came back. To check up on her.”

“That’s why she thinks you’re a wonderful son.”

“She thinks everything is wonderful, when she’s happy. Then when she’s sad, it goes the other way.”

“So is she all right? I mean, you said she’s not so stable.”

“She takes a lot of drugs now. Medicine, I mean. It keeps her within range.”

“What about Ramon?” Finny asked. “Is there anything going on there?”

Earl smiled. “You mean, like sex? I don’t think Ramon sleeps with women. I actually don’t think he sleeps with men either. He’s pretty content with himself.”

“Does your mom date at all?”

“Once in a while. But her French isn’t good, so she doesn’t have many options. And I’m not sure she’s really built for relationships. She has some weird hang-ups about sex. She can be very frank about it—like before when she embarrassed me—but then sometimes she also seems afraid of it.”

And Earl? Finny thought. What mark had it left on him?

Now the street they were walking on ended, and they came upon a plaza with some pretty gazebos in it where Finny could imagine people eating lunch in warmer weather. There were some benches, and small trees, even a fountain.

“We can walk right through this,” Earl said. “It’s a shortcut. The Pont Neuf is on the other side.”

They walked down another short street, and came out by the river. Holding hands, they walked onto the bridge, over the wide water. Because of their long walk, Finny didn’t feel cold anymore. She squeezed Earl and made him pose with her for a picture along the railing of the bridge, which another American tourist ended up taking for them. Earl pointed out some of the sights: the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Orsay, Ile de la Cité and the buttresses of Notre Dame at its far end. They planned some places to visit. Earl told her about the bateaux-mouches you could take a ride on at night, and how the rich people who lived on the Seine complained about the lights from the tour boats shining in their windows.

They spent the first part of the afternoon walking around some Left Bank neighborhoods, which Earl said he liked better than the Right Bank. He took Finny to a café where Gertrude Stein used to come for parlor sessions with her writer friends. They stopped at a fancy ice cream shop on Ile Saint-Louis, with brass tables and counters. Finny tried a flavor with chocolate and orange and hazelnuts, and when Earl asked if she was ready to go, she considered getting another scoop, but decided not to spoil her dinner. He took her to a little Picasso museum in the Marais, which he said was one of his favorite museums in Paris. He taught her some useful expressions, like “Où est le métro?” and “C’est combien?” which Finny then proceeded to butcher with her abominable French accent. Earl laughed, then tried to correct her and ended up bungling it himself, which made Finny laugh. They were practically falling over by the time Finny learned to say “I would like to order the steak.”

They got back to Earl’s apartment building around seven. Finny was exhausted, so Mona suggested they stay in for dinner. They made a meal of baguette and cheese, salami, some rabbit pâté Mona had picked up at the farmers’ market held every week on her street. Mona walked them to the door of Earl’s room, then said to Finny and Earl, “You two must have some catching up to do. You can relax, give each other massages, talk dirty if you like. I’ll plug my ears.”

“Mom,” Earl said. “Please.”

“Sorry,” Mona said.

Then they all said good night.

After Finny had washed for bed, they made up the red cushions for themselves, and Finny lay down on them while Earl was getting ready. She must have closed her eyes at some point, because the next thing she knew she was blinking awake in a shower of sunlight from the high window. Earl was asleep, and Finny got up on a chair to look out the window. She heard voices below, and when she looked into the street, she saw children congregating in front of an iron gate. Since it was the holidays, Finny imagined they must have been friends meeting up for some outing. One very big child pushed a small one into the road and laughed. Cars honked at them. Finny got down off the chair, and she saw that Earl was now awake.

“Sorry I fell asleep,” Finny said. She wasn’t sure if he was disappointed they hadn’t had sex. “I guess I was more tired than I thought.”

But if Earl was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Come here,” he said to Finny, holding out his arms, and she got back in bed with him. They hugged each other under the warm covers, and for some reason it put Finny in mind of chickens in an oven.

“We’re roasting,” she said.

It would be what they’d always call this morning time together, when they held each other under the covers. It was Finny’s favorite part of the day. On this particular morning, though, as Mona had predicted, it led to more than just holding. Soon they were kissing, undressing, and Finny was scrambling into the cold air to find a condom in her bag. Earl laughed at the sight of her running naked through his room. Then she was back under the covers, and they were moving through all the familiar, warm routines they’d established that weekend in New York. They moved slowly, and it took a long time, but by the end they were both breathless. What a wonderful way to begin their vacation together! What a perfect morning in Paris!

It became the way they started every morning. Too tired for love—and usually a little drunk—when they returned at night, they went straight to sleep. But in the mornings they lingered, roasted, made love, sometimes fell back asleep for a while longer. Then they’d eat cereal, or else go to the corner for an espresso and a croissant. (Finny always got chocolate.) They didn’t make a lot of plans, but they always had enough to fill a day. There were exhibits they wanted to see, restaurants they wanted to try, walks they wanted to take. They went to Angelina on the Rue de Rivoli to drink chocolat africain. Finny bought postcards, chocolates, key chains for her friends and family. In the evenings they told Mona about their days, and she relished every detail. She licked her lips when Finny described the hot chocolate. Earl showed Finny a little square in Montmartre with a bust of a French actress in it, surrounded by some lovely old houses that had been converted into apartments. There were a few park benches, a circle of lawn, some walls draped with ivy, a fat oak tree. He said this was where he’d choose to live in Paris, if he ever had the money.

That evening—it was the first week of January, a scoured winter smell in the air—Earl and Finny ate crêpes in a piano bar and listened to a man play Billy Joel songs for tips. Afterward, walking down the slope of the Rue de Maubeuge, they saw a prostitute who was clearly a man—though he was wearing heavy makeup and a fur boa—pick up a client in a business suit. The couple walked into an alley, whispering and laughing. The man behind Finny and Earl—who walked with a noticeable limp, and kept wriggling inside his overcoat, as if his clothes didn’t fit properly—shrugged at the couple who walked off together. Finny laughed.

“You know, I like the way people are about sex here,” Finny said. “They treat it like it’s slightly funny. Which it is, if you think about it. I mean, in a certain way. I could get used to that.”

“Used to what?” Earl said.

“Being here, I guess.”

“Really? You could live here?”

“I think so. Why?”

Earl shrugged. “It’s just good to know. Since I’m not sure where I’m going to be.”

Finny felt a bubble of anxiety expand in her chest. What was he telling her? She looked at Earl, and caught a glimpse of the limping man behind them, who seemed unable to control his pace on the steep hill. He kept wriggling in his coat, as if he were trying to shrug it off. His feet made a quickening rhythm on the pavement—du-duk, du-duk, du-duk—and Finny thought of asking if he needed a hand.

But first she said to Earl, “You mean you think you might want to live here for good?”

“I’m not sure about for good,” Earl said. “It’s just, right now, I feel like I should be with my mom. She needs me more than my dad. He’s got Poplan.”

“But what am I going to do?” Finny burst out. “I can’t drop out of school. I just started. We just started. Now you’re telling me we’re going to have to put it all on hold again?”

“I’m just saying everything’s up in the air. We haven’t even talked about being a couple. We don’t even know if this is going to work out.”

“What?” Just this morning she’d been planning their life together. Though now, and suddenly, like a thunderclap on a clear afternoon, another thought struck her. “You’re not seeing other people, are you?”

“What do you mean?” Earl asked. Which told her everything she needed to know. She saw it in his face, in the scurrying confusion in his eyes, the familiar glow in his cheeks. She didn’t need to push on, and yet, against every good instinct, she did.

“I mean,” Finny said, summoning her old bluntness, “have you had sex with anyone besides me since we met at Judith’s party? Is that clear enough?”

But Earl didn’t want to fight anymore. “Yes,” he said. “I have.”

“Who?”

“A girl I knew from high school. Camille. It wasn’t serious. I didn’t realize I couldn’t—”

“It’s not about couldn’t.”

“You’re on a different continent, Finny. I don’t see how we can—”

But she stopped him. She felt the bubble of her emotion bursting, a hot flood in her lungs, and she said to Earl, “You can’t do this to me. You can’t, Earl. I can’t live that way.” She was practically screaming. They’d become one of those unhappy pairs who fought in the street—something she’d told herself they’d never be.

Before Earl had a chance to answer, though, they were interrupted. The limping man, whose pace had quickened even more, bumped into Earl with his shoulder. All Finny saw of him was his bristly jaw, like some overused hairbrush. At first, she thought the man was falling, but when she reached out to grab him, he tore her purse off her arm and started to run down the street, no longer limping at all. Earl was on the ground.

“Oh my God,” Finny said, and leaned down to help Earl up. But Earl got up on his own. He started down the street, chasing the purse-snatcher.

“Hey!” Earl screamed. “Stop! Connard!”

“No!” Finny screamed at Earl. “Come back!”

But he wouldn’t stop. The two men rounded the corner at full speed, and Finny had to run to keep up. Earl was still screaming at the man, and Finny wanted to tell him she didn’t care about her purse. But Earl was too far away, and yelling too loudly to hear. She’d seen the look in Earl’s eyes when he’d gotten up from the pavement, a kind of blind outrage, and she knew that nothing she could say would stop him. For the first time she’d glimpsed something reckless and impulsive in Earl, a piece of him she hadn’t known existed, and she found she was running as much away from that vision, those raging eyes, as toward Earl and the thief.

“Please!” Finny shouted. “Please come back!”

She followed them down the street, Earl chasing the thief, yelling, “Mais quel connard! Thief!” and Finny calling after Earl to come back. All of a sudden the man darted into an alleyway off the Rue de Maubeuge. “Don’t!” Finny yelled to Earl. But Earl kept going, into the dark side street. Finny had no choice but to follow.

When she made the turn, it was at first difficult to see anything. She could hear Earl’s footsteps ahead of her, and more distantly, the thief’s. She kept running toward Earl, her own feet smacking the pavement. None of them were screaming any longer; there were no other people around to hear them. The alleyway must have been made of cobblestone, because Finny’s feet kept getting turned between stones, her ankles strained. But she was a good runner; she wasn’t going to give up. She passed a dumpster. She could make out the shadows of the men ahead of her.

Farther down the alley was a small light, encased in what looked like the head of an old-fashioned streetlamp. It illuminated an orb of alleyway, and Finny could see that the street dead-ended just beyond the light, at a cement wall with some graffiti on it. She knew now that they were headed for a face-off with the criminal. Earl was gaining on him. The man was slowing his pace. There was nowhere else to run.

The man was nearly to the lit-up spot at the end of the alleyway. Finny heard the tok-tok of his shoes on the pavement, echoing in the tight space between the buildings. Then, suddenly, the man opened a door that Finny hadn’t seen, next to the light, and ran inside.

“Okay!” Finny screamed to Earl. “Okay!” It was all she could think of, and she was too out of breath to get out more than a couple of syllables. She figured that here Earl would have to give up.

But instead Earl yanked open the door that the man had disappeared behind. He ran into the building, still chasing the man.

Finny was coming up on the lighted patch herself. She considered giving up, going back. Why risk herself? But she couldn’t leave Earl that way. It would be too much to bear if something happened.

The door was painted red, and it squealed when Finny opened it. Above the lintel there was a tiny sign, which you couldn’t have seen if you hadn’t known exactly where the door was. In bright red letters the sign said: La Maison des Fantaisies. A brothel, Finny thought as she went inside.

The first room she entered was square, about the size of the dining room and kitchen in her mother’s house. The room was painted the same red color as the sign outside the door. It was very warm, and there was an odor of burnt almonds. There were chairs and couches of various shades of red, and six or eight people were sitting reading magazines like in a doctor’s office. The people—both men and women, which made Finny question her idea that it was a brothel—looked normal enough. They wore dresses and suits, leggings for the women, scarves or earmuffs piled in the seats next to them. One man had on a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. Finny saw Earl darting past a door on the far side of the room. He was yelling “Au voleur! Stop!” but no one seemed to be paying attention.

Finny ran through the room, then down the hallway Earl had run down. The hallway was painted white, and had a tile floor like in a hospital. Here there was an astringent smell, as of bleach or some cleaning product. Earl ducked into one of the rooms, where he must have seen the thief running, and in a moment Finny followed.

But when she got there, Earl had already moved on. It was a cream-colored room that seemed to be set up like a classroom. There was a portable blackboard in one corner, stocked with chalk and erasers. A woman in a too-large tweed coat stood at the board asking questions of a very small man—he could have been a midget—who was seated at a child’s desk in front of the board. The man was wearing a schoolboy outfit, short pants and a starched shirt. He had a satchel tucked under his chair.

“Quelle est la capitale du Nicaragua?” the woman questioned, tapping a piece of chalk against the board so that the tip crumbled.

“Bogotá?” the man answered.

“Non!” the woman screeched. Then she slapped the man across the face.

“Huit moins cinq,” the woman said.

“Quatre?” the man answered.

“Non!” the woman screamed, and knocked him out of his chair with a blow to his shoulder. The woman looked pleased by the result. “Vous êtes un mauvais élève!” she said. She kicked him in the ribs, and he moaned with satisfaction. Neither glanced in Finny’s direction. A pickpocket would never get caught here, in the confusion of these rooms.

Finny ran back into the white hallway. She heard scuffling in a room ahead of her, to the right. “Earl?” she said. “Earl!” She was afraid he’d caught up with the thief, that they were fighting, or maybe the criminal’s friends were attacking Earl. She just wanted to get him out of this crazy place. She ran to the room where the sounds seemed to be coming from and she opened the door.

Inside the room, a very pale young woman was lying naked on the floor, her arms and legs splayed like she was making a snow angel. She lay on a rug the color of a fresh wound. She was almost sickly thin, her stomach sucked under a pronounced rib cage, her arms as brittle-looking as twigs. She had something like bread crumbs dusting her chest. And next to her—the part that Finny could hardly believe—was a live swan. The bird was enormous, probably four feet tall with its neck extended, and brilliantly white. Its eyes were encircled with black, giving it an angry, determined look. The swan craned its neck and nibbled a few bread crumbs off the woman’s chest. It didn’t walk toward her, and Finny saw that there was a small collar on the bird’s neck, fixing it in place. When the swan’s beak touched the woman, she giggled like a small child.

“Oh my God,” Finny said, hardly believing what was happening. She felt as if she were in some kind of demented dream.

She stumbled into the hall. For a moment she did nothing but breathe, look at the floor, and try to collect her thoughts. And then she looked up. Ahead of her, unbelievably, she saw the man who had taken her purse. He was running toward her. She realized now that he was only a boy—fifteen or sixteen, maybe—with some early stubble on his chin. The limping must have been an act he’d perfected to catch people off guard. He had wide, excited brown eyes, and he was breathing heavily, as if he couldn’t get enough air.

“It’s okay!” Finny called to him. It was the first thing that popped into her mind. She didn’t even realize that he probably didn’t understand her, probably spoke only French. She just had the urge to comfort, assuage.

In a second Earl was coming around the corner, chasing the boy. They were both headed right toward Finny. She didn’t know what to do. Should she put her arms out and stop the boy? Or scream, which didn’t seem to have much effect in this place. Or should she just let him go and grab hold of Earl, make him stop? But before she had a chance to make a decision, the boy kicked open a door in the hallway marked Sortie in green letters, and ran into the street. Earl chased him. Finny followed Earl.

Outside it was cold again. She was in another alley. This was a different door from the one they’d come in. Finny saw her breath in the cold air. Ahead of them was a major street, Finny wasn’t sure which. There was some kind of street fair or celebration going on. A swarm of people moved along the road, which was too crowded for cars to pass. Music was playing, drums and horns. The people were eating sweets out of paper bags. Finny knew that if the boy made it to the crowd, they’d never find him.

But here something else unexpected happened. The boy simply tossed the bag onto the pavement, waved to Earl with both hands as if to say, Okay, you got me, then jogged off into the crowd. Finny let out a long breath, relieved that their chase had ended. She almost hoped the boy had taken some money for his trouble.

Earl was picking the bag up off the pavement when Finny reached him.

“What just happened?” Finny asked. She was out of breath. Sweat ran down her sides. Her throat was dry and felt scratched, like she’d swallowed a mouthful of steel wool.

“That was the craziest place I’ve ever seen,” Earl said as they stood there in the alleyway, panting. Then Earl said, “Check to make sure everything’s there.”

Finny opened the bag. Money, keys, credit card, passport. It was all there.

“Nothing’s missing,” Finny said.

Earl had a small grin on his face.

“Jesus,” Finny said.

“What?”

And then she punched him in the chest.

“Ow,” Earl said.

She punched him again.

“Ow. What?”

“Don’t do stupid things,” Finny said. She was nearly frantic, with worry and rage and panic and relief. “You hear me? I don’t care about my goddamn purse.”

“I thought you’d want—”

“Don’t,” Finny said.

“Okay,” Earl said. “I’m sorry.”

And then, in spite of herself, she was hugging him, crying into his chest, her tears soaking the spot where she’d punched him a moment ago. “Oh my God, Earl,” she sobbed. “I can’t even tell you. I thought he’d kill you.”

Earl was stroking her hair. “I did it for you, Fin. I thought it’s what you’d want.”

“I know,” Finny said.

They didn’t talk any more about their living arrangements during the trip, or about how exclusive their relationship was. It was as if their conversation before the purse-snatching hadn’t happened. Finny was just so relieved that everything was okay, that they were alive and safe and enjoying each other’s company. They were affectionate with each other, stopping to kiss in the street, touching the other’s arm or hand when they were sitting in restaurants. In the mornings their love was, if anything, more vigorous, more urgent.

Then, out of nowhere, the trip was over. Finny was packing for her plane ride back to the States. She was flying into New York, because it turned out to be cheaper on the return trip. She was going to stay with Judith for the night. Earl cried while Finny was zipping up her bag, and then Finny started to cry. They had dinner with Mona in a restaurant she liked near the Gare du Nord. Ate foie gras, since it was a special occasion. Finny liked it spread on toast, with the little fruits and nuts they gave her. They drank too much wine, and Mona began to cry, too, more heavily than anyone, saying how much she’d miss Finny and how she hoped she would come back soon. Earl had to comfort her. Finny understood that he must not have shared all the details of his social life with her. He hugged his mother and looked at Finny over her shoulder, signaled that it was time to be heading back. Like a father with a young daughter.

In the morning Finny and Earl woke up early so they could roast in bed together for a while before she left. They didn’t even have sex. They buried their faces in the warmth from the other, and already Finny was feeling lonely and a little depressed. Would life always be this way? she wondered. Would there ever be a place she could rest?

They took the train to Charles de Gaulle. They had breakfast in an airport café—some cold coffee and an American bagel that tasted like rubber. Then it was time. Finny strapped on her backpack, kissed Earl goodbye. Told him she had a great trip. Nothing about the future.

Just before she walked away, Earl said, “Wait.” He took an envelope out of the bag he was carrying. “Here,” he said, handing it to Finny. She could see his hand was trembling. “Promise you won’t open it till you get on the plane.”

Chapter23
My Father the Collector

The summer before I went to college and left my dad behind in the little brown house with all our animals, I only wanted to read. I had a job in a restaurant, yanking the cold guts out of chickens and rubbing the fat birds down with oil till they shined like prizefighters, hauling crates of dusty soda bottles up a shadowy staircase that squealed with the anguish of a dozen thwarted safety inspectors; but my real life began when I switched on my bedside lamp and read things like: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Every minute I spent listening to my manager holding forth on the latest addition to his entertainment center and the virtues of layaway financing (“Nothing this month, Chris. Not a single penny!”), I was counting in my mind the pages I had left to read that night to stay on pace in The Grapes of Wrath or Candide or The Republic. Every evening I would come home exhausted and smelling like an herb garden, pluck some leftovers from the refrigerator, and lock myself in my room with Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky and Marx. It was late when I’d emerge to find my father at the kitchen table, reading selections from his favorite book, the Guinness book of world records, to our parrot, Romulus. He would ask me if I could guess how long the longest toenails in the world were….

Finny looked out the plane window for a minute while she tried to absorb this opening paragraph of Earl’s short story, “My Father the Collector.” At first, she couldn’t help hearing the words in Earl’s voice, like he was reading them to her. She knew she was looking for the little trail of footprints that would lead her to some hidden enclave, some stashed-away part of him. But she couldn’t enjoy the story that way. So she stopped doing that; she just read.

It turned out the story was about a lonely teenager in his final year of high school, preparing to leave his even lonelier father behind in the house they’d shared for Chris’s entire life. There was no mother in the picture. Chris’s father wants to have some fun with Chris, the way they used to, so he takes him out to an abandoned field they’d sometimes visited, to toss an old easy chair down a big hill, just for the fun of it, to watch it break. But when they throw it, the chair ends up hitting a stray dog they hadn’t seen, and Chris sees his father break down, devastated over what he’s done:

And I stood there, not knowing what to do or say, because what could you do or say in a moment like this? I watched my father in the dirt just crying and crying. It was like he’d been broken; he couldn’t stop.

And then the scene shifts. Chris is leaving home, saying goodbye to his dad. There’s a brief epilogue that takes place some time later, after Chris’s father has died, where Chris comes back to the house to sort through his father’s things:

I made a last pass through the rooms, checking under beds and in drawers for anything left behind. I knew my father was a great collector, and he could have hidden his findings anywhere.

For some reason, this line touched Finny. She finished the story in tears.

More than anything, her first reaction was relief—relief that it was good. After the time in the Italian restaurant when Earl had gotten upset because Finny had said she’d enjoy reading his work even if it wasn’t good—after that, she’d been worried that when she did finally read one of his stories, it would be silly, or too intellectual, or like a million other stories twenty-year-olds write. Finny knew that Earl wouldn’t settle for that. She could tell, by their conversation in the restaurant, that this was more than a hobby or a dream for him. And she was excited to see he had real talent to back it up. Confused as their relationship was, he was someone special.

Finny was amazed that the story didn’t “sound” like Earl at all. She caught pieces of Earl in Chris—the way Earl had used his experience working at the restaurant in France in Chris’s summer job at the restaurant, the complicated relationship with a quirky father, the little brown house—but Chris was not Earl. Earl had transformed himself, used the scraps of his own experiences to build an entirely new character, to show something about the world. In a way, it was like how Earl built up the people around him, making them livelier, more interesting, better than they ever could have been on their own.

And it was funny. She’d been afraid that because Earl took writing seriously, his writing would be overly serious. But there were several parts where she laughed out loud. She thought the father’s character was marvelously strange. The story was about something sad, though Earl hadn’t been afraid to make it funny. This made sense to Finny, because her view of life was very much that way—that it was both hilariously funny and devastatingly sad. And only if you saw both things could you ever have a realistic idea of the subject.

Of course there was a part of her that wondered where Finny was in all this. She’d had a small hope that the story would be about a love affair, about a couple being apart for many years and then coming back together, that the beautiful heroine would be based on Finny Short, that Earl would reveal all his hidden hopes about their future—but Finny quickly jogged herself back to reality. She knew that life was more complicated than that, and that a story wasn’t some kind of secret message. She was touched by how sensitively Earl had captured certain aspects of his own life. In the end, Finny was happier that it was a good story not about her than if it had been a bad story about her. She concluded that Earl was a talented writer, and that, as in other areas, he just needed time to grow, to see more of the world, to practice.

“What’s that you’re reading?” the woman next to Finny asked when Finny put down the story. She was a small woman, though she wore a large hat with flowers sewn into the brim. She had a squawking voice. As she looked at Finny, the woman had an expression of intense concentration on her face, and Finny knew she was gearing up for a long chat.

So Finny did something she’d never done before. She put a hand to her own throat and mimed like she was being choked.

The woman looked confused. Finny tore off a square of paper from the bottom of Earl’s story, took a pen out of her purse, and wrote, I just had an operation on my throat. Can’t talk. Very sorry.

When she showed it to the woman, the woman made a hmph sound and turned back to the movie she’d been watching, as if it were Finny’s fault for getting the operation right before this opportunity to have a lovely discussion. Finny felt bad, but she just didn’t want to talk about Earl’s story with the woman. When the stewardess came down the aisle for drink orders, Finny had to point at what she wanted.

Finny was going to be staying at Judith’s apartment in Morningside Heights for the night, then heading back to Stradler on Sunday morning. Her classes began on Monday. It was fine with Finny that she’d be staying in Morningside Heights, since she figured she’d be more comfortable there than at the stuffy Beresford. Finny was looking forward to having a night away from the intensity of her time with Earl, her swirling thoughts about him, and Judith always provided a good distraction.

At a little after eight, Finny arrived at 110th and Broadway, where Judith lived. The street was quiet: only a D’Agostino grocery store and a Chinese takeout were open. Judith had mailed Finny the extra set of keys, in case she wasn’t home when Finny got in, so Finny opened the lobby door, then took the elevator up to the ninth floor.

The hallway here was much less adorned than the one at the Beresford. There was a gray carpet that was coming up at the sides. The walls had at some point been white but were now scuff-marked from top to bottom because of all the people moving in and out with bulky furniture. One ceiling light was out, and another blinked on and off, giving a disco effect to the hallway. At the door of 9G, Finny knocked, just in case Judith was in the middle of something. No one answered. Again Finny knocked.

This time the door swung open, revealing Judith with tears streaming down her face, saying, “Oh God, Finny, I’m so glad you’re here. Please help me.”

Chapter25
In Which the Potential Becomes Actual

Judith’s apartment had an odd design. The entrance faced one wall of a small hallway that led to the right of the front door. To the left of the door was a bedroom that Finny guessed was Judith’s because of the Thorndon bumper sticker tacked to a corkboard. The room was tidy: a bed, a desk, a dresser—not unlike Judith’s half of the dorm room at Thorndon. There was a frilly blue and white quilt on the bed, and a framed poster of the Edward Hopper painting “Nighthawks” on the wall, which Finny had seen in about a dozen dorm rooms at her school already. Finny wondered if Judith still had the black clothes. She guessed not.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Judith was saying to Finny. Judith was still crying as she led Finny down the hallway. Finny dropped her bags here, not knowing what else to do with them. The wooden floorboards creaked under their footsteps. “It just got out of hand,” Judith said.

They passed the kitchen, a pretty room with large yellow tiles on the floor, a little window with long white curtains.

“What’s going on?” Finny asked. “Is someone hurt?”

“No,” Judith said. “At least, not yet. By the way, your brother’s here.”

The hallway turned to the left. There was a Bonnie and Clyde poster on the wall, Warren Beatty holding Faye Dunaway by her hips like he was about to kiss her. There was a bathroom on the left. The hallway ended at a glass-paned door that was now shut, a curtain pulled over the glass panes so that you couldn’t see into the room. Finny heard voices behind the door. She couldn’t make out what they were saying over her own creaking footsteps. But then someone yelled, “And I’m not fucking around anymore!”

Finny recognized Prince Hollibrand’s voice.

Judith turned the door handle, and the door squealed open. The scent of Prince’s cologne filled the room, like a thick sweet mist. Finny sneezed.

The first Finny saw of the room was a large television parked in front of a window that looked onto the apartment building across the street. There was a gray sofa facing the television, and beside the sofa’s arm was Prince, standing with hands on hips, that vein bulging in his temple. He looked every bit as chiseled and exaggeratedly handsome as he had when Finny met him. Only now his forehead was damp, as if he’d been under some strain. His skin reflected the overhead lights.

At first Finny couldn’t find Sylvan in the room at all. Prince took over the space, the way a large, colorful painting can dominate a gallery. Finny wondered if Sylvan had found a way out while Judith was getting the door.

“Hey,” Finny said to Prince, hoping that the presence of a near-stranger might calm him down.

“Hey,” a voice said. But it wasn’t Prince’s. It came from behind the gray couch. “Sylvan?” Finny said.

Sylvan stood up from behind the couch and looked at Finny. His eyes were unfocused, and he had a strange, excited smile on his face. Finny noticed a trickle of blood running from his mouth.

“Hey, Fin,” Sylvan said. “How was your trip?”

“What are you doing?” Finny asked.

“I just came to visit.” He was speaking casually, as if they were all sitting around over drinks, discussing their evenings. “It was supposed to be a surprise.” He laughed. “I guess it was.” Here Sylvan’s head dipped forward, and he had to brace himself on the back of the couch to keep from falling. He looked dizzy, and a little sick. He was paler than normal, and his hair flopped in a funny way over his ears.

“It was a big misunderstanding,” Judith said now. “I didn’t invite anyone, but they both showed up a little while ago. I was planning on spending the night with you, Finny.”

Finny nodded. She didn’t like the way Judith was appealing to her sympathies now, as if this were all just some funny scheduling mistake. But it wasn’t the time to tell Judith what she thought of the situation, of Judith’s part in it.

“I don’t like this,” Prince was saying to Judith. “This is the old me. This conflict is bringing out the worst in me, Judith. Could you please take care of this?” He spoke these last words through clenched teeth, and to Finny it sounded like a threat.

“I’m not leaving,” Sylvan said, and shrugged.

“It might be better if you did,” Finny said. She figured Sylvan was the best person to reason with. “It’ll give you all a chance to cool down. I’m sure you can talk it over once you settle down.”

“Oh, I’m settled,” Sylvan said. “I’m down.”

She wasn’t even sure he knew what he was saying. His head was drooping again. His eyelids began to close, like he was falling asleep. Then he started awake, and his eyes came wide open.

“Are you okay?” Finny asked him.

“This guy pushes pretty hard,” Sylvan said, nodding at Prince. “I might have knocked into something. And I have to admit I had a few drinks before.”

“You’re drunk,” Judith said.

“I don’t like to do this,” Prince said to Finny about the pushing. “‘An outside enemy exists only if there is anger inside.’”

“I think there’s some anger,” Sylvan said.

Prince stepped around the sofa arm and pushed Sylvan to the ground. He landed behind the sofa with a loud thump, and Finny worried that he’d hit his head again. She sneezed twice in the cloud of Prince’s cologne.

“Judith,” Prince said now, “could you please tell this ball boy to leave?”

“Stop it, Prince,” Judith said. “Stop hurting him, okay?”

“What am I supposed to do?” Prince said, turning to Judith. “I come over to my girlfriend’s apartment and I find some scrawny little penis-pulling matchstick trying to get into her bed.”

“You’re mixing metaphors,” Sylvan pointed out. “How can a matchstick pull a penis?”

“I never invited you over, Prince,” Judith said. “And I never said we were exclusive.”

“I’m hurt by this,” Prince said.

“So am I,” Judith said.

“Me, too,” Sylvan added from the floor.

“I would just leave, Sylvan,” Finny told him. “I really think it’ll end up better for you in the long run if you’re the one to walk away.”

“I thought of that,” Sylvan said, using the back of the couch to help him onto his feet again. He’d wiped most of the blood off his chin, and now there was just a faint red smear around his lips, like he’d been drinking tomato juice. “But it’s like I told you over Thanksgiving—I need to stand up for myself. I love Judith.” He turned to Judith. “I love you,” he said again, for her benefit.

“You don’t have to do this,” Judith told Sylvan. “It’s silly.”

“It’s worth having this brute beat on me a little if it helps you see how much you mean to me.”

“I’m not a brute,” Prince said, and then shoved Sylvan again. It was enough to set Sylvan off balance, but soon he regained his wobbly stance behind the couch.

“That’s it, Prince,” Judith said. “If you touch him one more time, I’m not talking to you. Ever. I mean it.”

“You hear that, you giant penis?” Sylvan said to Prince.

“Stop it,” Finny told her brother. “Stop taunting him.” She walked over to Sylvan and put an arm around him, intending to help him out of the room. She wanted to get him away from the apartment, away from Judith and Prince and this absurd scene.

But as they walked toward the door, Sylvan hesitated in front of Prince. For a moment he looked like he was going to toss out another insult. But instead he spat on Prince. Finny couldn’t believe it. The spit splashed Prince’s face, and a small gob of it landed in the crook between Prince’s neck and his shoulder.

“What the fuck?” Prince said. His hand flew to where the spit had landed, as if he were swatting a mosquito. When he felt the wet spot on his shoulder, Prince’s eyes widened. And then, without warning, he swung at Sylvan.

Finny saw the blow coming. Her perceptions were startlingly precise. It was as if she were watching the world at some slower speed than normal. She saw Sylvan duck out of the way. She heard Judith gasp. She saw Prince’s enormous fist coming toward her temple.

A shock of lights, a roaring noise, a moment of explosive pain.

Then everything went black.

Chapter26
Finny’s Convalescence

She woke with the cloying scent of Prince’s cologne in her nostrils. Her head felt like it was locked in a vise. Where was she? She heard some banging, someone in another room calling, “Medics! Open up!”

Then she recognized the gray sofa she was lying on, the television across from it. She saw a woman folding laundry in the apartment across the street. Sylvan was standing above her, saying, “Fin? Are you okay, Fin?”

“Bags,” she said.

“What?” Sylvan said.

Finny was trying to say that she’d left her luggage in front of the door, and that was why whoever was banging couldn’t get in, but she couldn’t seem to form the words. She was too tired. And it felt like someone was tightening the vise on her head.

“Where’s Judith?” Finny asked.

“She took the gorilla into the other room. He kept saying he was sorry, and wanted to stay and make sure you were okay. But Judith wouldn’t let him. You scared us, Fin. You were out cold for a second.”

“You’re an idiot,” Finny said to her brother.

“I’m sorry, Fin,” Sylvan said. “I really didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I just didn’t want to back down. I’m sure that’s what he expected.”

Finny sneezed. “Ow,” she said.

Then the paramedics burst into the room. There were two of them, wearing orange vests. One of the men had a large belly and, in his tightly cinched belt and vest, had something of the look of a trussed turkey. The other man was extremely thin, his face pocked like an orange peel, and his vest was so large on him that it billowed when he walked. They were rolling a metal gurney that clanked in the small room. Judith was behind them, trying to peer around at Finny.

“Okay,” the fat medic said in an unnecessarily loud and deliberate voice, like he was speaking into a megaphone. “Please tell us where the body is.”

“You’re okay,” Judith said, seeing that Finny was awake. Finny could hear the relief in Judith’s voice. Then Judith told the medics, “It’s not a body; it’s my friend.”

“I’m fine,” Finny said to the paramedics. “Really.” But when she tried to sit up, the screws tightened on her head and she had to lie back. “I just need a minute.”

But the fat paramedic shook his head. He was bald, and had a triangle of orange hair on his chin, a silver hoop earring in his left ear. “You are coming in to get checked out,” he informed Finny in his megaphone voice.

Then the thin one piped up, “Why don’t you just give her a minute, like she said?” His voice was actually deeper than the heavy man’s, and there was a sandpapery roughness to it. He had a couple days’ worth of stubble on his face, and his black hair looked unwashed, oily.

“You better go in and get checked out,” Sylvan said to Finny. “You look like you might be getting a black eye.”

“Then the toughs won’t mess with me at Stradler,” Finny joked.

“Seriously, Fin,” Judith said from behind the paramedics, “you should go.”

“All right,” Finny said. “Sure. Why not?” Her head really did hurt.

“Okay,” the fat paramedic said, “we will now load you on.”

“Do you have to announce everything?” the thin one said.

They helped her onto the gurney, and started to push her out of the room.

“It’s not going to make it around the bend with her on it,” the thin man said. “I can see from here. There’s no point.”

“The procedure is to try once before we make adjustments,” the heavy one said.

“You and your procedures,” the thin one said.

As predicted, the gurney couldn’t make the turn with Finny on it, and the men had to pick it up and tilt it.

“We will first tilt to the left,” the heavy paramedic said.

“You need to tilt right,” the thin one said. “The hallway turns right.”

“The procedure is left first, then right.”

The thin man rolled his eyes. The gurney swayed. Finny felt seasick from being tilted left then right. But she didn’t complain. She didn’t want to make the tension between the two medics worse.

“You need to go with the turn,” the thin one said. “It’s obvious.”

“Obvious is not necessarily right,” the fat one said.

“Are you crazy?” the thin one said. Then he looked at Finny. “Will you verify this guy is crazy?”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” the fat man said.

But the thin one went on, “Everything is rules, rules, rules. We had an old lady say sayonara the other day because fat Joe over here insisted Broadway was the shortest route to the hospital. Who takes Broadway through midtown in an ambulance? What are we, a fucking tour bus?”

“Sticks and stones,” the fat man repeated.

Finally they got Finny around the turn and out of the apartment. Prince must have left, because Finny didn’t see him during her trip to the elevator. Downstairs, as they were loading her in the ambulance, Sylvan said, “I feel so awful, Fin. That punch was meant for me.”

“Don’t worry,” Finny said. “I think I can take a punch better anyway.”

“I’m sorry!” Judith called to Finny as they were closing the ambulance doors.

“Don’t take Broadway,” Finny told the paramedics.

Finny spent a woozy night in the emergency room, getting poked, prodded, x-rayed, and blood-tested, shuttled from room to room. She was exhausted because of her long flight, the time change, and probably also the punch she’d taken. She fell asleep a couple times, and they had to wake her, telling her it was bad to sleep if she had a concussion. During the night she found her mind playing tricks on her because of the fatigue. At around two in the morning she realized you could rearrange the letters in concussion to spell unconscious, if you added a u. This seemed an urgent discovery, and she wanted to alert one of the nurses to it, but no one seemed to care. She attempted to notify a doctor, but this only caused him to believe she was suffering from a concussion, which prompted more tests, more hours of sleeplessness.

Then the doctor told her everything was okay. He let her sleep a couple hours in a hospital bed. In the morning, when they discharged her, Sylvan and Judith were in the waiting room, their eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. Judith’s hair was coming out of her ponytail, and her face looked puffy, as if from crying. Or maybe because she’d taken a nap.

“You’re not going back today,” Judith said.

“I have to,” Finny said. “I have class tomorrow.”

“It’s one day,” Sylvan said. “I’m sure you can make it up.”

“People are adding and dropping classes anyway,” Judith said. “Just come back and rest. I called my parents and told them you had a fall last night. They said we could stay at their place. It’ll be more comfortable for you. Come on.”

“Do it,” Sylvan said. “For your health, Fin. I’d feel awful letting you go back the way you are.”

“Are you coming?” she asked her brother. She wasn’t sure what his status with Judith was.

“I have to go back to Boston,” Sylvan said. “But call me tomorrow, okay?”

Finny agreed—more for her brother’s sake than hers, since she could see how guilty he felt.

Sylvan got on the subway. Judith paid for a cab to the Beresford for Finny and herself.

Inside the apartment at the Beresford, Judith told Finny, “You’re going to stay in my room. Don’t even think of protesting. You can go rest now. My dad is at his bridge game, and my mom is at a meeting. I’m going to get your bags from my apartment this afternoon, and I’ll be back by the time my parents get home for dinner.”

Finny lay down in Judith’s bed, and the next thing she knew it was five-thirty in the afternoon. She got up and looked outside at the darkened streets. Then she picked up a copy of The New Yorker magazine Judith had in the magazine rack by her bed. Finny started to read a long article about spices, thinking of Laura’s boyfriend, Gerald, but almost immediately her head began to feel like it was getting screwed into the vise again. She put down the magazine and lay back on the bed. In a minute she picked it up again, and read the first line. Gregory P. Mark is not the sort of man you’d expect to find in a police lineup. But then Finny’s vision went blurry, and she felt like her brain was about to pop out of her skull. Several more times she tried to read, and each time the headache came back worse than before. Finally she dropped the magazine back into the rack.

There was a light knock, and the bedroom door opened. “Hey,” Judith said. “How are you feeling?”

“Weird,” Finny said. “I can’t read anything.”

Judith looked concerned. “Well, maybe you should eat something. You haven’t eaten all day. My parents said we could have dinner early.”

“Sounds good,” Finny said. “How’s my eye look?”

“Not bad, actually,” Judith said. “I’ll give you some cover-up.”

Judith’s parents turned out to be not at all as Finny had imagined them. Because of Judith’s stories of her father’s trysts, Finny imagined a well-dressed, confident man. But the man who appeared in the dining room was neither of the above. He had a hunched posture, pinched features, and spindly legs that emerged like stalks from the running shorts he wore to the dinner table. He was soft-spoken, with a funny nervous way of talking. He asked Finny how she was feeling, and before she could even answer, he began to mutter a train of almost unintelligible courtesies: “Yes, yes, very good, thank you, nice to meet you, great, great, how lovely …”

Mrs. Turngate, on the other hand, was an authoritative woman. She had short dirty-blond hair, which she kept in a spiky style Finny was used to seeing on high schoolers. Judith had clearly inherited her wide jaw from her mother, whose flat cheeks and sharp little nose appeared the way a ship’s hull might look if it were approaching you while you were swimming. Mrs. Turngate’s features were like a clumsier version of Judith’s, and they put Finny in mind of how thin the line is between beauty and strangeness. Mrs. Turngate wasn’t a particularly large woman, but next to the stuttering Mr. Turngate, she was impressive with her straight posture and jutting bosom. She wore only gray clothes. Even her shoes and earrings were gray.

“Charcoal is my shade” she said when Finny commented on how well-coordinated her host’s clothes were. “Once I learned that, I have never worn anything else.”

Finny thought it was an odd look, but of course didn’t question this distinguished woman’s tastes. Mrs. Turngate asked Finny again how she was feeling after her fall, and Finny said she was doing much better. The cover-up that Judith had applied completely masked the bruise.

They sat down to dinner, which Judith’s mother had prepared. She said that it was meat loaf and vegetables, though to Finny it appeared as several indistinguishable gray mounds. They ate with heavy silverware, off the kind of china that feels light and breakable but that Finny knew to be very expensive. Their dining table—made of a glossy chocolate-cherry-colored wood—must have been twelve feet long, but they sat gathered in the middle, like animals huddled in the cold. Behind Mrs. Turngate there was a foggy modern-looking painting that heavily featured the color charcoal-gray Instead of wine, everyone was served a glass of cranberry juice in the gold-rimmed glasses Finny had seen at the party where she’d run into Earl.

“My dad thinks cranberry juice is the cure for everything,” Judith said.

“Panacea,” Mrs. Turngate said.

“Delicious,” Finny said.

Mr. Turngate followed this up with a string of polite comments: “Good, good, a lot of benefits, glad you like it, please come any time, help yourself, thank you, thank you, enjoy—”

“Linus,” Mrs. Turngate said to Judith’s father. “Let the girl eat.”

“Yes, very sorry, beg your pardon, please enjoy, so nice to have you …”

For a while they ate in silence. Judith hardly looked up from her plate. It was not the glamorous butlered meal Finny had envisioned when Judith had described her parents to her in their dorm room at Thorndon. Though none of them seemed uncomfortable with the silence. Finny guessed this must have been the way they spent all their meals.

Once they were finished with their food, and they had all drunk their cranberry juice, a stage of the meal Mr. Turngate observed with particular interest, Mrs. Turngate said to Finny, “I hear you are acquainted with our future son-in-law.”

“I believe so,” Finny said, wondering what Mrs. Turngate meant.

“Mom,” Judith said. “I’m not seeing Milton anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Turngate said. “Linus, did you hear that?”

“Yes, yes, well, takes time, all for the best, whatever makes you happy, your mother knows best….”

“What?” Judith said to her father. “I don’t understand what your point is.”

But her father looked positively terrified at being caught between Judith and her mother. He shrugged and turned the color of his cranberry juice.

“He’s been behaving badly,” Judith said to her mother about Prince. “You wouldn’t approve of it, Mom.”

Mrs. Turngate raised her eyebrows. “The Hollibrands are a good family,” she said. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘behaving badly,’ but you know I’ve always thought highly of Milton.”

“I know you have, Mom. But you hardly know him.”

“I know his family.”

And she left it at that. They asked Finny a few polite questions about her trip, and then everyone scattered to different rooms of the apartment.

Later that night, as Finny was brushing her teeth, Judith came into the bathroom and said to her, “I hope you know I’m never talking to that asshole again, after what he did to you. He can’t control himself. I didn’t want to get into it with my mom, since she’s best friends with Prince’s mom and they have this idea we’re going to end up together and live in the Hollibrands’ house in Westhampton. But it’s bullshit. I just want you to know that, Fin. I think Prince is an animal, and as far as I’m concerned, we’re done. I told Sylvan that last night, while we were waiting for you.”

Finny rinsed her mouth and spat into the sink. “Then what’s going on with you and Sylvan?”

“We’re going to see how it goes,” Judith said.

“That’s great,” Finny said. She looked at the skin around her eye, which was purple and a little puffy.

“Thanks,” Judith said. “I thought you’d approve.”

“Sylvan is an ass,” Finny said, “but he comes from a good family.”

Judith laughed at that for a long time, and Finny was glad to see Judith had a sense of humor about her mother.

“What’s the status with you and Earl?” Judith asked.

“I think ‘seeing how it goes’ about captures it.”

Finny tried to read the spice article again before she went to sleep, but the headache came back and she had to put the magazine down.

“What is it?” Judith said. They were sharing the bed, the way they had when Judith came to visit Finny in Maryland all those years ago.

“It’s my head. Every time I read.”

“I think you should take a few days here, Fin. Till you feel better. It won’t make a difference. Actually, they never discuss anything the first week anyway.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Finny said, because her head really did hurt, and she worried about traveling if she couldn’t read any signs. Plus, what use would she be at Stradler if she couldn’t read?

“I’ll give it another day,” Finny said.

“Perfect,” Judith said, and they went to sleep.

Chapter27
Several Significant Developments

“Master of the house, keeper of the wine …”

Finny was blinking out of sleep as she heard the words to this familiar song. The digital alarm clock by the bed read 10:48. “Holy shit,” Finny said.

“And good morning to you, too,” said the voice that had been singing a moment before. Carter stood by the bed where Finny lay, his skinny body clothed in a brightly patterned child-size argyle sweater, fitted jeans, and red sneakers. His hair was mussed in the careful way Finny had seen it at Judith’s party, swooping over his right ear and sticking up like a cowlick in back.

“I hope you’re ready to make something of this afternoon,” Carter went on. “I’ve been assigned to entertain you while Judith is in class, and my call time isn’t till four-thirty, so you better be ready to enjoy this goddamn beautiful day.”

“How’s it going, Carter?”

“Lovely, darling,” he said, bending over to smack a kiss on Finny’s cheek. “By the way, that’s a nasty bruise you’ve got.”

“It’s from a nasty bruiser, as you might have heard.”

“Bits and pieces.”

“Can you give me a few minutes to make some calls and brush my teeth?” Finny asked.

“Well,” Carter said, with an exaggerated air of frustration, “if you must. Then I suppose I could be persuaded to investigate the contents of the Turngates’ well-stocked liquor cabinet. But just know that you are responsible for driving me to such extremes of behavior.”

“You’re going to drink at eleven in the morning?”

“New York is a tough, tough city,” Carter said, and then left in search of the liquor cabinet.

Finny found her phone card in her backpack. She was delighted to see that her headache wasn’t as bad when she read the instructions on the back. The first call she made was to Sylvan. The machine picked up, so she left a message. “Hey, Syl, it’s your sister. I decided to stay at Judith’s an extra night because my head was bothering me yesterday, but I’m feeling better today and will probably head back tonight or tomorrow. Judith told me that you and she are talking, and you have my, uh, blessing, I guess. Take care. Bye.”

The next call was to Dorrie. She told her roommate that her flights had been delayed but that she’d be back soon and not to worry.

The third call was a bit longer distance. She knew she shouldn’t be making a bunch of overseas phone calls to a man who wasn’t even her boyfriend; but still, Earl would appreciate knowing she’d gotten in safely. And she needed some kind of closure to her trip. She figured a phone call might put the proper seal on it. She decided not to mention anything about Prince and the black eye, because what would be the point? Angry as she was, it would be impossible to explain to Earl that she also felt bad for Prince. Luckily, Earl picked up.

“Earl, it’s Finny.”

“Hey!” Earl said, in the excited way he always greeted Finny’s voice. “How was your trip?”

“Good,” Finny said. “Listen, I’m on a phone card and can’t talk long. But everything’s fine. I ended up staying at Judith’s an extra night and couldn’t get away to call you. The main thing is, I want to tell you I read your story and I loved it. It’s so good, Earl.”

“I can’t tell you how great that is to hear, Finny.”

There was a pause, as if neither of them knew where to go from here. Then Earl said, “I guess I have one other piece of news, which is that I sent the story to a literary magazine in the States and they accepted it. They’re going to publish it in their next issue.”

“Oh my God!” Finny screamed. “That’s amazing! Congratulations!” She was astonished. A publication! Earl was only twenty years old.

“I’m glad you’re excited, too,” Earl said.

“Earl, you’re really talented. I always had a feeling. But it’s great to see it. What’s the magazine called?”

“You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s called Aftershock. But it’s a pretty good one. They sell it at Barnes & Noble. I’m even getting a check.”

“The first of many, I’m sure,” Finny said.

“Well, thanks. I hope so.”

Another pause. Like a little wall, an obstacle they had to hop over every time they spoke to each other. Why had Earl placed this barrier there?

She was about to tell Earl how sad it made her, when he said, “I know you have to head off, but I wanted to tell you that this stuff with the publication made me think about some things. And there’s something else I want to talk to you about, when you have—”

But here the line clicked off. The phone card was out of minutes.

“Damn,” Finny said. She picked up the phone and began to dial Earl’s number again, breathless for his news. But then she hesitated. She wasn’t sure what Judith’s parents would think of getting a call to France on their phone bill—even if they could have afforded several thousand calls to France. She decided she’d get a phone card while she was out with Carter, and call Earl back as soon as she returned to the apartment. She’d have to wait to call her mother, too, but Finny wasn’t so worried about that, since Laura hadn’t even asked the exact day when Finny was coming home.

“Okay!” Finny called to Carter after she’d washed up and gotten dressed. “Let’s go!” She’d found the cover-up and applied it again over her bruise.

“Yoorall better,” Carter said when he saw her. She smelled what she thought was gin on his breath.

“You on the other hand.”

But Carter didn’t pay attention. “I’m ship shop,” he said. “Shape soap.” He shook his head. “Shipshape. There we go.”

And they went.

“You’re probably starving,” Carter said when they were on the street. “If you were subjected to Bonnie Turngate’s cooking last night.”

“So you’ve tried her food?”

“Murder. Absolute murder. She could sap the flavor out of a bottle of hot sauce.”

It was a bright, cold afternoon, the branches of the trees along Central Park clacking in a gusty wind. The fresh air seemed to have diminished the effect of the alcohol on Carter. A man in a spandex running suit trotted past them, his breath clouding. Sunlight glittered on the cars. Finny could smell nuts roasting in a cart sitting at the entrance to the park.

“I guess I am kind of hungry,” Finny admitted.

“Then there’s only one solution,” Carter said. “Chinatown.”

They took the train to Canal Street, then walked down the Bowery. Finny had never been to this part of the city before, with the roasted ducks hanging in the windows, the bags of Asian sweets lined up in the grocery stores, the smell of fish and frying oil in the alleyways. She recognized a number of products from the cache of Asian food Poplan had kept in her room at Thorndon. Though now Finny could see what the fresh fruits looked like: pods of jackfruit in their bumpy cases, lychees, soursops, and kumquats. A man ran out from one of the restaurants and dumped a bucket of fish heads into a drainage grate by Finny’s feet.

“Brunch, anyone?” Finny said.

Carter took Finny to a Vietnamese restaurant he knew in a little horseshoe street off the Bowery. The restaurant was in the windowless basement of a somewhat run-down building, a festive shade of red paint flaking off the walls, and when they walked in, they were the only customers. A bored-looking staff eyed them as they made their way to a table. When the waiter came, he nodded to Carter, as if he knew him, and Carter told him the dishes they wanted in Vietnamese.

“No banh xeo,” the waiter said, shaking his head.

“Come on,” Carter said. “Just one.”

“Let me check,” the waiter said.

“We go through this every time,” Carter said when the waiter had left. “I ordered this Vietnamese crêpe, which is the best thing on the menu, but they hate to make the batter, so they only serve it to Vietnamese people and tell everyone else they’re out of it.”

The waiter came back. “One order,” he said to Carter. “All we have.”

“That’s great,” Carter said, and the waiter left again.

The crêpe turned out to be delicious. It was a thin, crisp pancake made from coconut milk and eggs, folded like an omelet around pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts. You wrapped lettuce leaves and fresh herbs around it and dipped the pieces in a salty translucent sauce.

Over the crêpe Finny said to Carter, “I feel bad intruding on Judith’s parents.”

“Why?” Carter said. “I’d do it if I could. In fact, since your little run-in, I’ve been considering getting punched by Prince just so I could live it up in the Turngate apartment for a week.”

“Yeah, but I feel like I’m in the way. Judith used to tell me, when we were at school together, that her father lived a certain kind of lifestyle.”

“You mean like cranberry juice and bridge games?”

“No, I mean like extramarital affairs. She said he liked to bring his girlfriend home in the middle of the day.”

For a second Carter stared blankly at Finny, his mouth open, displaying a half-chewed bite of banh xeo. Then he erupted in laughter. He laughed so hard he nearly slid out of his chair, and the waiter who had served them shook his head, as if he’d wasted the crêpe on someone who obviously wasn’t fit to eat it. Finny wasn’t sure what was so funny about this—she actually found the situation with Judith’s parents a little sad—but by the time Carter had seated himself again, he was gripping his stomach as if in pain.

“I’m sorry,” Carter said. “It’s just—I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous. Could you imagine Linus Turngate conducting an affair?” Then Carter launched into a brief imitation of one of Mr. Turngate’s polite litanies: “Yes, thank you, please only lick my left testicle, yes, very nice, do you want it harder? Good, good, very nice to see you, do I make you horny? Very good, bye.”

Finny laughed, but she couldn’t help feeling a little hurt, too, as if Carter were making fun of Finny’s credulity as much as Mr. Turngate’s trains of courtesies. “Where did she get that idea, then?” Finny asked Carter. “Why would she say all those things?”

Here Carter stopped laughing. He watched Finny for a moment, the way a doctor might before delivering a poor prognosis to a patient. “There’s something you have to understand, Finny,” Carter said. “About Judith.”

Finny recalled the talk she’d had with Poplan about Judith, way back at Thorndon, a talk that had begun similarly. And the discussion with her brother, only a few weeks ago, where Finny had seemed to be the expert on Judith.

“Sometimes she says things she doesn’t really mean,” Carter went on. “It’s not that she’s lying, exactly. It’s that she likes a certain kind of attention. So she’ll tell you things to get that attention. I can imagine that when she was fifteen, and just learning how a penis fits into a vagina—excuse the language—she would be coming up with all kinds of theories about whose was fitting into whose. But I can tell you for a fact that your brother was the first guy she slept with, and that Prince Hollibrand was the second. There was one other, once, as a payback to Prince. But that’s the whole sexual history of Madame Turngate, whatever else she might lead you to believe.”

Just as Carter was finishing his speech, the waiter arrived with their entrées, a steamy beef noodle soup and a plate of panfried beef cubes with lettuce and tomato and a sauce that had flecks of pepper floating in it. The waiter removed the plate that had held the crêpe, still shaking his head, as if over the loss of a close friend. Both Carter and Finny stared at the new food without moving.

“This is delicious,” Carter said, pointing at the beef cubes. “You dip them in that sauce, which has lemon juice, salt, and pepper. You’re going to go crazy over how it tastes.”

Finny looked at the food for a few seconds. She knew that Carter was bringing attention to it to save Finny from the embarrassment of her mistaken assumptions about Judith. How many people could Finny get wrong? Suddenly she wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Do you think we could take some of this home?” she said.

“Look,” Carter said, “I love Judith, Finny. The same way you do. She’s magnetic. She’s big and beautiful and smart. And even though I’m as gay as a poodle in a peacoat, I’d still probably bone her once, the same way I would Judy Garland or Andrew Lloyd Webber—just to say I did it.

“But I don’t trust a word that comes out of her mouth. That’s why I’m always on her case. Especially around you. Because I know she’s playing it up for you. She thinks you see her as some gorgeous, vivacious, cosmopolitan woman, and she likes to think of herself that way.”

“I suppose I am taken in by some of that,” Finny admitted.

“As you damn well should be,” Carter said. “Just know it for what it is.”

“Okay,” Finny said. “Thanks.”

“Now eat some of this bo luc lac before I smack you.” Carter smiled. “As a friend.”

Finny called Earl when she got back to the Beresford, but there was no answer. What had he wanted to say? What could be so important that he hadn’t told her while she was in France? She decided to hang up before the machine came on, so she wouldn’t waste her phone card minutes. She was considering calling her mom but instead decided to pack. It was only four. She could still get back to Stradler at a reasonable hour.

Carter had left for his catering job, which he’d described as “seven hours of getting fucked in the ass in a way even I can’t enjoy.” Finny liked Carter more and more the better she got to know him. He was dramatic, she was aware, but he really was very good at knowing people for what they were, as he’d put it. It was like he couldn’t help saying what he thought, no matter how discordant. Which reminded Finny of the way she used to be.

When she was done packing, Finny tried Earl again. It was almost eleven o’clock Paris time, and she couldn’t imagine where he would be at that hour. The phone rang once, twice, three times.

Then someone picked up. “Allo?” It was Earl.

“Hey,” Finny said. “I’m sorry I lost you before. My phone card ran out of minutes.”

“It’s okay. I figured.”

“I tried you before, but you weren’t around. You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”

“Yeah. It’s actually why I wasn’t in my room. I’ve been discussing it with my mom all evening.”

“What is it?”

There was a pause. “I think I’m ready to leave Paris,” Earl said.

“What do you mean?” Finny asked.

“I mean, I think it’s time for me to move away. When I was in New York, I realized I could do it. Live there. And getting this story published was a huge thing for me. It gave me confidence that I’m on the right track. I’ve been thinking about what we talked about the other night. About how things would be with us. And you’re right. I don’t want to be apart either. I want to be with you, Finny. Completely with you. I want to move to the States for you.

“I told my mom tonight, and actually she took it surprisingly well. She’s really happy for me. She loves you. She said she would come visit us. I think she’d be okay. I know this is the right thing. I mean, if you’re still up for it.”

It was all coming so quickly, Finny thought. She didn’t know what to say. Happiness wasn’t the word to describe what she was feeling. More like shock.

“Finny?” Earl said.

“Yeah.”

“Well? What do you think? I thought you might have a response.”

“I think it’s the best news I’ve ever gotten.”

She could hear Earl exhale on the other end of the line. She wanted, as she had many times before, to reach across the phone wire and touch his face. “I’m so happy to hear you say that,” he said. “I just have this whole idea of how our life can be. I’ll rent an apartment near your school. I can get a job somewhere close by, at a restaurant or something. I’ll write in the mornings. We’ll have every night together. I’m really ready for this.”

“It sounds like a dream,” Finny said. “I couldn’t imagine anything better.”

“You don’t have to imagine,” Earl said. “This is real.”

The rest of the afternoon, though, passed somewhat like a dream in that Finny had the sense she was floating through it, or maybe above it, not totally there. When Judith returned, Finny told her she was going to head back to Stradler that evening. She said she’d love to spend the night with Judith but that she wanted to get to school and see her grades before her mom got them. And Finny was still deciding between two English classes, so she wanted a chance to sit in on both. She told Judith to thank her parents again for letting her stay, and she hoped she hadn’t been too much of a disturbance.

To Finny’s surprise, Judith didn’t protest. She said she understood. She said it was probably time for her to get down to work, too, but that she’d call Finny over the weekend. She said that Finny’s face looked much better, not puffy at all, almost completely healed.

At Penn Station, Finny decided she’d take the Amtrak back to Philadelphia. She didn’t think she could stay focused enough to make all the transfers on the New Jersey Transit. She was reeling. Visions of her new life kept flashing in her mind: roasting in bed with Earl; the two of them reading together at night; meals at their little kitchen table; Earl coming back from work, exhausted but happy, falling into her arms. She was giddy with the possibility of it.

On the train she opened her bag to find some reading material, something to slow her spinning thoughts. She pulled out a magazine, and realized it was The New Yorker she’d been reading at Judith’s parents’ apartment. She must have packed it with her things by mistake, she’d been so absentminded.

She opened the magazine back to the article she’d been reading about spices, deciding she’d give it one more go. She was still having trouble focusing on anything, but she got the gist of the first page, about how spice importers grind up all kinds of things and try to pass them off as rare spices. How they set up phony identities and business records. How they pull in gullible investors.

Finny flipped the page and began to read about a man named Gregory P. Mark, who went by various pseudonyms and who owned a company called Futurecook. The company sold extremely rare spices that you could buy only in very small quantities. As she read, she felt a twitchy uneasiness in her chest. She knew she was going to have to ask her mother some questions.

Dorrie wasn’t in the room when Finny got back. Finny dialed Laura’s number the minute she put down her bags. She’d read the article from start to finish on the train. She knew what she had to say.

“Hello?” Laura said when she picked up.

“Mom,” Finny said.

“Hi, sweetie. How was your trip?”

“It was fine. Great, I mean. But, Mom, I need to ask you a question.”

“Finny, it’s unfortunate, but I must tell you that people will take offense if you don’t begin a phone conversation by asking how they are.”

Finny sighed. She knew her mother must have been in particularly good spirits, since she was back to offering her opinions as objective truths. She’d hardly done that since Stanley had died. Finny assumed things must have been going well with Gerald, which was a good sign. It meant that maybe Finny was wrong about him, or possibly that Laura hadn’t been pulled in yet.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Finny said. “It’s just that, what I have to ask you is pretty important. Really important, actually.”

“Oh,” Laura said, and Finny could imagine the blank look on Laura’s face. It was an expression she’d begun to have after Finny’s father died, and it seemed to reappear whenever bad news was about to be dropped.

“I wanted to ask you what’s going on with Gerald,” Finny said.

“Oh,” Laura said again, her voice much lighter. “Is that it? Well, it’s going fine. Thanks for asking, sweetheart.”

“No, Mom. I mean—I guess I’m not being clear. I was just reading this article. I think there might have been a part about Gerald in it.”

“He’s a very well-regarded businessman. People like that have articles written about them all the time.”

“But this article, Mom—it wasn’t about business, exactly. It was about stealing. It was about a scam that a guy named Gregory P. Mark is pulling. He has a bunch of fake names, and I realized that Gerald’s name, Kramp, is P. Mark backward.”

“Such a funny coincidence,” Laura said.

Finny knew the way Laura had of pushing uncomfortable details to the side, smiling that undefeatable smile of hers, waving at drivers who wanted to kill her.

“It’s not a coincidence,” Finny went on. “I’m pretty sure it’s Gerald. Your boyfriend, Mom. Everything in the article sounds like him. I think he’s a criminal.”

Finny went on to explain how Gregory P. Mark’s fraud operated. He would attend events that were often populated by single women with money—widows or divorcées. Lectures in the middle of the day, museum tours, wine tastings and cooking classes—these were the places he’d locate his targets. He would start casually, simply striking up a conversation, and then usually the conversation would continue in some more private setting—a bar or a restaurant. It would be like a date, except Gregory would spend most of the time talking about his business ventures, how successful they were, how much money he’d made from certain deals. If the woman was impressed, he would keep seeing her over time, and talk more and more about his new project: spices. He offered samples, even began to interest some local specialty businesses in his products. The spices were really just combinations of other store-bought spices you could buy for almost nothing. But Mr. Mark hired a food scientist to blend them, and then they gave the spices exotic names. He could sell a small jar for a hundred dollars. He’d even fooled some very knowledgeable tasters. All of which gave the women he dated more confidence in him. They practically insisted on backing his company.

The problem came when the products were tested. The business would fall flat at that point. But Gregory P. Mark was always able to wriggle free of legal ramifications, claiming he’d been duped by his suppliers. He’d shake his head and manage to walk away with a significant amount of the money the investors had given him, which he’d remove to various offshore accounts. He’d pulled the scam in a dozen states. And he was yet to be indicted.

Finny read to her mother a short passage in the New Yorker article she thought would be particularly persuasive. “‘The key to Gregory Mark’s success as a con artist is not his business savvy or the initial results he supplies; it’s his manner. He seems on the surface to be easygoing, almost inhumanly flexible. He’s known for using the catchphrase that has become his business motto: ‘Whatever you want.’ Yet one of his former business associates remarked, ‘The funny thing is, it always turns out that Greg gets whatever he wants. It’s just that you’d never suspect that such a fool could be swindling you. And once you do, he’s out the door with your money.’”

Finny stopped there. She waited for her mother to comment. She hadn’t wanted to present her case quite so forcefully, at least not yet.

“Mom?” Finny said.

No response.

“Mom, are you there?”

In a moment Finny heard a choked sobbing on the other end of the line, and she realized her mother must have been muffling her crying with a towel or a pillow.

“I gave him everything,” Laura said. “Everything I had.”

“Oh God. Listen, Mom,” Finny said. “You have to listen to me. Mom?”

“Mm-hm.”

“I think the worst thing you can do now is tell Gerald you suspect anything. The second you do that, he’ll be in another state and you won’t even be able to find his phone number.”

“So what do I do?” Laura sounded so much like a child that Finny had to remind herself she was speaking to a fifty-six-year-old woman.

“We’ll think about it,” Finny said. “I know someone who might be able to help.”

Chapter28
The Spice Trade

There was one nice surprise for Finny when she started classes the next day: she’d received A’s in all her classes the first semester. Well, almost all. An A– in her philosophy class, which was a nagging disappointment. But she realized she was being a perfectionist. She hadn’t studied quite as hard for the philosophy final, since she’d found the contemporary philosophers such a chore to read. She’d done pretty well for her first semester, especially considering all the disruptions. She let herself be proud.

Her roommate was hardly around at all anymore. Finny had to practically hunt Dorrie down to give her the Eiffel Tower key chain she’d bought for her, and the package of chocolates from Angelina. Dorrie thanked Finny profusely but seemed distracted. She was spending every night in Steven Bench’s room. Please screw him already, Finny wanted to tell her roommate. You’ll probably go to hell for thinking about it so much anyway, so why not at least enjoy it?

Finny’s eye had healed well enough by Friday that she hardly needed any cover-up. She called Sylvan, told him she was going to visit Laura, that their mother was having some “relationship issues.” Sylvan asked if she needed help, but Finny said she’d be fine. On Friday afternoon she took the Greyhound to Baltimore. Her mother offered to pick her up at the station, but Finny insisted she’d get a cab. She wanted to keep her head clear for what she knew would be a difficult evening with Gerald Kramp, and a car ride with her mother was not the best way to stay focused. Plus, Laura had her own part to prepare.

Finny arrived at Laura’s house a little after six. She had just enough time to shower and get dressed for dinner. The dinner guests were due at seven o’clock.

The first to arrive were Poplan and Mr. Henckel, whom Finny greeted with enthusiastic hugs, thanking them for coming. Poplan kept her gloves on when she shook hands with Laura, who was in no state to deal with hand washing requests. Finny had hashed out the plan with Poplan; she knew Poplan would be meticulous about the details.

Mr. Henckel, who hadn’t been informed that there was a plan at all, was delighted with the invitation to such a “distinguished party,” as he put it. He was dressed in what Finny took to be his finery, which consisted of a black suit in the boxy zoot suit style, complete with a gold watch chain and a jaunty wide-brimmed hat, with pictures of playing cards, dice, and poker chips on the band. The outfit gave him something of the air of a retired pimp. Fortunately, he removed the hat at the door, revealing his usual comb-over style, except that Poplan seemed to have slicked down the unruly flap of hair that sometimes flopped over his ear when he fell asleep.

Poplan, who was of course well apprised of the plan, had sought to match Mr. Henckel’s exuberant choice of attire with one of the many fashions available in her extensive wardrobe. She’d chosen a 1920s-style blue and gray flapper dress, with black stockings and a feathered hat that suggested less the era of gangsters and prohibition than some sort of wildlife conservation project.

When she saw Finny’s response to the hat, she said, “What? You asked us to dress up.”

“And you did,” Finny said.

“Well,” Poplan said, removing the hat to display her cropped gray hair, “I wouldn’t expect everyone to have such an acute sense of fashion as I.”

They all said how glad they were to meet one another, and Laura thanked them for coming to help her. Finny had simply explained that Poplan and Mr. Henckel were her former teachers. Finny’s mother seemed shaky and a bit nervous, so as they made their way to the kitchen, Finny touched Laura’s arm and told her to relax, that it would all go fine.

Mr. Henckel, on the other hand, seemed remarkably at ease in these new surroundings. Whereas he had been so shy before when meeting people, it seemed that having Poplan around emboldened him. He strutted through the house, one hand jammed in the pocket with the watch chain, the other swinging by his side, snapping lightly to the beat of his footsteps. In the dining room, he looked through the doors at the lion sculpture and said, “Nice lion.”

“Thank you,” Laura said.

Mr. Henckel greeted this response with a nod, and several rather suave smile-frowns.

“So,” Poplan said to Finny and Laura, “I take it our friend isn’t here yet. Are we all ready?”

“The stew is done,” Laura said. “And Gerald knows he’s bringing the spices. He said they would be some very special ones, since I told him we’re having guests.”

“That’s great, Mom,” Finny said, patting Laura again on the arm. “And I put some white wine in the refrigerator.”

“Wonderful,” Poplan said.

Gerald arrived at seven-fifteen, completing their party. He greeted everyone with hardy handshakes, flashing his brilliantly white canine smile. He was dressed in what looked to Finny like an expensive gray suit, with wide lapels and polished shoes. He’d brought with him several small pouches of spices, and Laura directed him to the stew she’d made, inviting him to “go to work.”

“I’d love to know what you’re putting in there,” Poplan said.

“This first one is called baharat,” Gerald said. “It’s a blend of some of the finest spices from around the world: Sri Lankan cloves, Saigon cinnamon, Spanish paprika, Chinese tien tsin peppers. Only the best of each, of course.”

Then he sprinkled another pouch of spices over the tray of vegetables Laura had roasted in the oven.

“This one is a very rare wild oregano found only in the mountains of Greece. They call it rigani, but that name refers to all the wild Greek oregano. This one is particularly hard to procure.” He flashed another blinding display of teeth.

“They must be very expensive,” Poplan said.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Gerald said.

“Is it hard to make sure they’re pure?”

“It is,” Gerald said, pleased that Poplan was so interested in his business. “But of course I do all the work to make sure these are one hundred percent. That’s why people are willing to pay the big bucks for them.” He nodded at Laura, and they exchanged smiles.

“Let’s have some wine,” Finny said. “What do you think, Gerald?”

“Whatever you want,” he said. Then, in a moment, he added, “Though I do happen to know that a nice bottle of medium-bodied dry white wine is the best thing to bring out the subtle flavors in these exquisite spices. But that’s neither here nor there. You should enjoy them any way you like.”

“Then I guess we should have white wine,” Laura said. She seemed to have relaxed once Gerald had come in the door. She delivered the line convincingly.

“That’s fine with me,” Gerald said. “I just want you to be happy. All of you.”

In the New Yorker article, Finny had read how Gregory P. Mark liked to have everyone drinking when they tried his spices, especially if the tasters were experienced. They were more easily impressed that way.

Finny popped open a bottle of wine and poured everyone a glass. She was especially careful to pour Mr. Henckel a full glass.

Mr. Henckel drank swiftly, which prompted an extended confession about a time when he had been touring with the “dance” troupe and the dancers had persuaded him to join them onstage for a “disrobing routine.”

“I was actually quite successful at it,” Mr. Henckel added, his free hand still swinging and snapping by his side. “Though I must admit that certain aspects of the male anatomy undergo changes when subjected to sudden cold.” Here he began to sweat, and had to momentarily cease his snapping in order to mop his forehead with the handkerchief he always carried with him.

Poplan was shaking her head at him, but everyone else seemed to be amused, to Finny’s relief. Even Laura smiled, though she probably hadn’t absorbed a word of the story. Gerald was laughing especially hard. He must have thought Mr. Henckel was joking.

Finny opened another bottle of wine and poured glasses all around. Gerald was drinking much more slowly than he had at Thanksgiving, probably because he wasn’t sure how distinguished Poplan’s and Mr. Henckel’s palates were, and he wanted to make sure their perceptions were adequately dulled.

In another few minutes they sat down to dinner. Laura and Finny served the stew, which was made from braised lamb and potatoes. Laura had roasted all kinds of vegetables to go alongside: carrots and beans and broccoli and tomatoes. Mr. Henckel was helping himself to a third glass of wine by the time everyone was ready to eat.

They all took a bite.

“Delicious,” Finny said.

“Astounding,” Poplan said.

“You see?” Gerald said. “Spices.”

Laura nodded supportively.

After a few more bites they looked to Mr. Henckel for his opinion. He had also been nodding at people’s comments, but Finny could see that his eyelids were drooping. In a moment he slumped forward, his nose only inches from his stew. Poplan had told Finny the wine would have this effect. Plus, he would sleep for longer, which would give them the time they needed.

“Oh my God,” Poplan said now, looking alarmed.

“What?” Gerald said. “What is it?”

“He’s—Oh, Jesus,” Poplan said.

“Is he okay?” Gerald asked.

“What’s happening?” Finny said.

“Should I call an ambulance?” Laura asked.

“Do you know what’s in the stew?” Poplan asked.

Laura listed the ingredients: lamb, tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, flour, onions, wine, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, potatoes.

“Yes!” Poplan shouted. “Go! Go! Call an ambulance! Tell them he could die.”

Laura dashed out of the room.

“Why?” Gerald said. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s got very serious food allergies,” Poplan said. Her military bearing suited this situation well. She appeared like the sort of person who could be calm but firm under extreme pressure.

“To what?” Gerald said.

“The two things he absolutely can’t eat,” Poplan said, “are nuts and marjoram. Marjoram makes him pass out. Nuts make his throat close up. If he eats them together, it’s a lethal combination.”

Gerald’s face went white. He gulped several times, and looked around the room, like a trapped rabbit. Finny had read in The New Yorker that the most common counterfeit oregano used marjoram instead of the wild plant, and that ground nuts were often substituted for the more expensive ingredients in Middle Eastern spices.

“I never thought to mention it,” Poplan went on, “since Laura told me what she was making, and of course your spices are so pure. That’s why I asked you what was in them.”

“I—” Gerald started, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out. This was exactly what Poplan had guessed would happen. Gerald was a con artist, not a killer; he didn’t want to be responsible for anyone dying.

“What?” Finny said. “What is it?”

“There might be some marjoram in there. And some nuts, too,” Gerald said. His lips looked dry, and he kept moving them after he’d finished speaking, though no sounds came out.

“I don’t believe this,” Poplan said. “What are you telling me?”

“The spices,” Gerald said. “They might not be a hundred percent pure.”

“Do you know that for a fact? Because I need to tell the paramedics what shots to give him. Tell me exactly what was in what.”

“There is marjoram in the oregano, and nuts in the baharat.”

“But I thought you said it was pure,” Finny said.

“I have a guy,” Gerald blurted out. “Sometimes he mixes in some extra ingredients.”

“Why does he do that?” Finny asked.

“He … Well—People can’t tell the difference. It saves a lot of money.”

“So you’re lying to people?”

“Not lying,” Gerald said. “Marketing.”

Mr. Henckel’s breathing was becoming heavier and more agitated. He was beginning to snore.

“Oh God,” Poplan said. “His throat is closing up.”

“What can we do?” Gerald said. “Please save him.”

And then Mr. Henckel snorted awake. Gerald leapt out of his chair and put his hands over his face. Laura must have heard the snort from the other room, because she walked back in at that moment.

Gerald slowly took his hands away from his eyes and said to Mr. Henckel, “What’s this? You’re okay.”

“I’m very sorry,” Mr. Henckel said, shaking his head. Finny could see that he was embarrassed for falling asleep at the dinner table. “It just comes upon me.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Poplan told Mr. Henckel.

“You did great,” Finny said.

Mr. Henckel seemed satisfied with these compliments. He produced a winning smile-frown and resumed some light snapping under the table. Gerald, on the other hand, didn’t seem to know what to make of these developments. He stood there, next to the dining room table, his mouth moving but no words coming out.

Then Poplan brought the tape recorder out of her pocket. It was a Dictaphone—the type lawyers use to dictate memos. Poplan held the recorder up toward Gerald and very carefully pressed the stop button. The click sounded loud as a gunshot in the silent room.

Gerald looked at the tape recorder for what felt like a full minute without saying anything. His lips just kept moving around words no one could hear. He glanced at Laura, then back at the Dictaphone.

“I read an article about you in a magazine,” Finny said to Gerald.

Then Poplan continued. “We know you’re in a lot of trouble, so we’re willing to offer you a deal. This tape has everything on it. You say exactly which spices you used, and admit that they’re phony. In addition,” Poplan couldn’t help adding, “you sound like an ass.”

Gerald must have been too wounded to even acknowledge this final swipe, let alone fight back. “Deal?” he said.

“All we want is my mom’s money back,” Finny said. “You give her the money, we give you the tape. If you don’t give us the money, we’re making copies of the tape and sending them to the police and The New Yorker. We know you’ve already got a lot of money to run away with, so this is a pretty good deal for you.”

“Okay,” Gerald said, nodding vigorously. “That’s fine. I can give you a check and we can go to the bank tomorrow and cash it together. Or else I can try to get you large bills. What do you prefer?”

Finny smiled, and said, “Whatever you want.”

Chapter29
Back at Stradler

It was a funny thing. The plan had worked perfectly: Gerald had written a check for the exact amount Laura had invested in his business, and they’d deposited the money and handed over the tape; and yet Laura seemed less than thrilled with the results. She was of course very polite. Who would have expected anything less of Laura Short? She continued to thank Poplan and Mr. Henckel for everything they’d done. She said she’d be forever indebted to them. She told Finny she would never forget what a wonderful daughter she was, or how she’d come to Laura’s aid in her time of need. And yet, Finny could tell there was something missing. There was a hollowness in Laura’s voice when she talked about Gerald. As much as she spoke of her relief and the exhilaration of fooling the man who’d taken her money, Finny knew her mother was depressed.

Still, they parted amiably. Laura took Finny to the train station on Sunday, and Finny gripped the seat and smiled as her mother risked their lives numerous times in speeding traffic. Finny could see that her mother was hardly looking at the cars in front of her. It was like the way she’d stared at things after Stanley died, and Finny understood for the first time how afraid her mother was of the world that had betrayed her again and again. That startled, nervous look she’d always had when Finny misbehaved as a child—it was fear, Finny saw, fear that all the smiling and cleaning and organizing in the world couldn’t stop life from making a mess.

Nonetheless, Finny and her mother hugged tightly in front of the doors of the train station, until a traffic cop asked Laura to move her car. “Thank you, sweetheart,” Laura said, waving to Finny as she pulled away. The driver she’d cut off honked at her, and Laura waved at him.

Back at Stradler, Finny decided to walk to her dorm by the main path through the center of campus rather than by the side route she normally took. It was a gorgeous, bright, cold afternoon, and Finny liked walking along the tree-lined road, the bare limbs of trees twitching in the wind like bony fingers. There was something Finny enjoyed about these days before Earl arrived, about the anticipation, but also the loneliness itself, like she was standing outside a house where a loud party was taking place. She liked long walks on cold afternoons, dinners by herself, the comfortable solitude of her life at Stradler. She saw that it would be different when Earl was there, that she’d lose some of this private space.

And another very strange thought struck her now, as she was walking up the path that ended at the columned façade of Griffen Hall. She realized she’d be okay if she were by herself. Not that she wanted to be. But that she could be. She hoped and intended to spend her life with Earl now that he’d come around, but if for some reason it didn’t work out, she knew she wouldn’t risk all this again. She’d be content with her walks and her studies and the small joys a lonely person experiences: the scent of laundry, sunlight filtered through leaves, dinners with friends, rain tapping on a window. It was enough to get you through.

Behind Finny on the path was a tour group. The guide was telling a crowd of prospective students and their parents that the grounds of Stradler were a national arboretum. Then she began to talk about faculty-to-student ratios, graduate school statistics, majors and minors.

But someone must have raised a hand, because the guide stopped talking and the questioner asked, “Do you think that rules are well enforced on campus?” Finny felt as if someone had placed a cold hand on the back of her neck. She would have recognized that voice anywhere. Its screeching, broken sound had marked so many important transitions in her young life. She turned around, and was of course confronted by the familiar figure of her former principal, the Old Yeller, Mrs. Barksdale.

The woman’s stringy orange hair was blowing every which way, over her face and ears, and the veins in her neck strained every bit as ferociously as they always had. Next to Mrs. Barksdale was the small, cowering, entirely bald man that Finny had only glimpsed in the photo on Mrs. Barksdale’s wall; and a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl who looked like a younger version of the Old Yeller. Finny took her to be the daughter. Mrs. Barksdale held the small man by the cuff of his jacket, pulling him along, and the daughter had her arms crossed in front of her chest, as if to prevent her mother from taking any similar action against her.

Finny turned away as the tour guide was beginning her stammering answer to the Old Yeller’s question. Finny wanted to talk to Mrs. Barksdale about as much as she would have liked to purchase a selection of spices from Gerald Kramp. Finny started off the path, across the lawn, hoping to avoid any contact with her former principal. But it turned out to be too late. “Hey!” a squealing voice called. “Delphine Short!”

Damn, Finny thought, and turned around.

Mrs. Barksdale had broken off from the tour group, which she claimed was fairly useless anyway. The bewildered guide was left to pull her diminished group on to the next sight. The Old Yeller was very happy to see one of her former students in such a good liberal arts school. She introduced her husband and daughter, who both nodded uneasily at Finny.

“Now, let me see,” Mrs. Barksdale said. “You were very good friends with Judith Turngate, one of our shining stars, right?”

“The brightest,” Finny said.

“And have you kept in touch?”

“I saw her last weekend.”

“So she must have told you she was coming to Thorndon this weekend,” Mrs. Barksdale said.

“Actually, she didn’t mention it.”

“There was an alumni basketball game last night. It was a big fund-raiser for the school. Judith came back because she had been so dedicated to the team while she was at Thorndon. I would have sent you an invitation, but I suppose you’re not on the alumni mailing list since you didn’t graduate with us.”

“I guess not,” Finny said. She did find it a little weird that Judith hadn’t mentioned anything.

“In any case,” Mrs. Barksdale went on, “I actually had the good fortune of spending a large portion of the evening with Judith, who seems to be doing fabulously as an English major at Columbia.”

“That’s wonderful,” Finny said. She was running out of supportive comments to make about Mrs. Barksdale’s run-in with Judith.

“But the greatest pleasure for me,” Mrs. Barksdale said to Finny, and here her voice seemed particularly strained by the emotion she felt, “was to see what a fine young gentleman she has chosen as a life partner. That is the most important decision a young woman can make for herself—to find the right man to embark on the journey of life with.” Here Mrs. Barksdale leaned over and planted a forceful kiss on the top of Mr. Barksdale’s bald head. He seemed to cringe, just slightly, at her touch.

Finny was puzzled. “Was it the first time Judith’s boyfriend visited Thorndon?”

Mrs. Barksdale was nodding. “Fiancé,” she corrected. “But yes, I had never met Milton Hollibrand before. Though he is just the sort of boy who can make a very ambitious, beautiful, and intelligent young woman like Judith Turngate happy. Because aside from cutting a very handsome and dignified shape, it seems he is also an intellectual. He is very knowledgeable about Eastern philosophy.”

“Oh,” Finny said. She felt as if all the words had been knocked out of her by the assault of Mrs. Barksdale’s news. She wanted to leave, and excuses dangled in her mind.

But Sarah Barksdale beat Finny to it. “Mom,” she said to the Old Yeller, “if we don’t go to Griffen Hall now, we’re never going to have time to see the athletic center.”

“Very true,” Mrs. Barksdale said. “You know that my good friend Miss Simpkin has always said that physical activity is as important as mental. And Miss Simpkin is never wrong.”

Alone in her room, Finny’s first impulse was to call Sylvan. She dialed the numbers for his room at Harvard. The phone rang once.

Then Finny hung up. She had to think this through. If she called Sylvan first, and for whatever reason Mrs. Barksdale’s story was untrue or incomplete, Finny would have set a suspicion rolling in Sylvan’s mind that she knew he’d never be able to stop. He’d always be looking out the corners of his eyes, checking phone messages and receipts. He’d never be able to completely trust Judith.

So Finny decided she had to call Judith first. She owed it to her friend to give her one chance to explain what happened.

Finny tried Judith’s apartment in Morningside Heights, and Judith picked up on the second ring.

“Hey,” Finny said, “it’s me.”

“Finny! I meant to call you this weekend. I wanted to see how you’re doing. The time just got away from me. I guess the first week of classes isn’t as tranquil as I thought.”

“It’s okay,” Finny said. “I was actually out of town. Visiting my mom.”

“Is everything okay?”

“It is now. She was having some trouble with her boyfriend. But I think she’s gotten everything resolved.”

“Good,” Judith said.

“How are things with you and your boyfriend?” Finny asked.

“Actually,” Judith said, “things are good. Though I’m not sure I’d call him my boyfriend yet. We’re still working that out.”

“Are you going to see each other anytime soon?”

Judith paused here. She must have been puzzled at Finny’s sudden fascination with their relationship. Outside her door Finny heard some of the boys on her hall whooping and applauding. She knew what they were cheering for. There was a boy named Hector who pedaled his bike at full speed down the hall, then jammed on the breaks at just the right moment so that his front tire stopped only inches from the wall.

“Maybe next weekend,” Judith said. “We’re taking it slow, Fin. Anyway, what’s the news with you? How are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling okay. My headaches are completely gone, and my eye looks almost normal.”

“I’m so relieved.”

I’ll bet you are, Finny thought but didn’t say. She remembered the rushed way Judith had said goodbye to her earlier that week, claiming she had to “get down to work.” Finny now understood what Judith must have been working on, and the fact that she’d been doing it while Finny was still in her apartment, bruised and dizzy, made Finny practically shake with rage at Judith. She had probably gone to meet Prince while Finny had been out with Carter—or else she’d been planning to meet him that night. It came back to Finny how Judith had downplayed Finny’s bruise that afternoon, saying it looked almost completely healed when Finny still had to apply about five pounds of makeup to hide it. Of course Judith would want to say that the bruise wasn’t that bad, if she was planning on getting together with the animal who had caused it.

But Finny calmed herself enough to say to Judith now, “You’re not going to believe who I ran into when I got back to school today—”

“Actually,” Judith cut her off, “I can probably guess. Was it the Old Yeller?”

“How’d you know?”

“I was at the alumni basketball game last night. Actually, I just got back into town myself. I was going to tell you. Actually, that’s why I was so busy this weekend. The Old Yeller told me she was going to visit your school with her daughter when I saw her.”

Outside her door Finny could hear Hector pedaling back into place for another run. Finny saw that Judith must have been hoping Finny wouldn’t bump into Mrs. Barksdale, that the Old Yeller wouldn’t get a chance to mention whom Judith had been with.

All of this deception made Finny even angrier. She wanted to scream at Judith. But she knew she had to stay calm for another minute, so she simply said, “I heard you were with—”

But Judith stopped her. “Prince had been planning to come for months, Finny. He’d already bought his ticket. It would have been too awkward to change things.”

“You know what else is awkward?” Finny said. “When you get punched in the face.”

“It was a mistake,” Judith blurted out. “Sylvan spat on him. It caught him by surprise. He feels awful.”

“But that’s not the point,” Finny said. She wanted to ask Judith why she was defending Prince anyway, if she was supposed to be “seeing how it goes” with Sylvan. But instead Finny focused her argument on the most important parts. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to Thorndon?”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” Judith said. “I couldn’t expect you to, after what Prince did to you.”

“That’s bullshit,” Finny said flatly. “You’re lying to cover your ass, Judith.” She felt like a shaken bottle of soda, ready to burst.

“Relationships are complicated, Finny,” Judith said.

Somehow, this feigned wisdom, this apparent assertion that Finny was somehow naïve about the complexities of adult relationships—it was enough to blow the cap off Finny’s rage. “What’s complicated is being a whore,” she told Judith. “Carter warned me you were a liar, but I was stupid enough not to believe him. You’d do anything to get what you want. You don’t think about anyone but yourself, Judith.”

Finny expected Judith to come right back at her with some biting line. But instead there was silence. And then, something about Judith’s breathing made Finny realize she was crying.

“You’re not going to tell him?” Judith whined into the phone. “Sylvan, I mean.”

“Of course I’m going to tell him,” Finny said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell him before. I had too much faith in you.”

Here Judith seemed to break down. Finny heard her sobbing into the phone, her breath pounding the receiver. Then Judith said something Finny would remember for a long time: “Not everyone’s as lucky as you are, Finny. Not everyone finds the perfect person. You don’t know what it’s like not to be sure.”

Which was partially true. She was lucky to have found Earl, to be expecting him in a matter of weeks. Though perfect hardly captured their relationship up till now. Finny didn’t want to quibble with Judith’s word choice. Whatever Judith’s difficulties, it wasn’t an excuse for what she’d done.

Outside there was a squeal of brakes, a tense moment of silence, and then a small thud when Hector must have hit the wall. “I’m okay,” she heard him telling the other boys. “I’m fine.”

As they applauded, Finny hung up the phone, wondering if it would be the last time she’d ever hang up from a call with Judith.

Late that night she dialed Sylvan’s number again, and he picked up.

“Sylvan, it’s Finny.”

But he cut her off. “I talked to Judith,” he said. “I can’t talk about this any more tonight, but I wanted to thank you for looking out for me, Fin. I’ll call you sometime. When I’m up to it. I’m glad to hear you’re doing better. Judith told me your headaches are gone.”

“Did she tell you about Prince?”

“She told me she’d seen him. I was pretty disappointed.”

“Okay,” Finny said. She remembered the night she and her brother had held each other, crying over their father. She wanted to provide the same comfort for Sylvan now. She wanted to hold him and tell him it would be all right.

But she couldn’t. She knew there was nothing she could say. So she said goodbye.

Chapter30
Earl Is Coming!

Earl was due to arrive in the beginning of March, which gave Finny only five weeks. She was familiar with these kinds of weeks, though, which were so different from the kinds of weeks she’d spent in Paris. These kinds of weeks stretched on and on, like enormous glaciers, or perfectly calm seas, endless and unvaried. She knew it was simply a matter of waiting, of a certain number of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, walks to the library, nights alone in her dorm room. She knew that everything was settled, tickets were purchased, goodbyes were being said; and yet, the distance between herself and Earl’s arrival seemed monumental, nearly untraversable. Especially now that she wasn’t talking to Judith, and Sylvan appeared to have dropped off the face of the earth.

Dorrie had moved in with Steven Bench. He had a single in one of the more desirable dorms on campus. Dorrie left some clothes and textbooks in the room, but she came back only a couple times a week, and she always knocked like she was a guest. When Finny saw her in the halls, it was like running into an old classmate, someone she’d known a long time ago. Dorrie was nothing if not polite. She always treated Finny like they’d been better friends than they were.

One afternoon in the middle of February, Finny and Dorrie happened to both walk into the dining hall just as it was closing its lunch service. They hurried through the buffets, pulling out random fried items and making quick mismatches of food on their plates. They sat down together at one of the window tables. It was a gray day. They picked at their unattractive food, talked in a scattershot way about their lives, then moved to their relationships. Finny told Dorrie that Earl was coming in a couple weeks.

“That’s fantastic!” Dorrie said. She had her hair pulled back, which gave her nose a pointy look.

“I know. I can hardly wait,” Finny said.

“Does he know where he’s going to live?”

“I think in an apartment near here. Maybe in a building with some Stradler students.”

“Wow,” Dorrie said, practically glowing over Finny’s news.

“It feels like he’s never going to get here,” Finny said.

Dorrie breathed quickly from her nose—like a laugh, but without smiling. “I know how that is,” she said. “But you should try to enjoy it.”

“Enjoy what?”

“The waiting, I mean. You still have all these ideas about how it’s going to be and what you’ll do together and the way your place will look. But the thing is, it’s never quite like that, exactly. I mean, it’s never the way it is in your mind. Not that it’s bad. I love living with Steven. But there’s something different about being in it. It doesn’t have the same sparkle.”

“Do you love Steven?” Finny asked.

“Of course I love him,” Dorrie said, with what seemed like the first hint of annoyance Finny had ever glimpsed in her. “It has nothing to do with whether I love him. There’s other things. I’m just telling you, there’s something nice about having stuff to look forward to. Once you’re there, you realize it’s just the same from here on out.”

“Have you guys talked about what you’ll do after Steven graduates?”

Then Dorrie came out with it. “I’m pregnant, Finny.” She must have been working around to it the whole time, but when she couldn’t find a space for her news, she just said it, dropped it like a piece of unwanted mail. Finny understood Dorrie had no one else to tell.

“Does Steven know?” Finny asked.

Dorrie nodded. And then she burst into tears. “And we haven’t even really had sex yet,” she sobbed. “We thought we should wait.” Dorrie lost herself to crying for a moment, though in between bouts of tears she described to Finny—in surprising detail—the medieval methods of birth control she and Steven had employed while technically not having sex. Finny felt terrible for her roommate. She wanted to ask her why she hadn’t just gotten some condoms from the health center. But of course that advice would have been useless now.

“So, what are you going to do?” Finny asked.

“What do you mean?” Dorrie seemed puzzled by the question.

“I mean, about the baby.”

“We’re going to get married over spring break,” Dorrie said, as if the answer were obvious. “I’m not going to get really fat until summer. Then I have to decide if I want to come back in the fall or take a semester off.”

She started to cry again, and Finny found herself reaching across the table to touch Dorrie on the shoulder. This produced a fit of tears, and then a surprising statement from Dorrie. “I’m so happy about all this, Finny. It’s just—this isn’t the way I expected it to happen. I just have to accept that God’s plans aren’t always clear to us.”

Finny took her hand back and put it in her lap. She wasn’t convinced God had anything to do with it. Finny picked up a piece of fried zucchini and took a bite. The zucchini was soggy now, floppy as a cooked noodle, and it left a puddle of oil on the plate. Finny put it down and wiped her hand on a napkin. She wasn’t sure how to respond to Dorrie.

“How does Steven feel about all this?” Finny asked.

“He seems to be taking it in stride,” Dorrie said. “He said we could get an off-campus apartment next year, if it’ll make things easier for me.”

Or him, Finny thought. But she said, “That’s nice.”

Dorrie nodded. She looked out the window, at the gray day. Something seemed to have caught her eye, but Finny couldn’t see it.

“For a second,” Dorrie said, still looking out the window, “right when I found out, I wondered if I wasn’t making a huge mistake.”