Sh.e.l.ly turned at the sound of a slap to see Josie red-cheeked and openmouthed, heading back toward their table, the boy she'd apparently slapped and his girlfriend careening back out the door into what now seemed to be an actual blizzard.

The same feeling of surrender, defeat, with which she'd sat back down when Josie told her to came over Sh.e.l.ly when she realized she was going to have to walk home in that blizzard wearing only a dress and a thin sweater. Maybe Josie would slap her, too, before she had to go back out there.

Josie tossed herself down in the chair across from Sh.e.l.ly, and the whole room erupted in cheers and laughter, as if the home team had just scored a touchdown. Two scholarly-looking guys at a table near the door high-fived each other. There were a few whistles, and a girl alone at a table in the corner looked up from her laptop, pumped her fist in the air. "You go, girl!" the cashier behind the counter shouted. The guy who was making cappuccinos and lattes stabbed a thumbs-up into the air, and even the mother with the toddler in the stroller who'd followed Sh.e.l.ly in from the cold and spoken to her so kindly was smiling.

Had something been said that Sh.e.l.ly hadn't heard-something for which the boy deserved to be slapped? And if he had said something, could so many have heard it? Sh.e.l.ly herself hadn't heard a thing until she'd heard the sound of the slap, and the girlfriend's alarmed exclamations, and some of those hooting with approval had been sitting even farther from the scene than she was.

Of course, had that boy slapped Josie he would have been tackled by the very guys who were high-fiving one another now. The police would have been called. The boy would have been taken out of Starbucks in handcuffs.

Josie was pink-cheeked, her lips parted. She wasn't smiling, but neither did she look particularly upset.

"What happened?" Sh.e.l.ly asked, trying to sound more concerned than she felt, more alarmed. What she wanted was to get out of there.

"f.u.c.king a.s.shole," Josie said. "He lives with somebody I hate."

"Who?" Sh.e.l.ly asked, and Josie muttered a name. Sh.e.l.ly leaned forward and asked again. "Who?"

"Craig Clements-Rabbitt," Josie said, exasperated, as if Sh.e.l.ly had been badgering her about it for days. "He's this jerk who-"

"The boy who was in the car crash," Sh.e.l.ly said-and as she said it, her own voice sounded to her like someone else's. A narrator's voice. The distant voice of a storyteller. An omniscient narrator. A narrator who'd known all the facts all along but had chosen to reveal them slowly. "Craig Clements-Rabbitt," she repeated, not to Josie, but to herself. "You knew him."

Josie snorted, and rolled her eyes. "Yeah. I knew him," she said. "He's a liar and a womanizer and he deserves everything that's coming to him-and, believe me, it will be bad, what's coming to him."

"You think he killed your roommate," Sh.e.l.ly said. "Nicole. Your friend."

Josie didn't deny it, although she'd yet to tell Sh.e.l.ly that she'd been the dead girl's roommate. And in all that had pa.s.sed between them since, Sh.e.l.ly had never asked.

But now, if there'd ever been a reason to deny it, there was no longer any reason, and no more denying it. Josie shrugged, and said, "Yeah. That's part of it."

It was a dismissal.

Yes, he might have killed her friend, but there was something even worse he'd done.

"What did he do, Josie?"

Josie waved her question away, and said, "It doesn't matter now. He's going to pay."

"He's already paid," Sh.e.l.ly said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. "I was at the scene of the accident. I saw what happened. And what didn't happen."

"Everybody pays in the end," Josie said, and then she laughed without the slightest hint of joy.

"Is that how you feel about me?" Sh.e.l.ly asked her.

Josie looked genuinely surprised at the question. Her eyebrows disappeared under her bangs.

"No," Josie said, after considering it for what seemed like an eternity. She then uttered one more sharp, strange laugh, and left her mouth hanging open afterward, still looking at Sh.e.l.ly in surprise. "Don't you get it by now? This has nothing to do with us. And it's not some stupid hazing thing like you think. I mean, I wouldn't degrade myself for something like that, and Omega Theta Tau would never ask me to! G.o.d. The thing with us has to do with that: You were at the scene. They want to get you out of here."

Josie leaned back against her chair and regarded Sh.e.l.ly as if from a very great distance. She had the expression of someone who had just dotted the last i on a writing a.s.signment, stapled the pages, and handed it in: There you have it, what do you think?

Sh.e.l.ly could do nothing but stare back.

Part Four.

61.

"I wouldn't have offered if it was a problem," Jeff said. "I think your kids are cute, and you've got this library full of Camille Paglia. Who wouldn't want to babysit here?"

"They like you," Mira said, more out of surprise than as a compliment. Andy and Matty each sat on one of his loafers as he bounced his feet. Jeff was sprawled out on the couch as if the apartment were his, and he'd placed his coffee cup on the floor, where it was sure to be knocked over, but this carelessness somehow made his presence even more beneficent, more welcome. "Thank you," she said again. "I'll be back in time for you to get to your cla.s.s. I swear."

"Hey, my students never expect me on time anyway, and you can't run out of the morgue without saying good-bye. Take your time. We'll just be reading feminist literary theory here and smearing graham crackers all over ourselves."

"I hope you don't have to change a diaper," Mira said. "But-"

"b.u.t.t?! Jesus, I hope not too. But, yeah, it's all fine. Little secret: I took a Red Cross babysitting course when I was in middle school, hoping to make some extra money for dope, and I did great in the cla.s.s, but somehow no one would hire me to watch their kids. Until now! Still, I remember that whole thing about diaper changing. Not to worry."

Mira waved good-bye to the boys, who squealed, holding tightly to Jeff's pale, hairy ankles, exposed between his socks and the frayed cuffs of his khaki trousers.

It was unpleasantly cold out, and the clouds were sinister blue things skimming low over the buildings. The students hurrying past her on the sidewalk on the way to cla.s.s had their heads buried in their parkas, although a few still mysteriously, or brazenly, wore flip-flops. A bicyclist tore through the damp street, tires making the sound of hissing snakes. A man stood in a front yard pounding a stake into the lawn.

A For Rent sign, Mira supposed.

She supposed, too, that soon she'd have to start reading the cla.s.sifieds and looking at the posted For Rent signs, looking for an apartment, and the thought of this filled her eyes with tears before she even realized she'd thought it.

Clark.

Jesus Christ.

Up in Petoskey, his mother had actually, physically, tried to keep Mira from leaving the house with the twins.

"Mira, Clark left them with me. He'll be back tomorrow, I'm sure. What am I going to tell him?"

"You'll tell him that their mother, his wife, came to get them. That she's taken them home."

"But, Mira, you can't just-"

But by that point Mira already had the diaper bag packed. She'd b.u.t.toned the twins' jackets up over their sweaters, and was carrying one child on each hip like two sweet bags of groceries. They'd been so excited to see her that they'd begun to scream, and now, on either side of her, they were patting her cheeks as if to check that they were the real thing. It stung, the patting, but Mira loved it.

Clark's mother took hold of the sleeve of her sweater and said, "Don't go, Mira. I'll have to-"

"You'll have to what?" Mira asked. She was careful not to raise her voice, which would have alarmed the twins, who, after all, adored their grandmother. "What will you have to do, Kay? Call the police? Tell them the twins' mother came and picked them up? Or call Clark? I've tried that myself. A hundred times. He doesn't have the cell phone turned on, or he doesn't have it with him, and what good would that do, anyway? We've all got to go home eventually, and the boys need to be with their mother."

In defeat, it seemed, Clark's mother let go of Mira's sleeve, and Mira felt sorry for her. Her hair was grayer than Mira remembered, and it was all combed to one side of her head, leaving a bare patch of scalp exposed. She was wearing a ratty KEY WEST sweatshirt, a place Mira was certain Kay had never been. It broke Mira's heart, really. Clark's mother had never been anything but kind to her, and loving to the twins. But she had to go. She had to have her children with her, and she had to work, so she had to take them home.

"I'm sorry, Kay," Mira said. "And so grateful to you for keeping them, for taking such good care of them."

Kay swallowed, nodded solemnly, and then kissed each boy, and then she kissed Mira, too, on the cheek, with the same silly smacking sound she'd used on Andy and Matty.

"I love you all!" she said loudly, voice cracking, chin quivering, and Mira found herself crying then, too, and the twins were looking at her tears, wiping at them, seeming sober and astonished, looking from Mira to their grandmother, who walked Mira to the door then and looked out.

Jeff had stayed in the car so as not to be in the way. He had the engine running, and it was making guttural noises, blowing blue smoke out of the tailpipe. He appeared to be, possibly, singing to himself, or reciting something, while staring at his lap.

"Who is that?" Kay asked Mira. "Who is that man?" She said it as if she'd seen a ghost.

"His name is Jeff Blackhawk," Mira explained. "He's my colleague at the college. He offered to drive me because, you know, I don't have the car. Because Clark has the car."

Clark's mother nodded slowly at this, as if that all made a peculiar kind of sense, and then she said under her breath, "Is he an Indian?" as if he might be able to hear her.

"I don't think so," Mira whispered back. "I haven't gotten that impression."

Clark's mother nodded as if, at least, there was this bit of good news, and then she grabbed Mira's sleeve again and said, "Bring the babies back as soon as you can. And be careful getting home. Work things out with Clark. I love you, darling."

"I love you, too," Mira said, and she looked at Clark's mother for a long time before she turned with the twins to the door, to the car.

Back at the apartment, after the long drive home, and after Jeff had helped her carry the twins up the stairs (leaving with the tip of an imaginary cap, and a little bow), Mira was feeling so solaced by their return that she hadn't even thought of Clark. The relief of having the boys in her arms, nursing them, kissing them, smelling their hair and the napes of their necks, was complete, as if she'd been held hostage those days without them, and had just been released. Tears ran down her cheeks and into their hair as she rocked back and forth on the couch and they sucked greedily until they finally fell asleep. Then, she lifted them, put them in the cribs (a difficult feat with two limp toddlers, but they were sound asleep) and then lingered a long time afterward in the nursery, looking down at them in their cribs. Home.

It wasn't until she was on her way up the stairs to G.o.dwin Hall to meet her cla.s.s for their field trip to the morgue that Mira realized, fully, that a new part of her life had started, and would continue to be starting, whether she wanted it to or not.

62.

Perry stood in the middle of his apartment and spoke to Craig's voice mail, leaving him a message ("Where the h.e.l.l are you, man?") when he realized that the cell phone he was trying to reach was lying on the coffee table about three feet away from him, turned off. It had been twenty-four hours since he'd seen Craig, and he was going to be late to the cla.s.s field trip if he didn't leave that second. "f.u.c.k," Perry said to the phone, hung it up, grabbed his backpack, and headed for the door.

He was late.

Professor Polson was standing in the foyer with the cla.s.s already gathered around her. She was giving them some directives-telling them that the university morgue was actually a secured facility, and that it was a special privilege to be allowed to visit it, a privilege granted to them because her research gave her a faculty pa.s.s, which she'd managed to have extended to "visiting scholars." The fact that her "visiting scholars" were actually freshman in a first-year seminar had apparently not been brought to the attention of the morgue director or the hospital security. Yet. And the cla.s.s needed to provoke no interest or suspicion so it would stay that way. "Okay?" she asked. There were nods all around.

It also happened, she explained, that she was personal friends with the diener (the cla.s.s snickered at the word, so close to diner, although Professor Polson had defined it for them as "the person responsible for handling and washing bodies"). This morgue's diener, coincidentally, had worked at a mortuary she'd visited in Yugoslavia, and they'd stayed in touch over the years, and then he had come to the United States.

"If there's joking, disrespect, theft-G.o.d forbid-or any kind of undignified behavior, I will likely never be allowed back with another cla.s.s. More important, for you, the student or students responsible will fail my course and receive whatever other punishments I can come up with." She said this lightheartedly, but it was clear from her expression that she wasn't kidding.

That morning Professor Polson was wearing a black sweater and a deep purple skirt. Her hair was shiny and smooth, and there was color in her cheeks. She looked, Perry thought, as if she'd slept well that night. For the last few weeks there'd been circles under her eyes, but today they looked clear and bright.

She was so lovely to look at. Perry had a hard time taking his eyes off her, although he didn't want to appear to be staring. Through the gauzy scarf around her neck, he glimpsed what looked like a gold cross dangling near her breast bone. Maybe the slightest hint of a lace-trimmed bra or camisole. He had to will himself to look away, and found his gaze caught by Karess's.

She held it without smiling.

Perry tried to smile himself, but it felt to him more like a grimace as he did it, and the look on Karess's face-surprise, annoyance-made it seem even more likely that his own face wasn't doing what he wanted it to do.

But she also didn't look away. She seemed to be refusing to look away, so Perry, unnerved, pretended suddenly to notice that he needed to tie his shoe. He crouched down behind Alexandra Robbins's enormous a.s.s, where he could see no one and no one could see him, until he heard Professor Polson say, "Okay, follow me."

On the walk to the morgue, Perry kept well behind the rest of the other students, most of whom seemed to be trying as hard as they could to walk next to Professor Polson (an impossible task, since the sidewalk was wide enough for only two people at a time, and there were sixteen of them). Karess was, herself, off on the muddy gra.s.s, slogging through it in cowboy boots. She was wearing what looked like two miniskirts-one black lace and, over that one, a denim one with a torn patch at the hip. There were feathers braided into her hair, as well as a couple of beads. She glanced over her shoulder for only a second, and it seemed to Perry that her face sparkled. Not with pleasure, but with that glitter girls sometimes wore. He remembered Mary having some of that on her cheeks at the prom a couple years ago, and how, as they danced, every time he looked at her it appeared as though her cheeks were awash in tears.

Brett Barber was doing his best to keep his position beside Karess. It looked like he was trying to take baby steps so as not to get too far ahead of her. Karess had begun waving her hand around in the air in front of her as if she were trying to explain some important concept to him, and Brett was watching her lavender wool mitten as if it held the key to the universe and he was afraid she might drop it.

The guy must have thought he'd died and gone to heaven. Perry didn't remember ever seeing Karess so much as glance in Brett's direction even once. If Perry'd had more energy, if he hadn't been up half the night waiting to hear Craig knock (wherever it was he'd gone off to, he'd left his keys behind), he would have tried to hurry ahead and catch up, step between the two of them. But, first of all, his legs wouldn't move that fast. Second, he didn't know if he was up for whatever kind of response Karess might have to his approaching her. He was hoping they'd parted yesterday as friends, but he had his doubts.

After Starbucks, after Josie slapped him hard in the face, and he and Karess had stumbled out into a strangely heavy snowfall, Perry had made the mistake of going with her back to her room, where the roommate excused herself the second they arrived (to "go study in the lounge"), as if on cue.

"Let me see you," Karess had said, and turned to Perry. She approached him with her hands open as if she were carrying a bowl, and she took his face in them-but instead of inspecting him, she kissed him.

The kiss lasted a long time. Karess was about his height, and with her arms wrapped around him and her body pressed against his, he saw no way (or at least so he told himself) to disengage without giving her shoulders a shove. He let her bite his lower lip, and his tongue traveled over her teeth, which tasted both like clove and like mint, but he kept his hands firmly planted on her shoulder bones, and didn't move them, although her own hands traveled up his back, and down it, and then to his face again. With her index finger she traced a line from his temple to his lips, and then she put her finger to the corner of his mouth and dipped it in.

Perry opened his eyes then, and hers were open, too, looking into his, and she stepped back, shrugging off her jacket, letting it fall to the floor, and took his hand and pulled him toward the bed, which had what looked like some kind of Indian tablecloth on it, along with about a million decorative pillows and a stuffed black cat with creepy green eyes. Perry shook his head.

Karess looked at him, and shook her own head as if in imitation. "What?" she said. It wasn't exactly a question.

Perry said, trying to sound apologetic, "I've got to go."

"What?"

"I just," Perry said. "Can't. I have to go."

"O-kay," Karess said, and then glanced at his jeans. He couldn't hide the erection. She said, "It looks like you can."

"It's not. That." Perry was trying to think of a way to say what it was, without himself knowing.

She was so beautiful. He knew what any roomful of guys hearing this story would have called him.

But Nicole had been beautiful, too.

And it had been awful, being with Nicole.

Whereas with Mary-who was not, by any standard, beautiful like these girls-he had wanted her so badly for so long that he would have died for it. He'd woken up some nights groaning. Some days in the hallway at school, he would take circuitous routes to cla.s.ses and the cafeteria in order to avoid her, because he couldn't stand it, seeing her. Seeing her in whatever pretty blouse or silky skirt she was wearing would make him ache all day.

"Well, then, what is it?" Karess asked. "I'm not your type or something? You're not gay, are you?"

"No," Perry said. "You're so beautiful, but I-"

"You have a girlfriend, don't you?" Karess said. She sighed. "I wondered what the deal was. You never even look at girls except for Professor Polson. I thought you were either a virgin, or a Christian, or you were sleeping with our professor, but you have some girl up there in whatever that town is you're from-Bad a.s.s?-waiting for you, wearing a yellow ribbon or something, don't you?"

Perry hesitated at first, but Karess continued to stare at him, and not knowing what else to do, Perry nodded.

"Is that why that sorority b.i.t.c.h slapped you?"