56

A trace of afternoon light still hung in the sky when Henry awoke. Cold air flooded the room from the wide-open window. His penis hurt, up near the root. He reached down under the blankets and found the lip of a condom digging into his skin. The rolling coastline of Pella’s leg and hip lay alongside his own, radiating warmth. He tried to unroll the condom—it had been in his desk drawer for a year, two years, more—but it stuck to him like a Band-Aid. Finally he shut his eyes and ripped it free.

Pella, he realized as he opened his eyes and flicked the spent condom down between his legs, was awake and watching him. And now she probably thought he was playing with himself. He met her eyes, and she smiled a rueful knowing fraction of a smile.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… now what happens?”

“Nothing happens. I go home. You stay here. Maybe you’ll do your roommate a favor and change his sheets.”

“Oh.”

“Were you expecting something else?” she said. “Some kind of sex-induced apocalypse?”

“No.” Henry thought about how far he’d gone out into the lake in his flak jacket, how long he’d stayed there, treading water with thirty pounds of lead and nylon strapped to his chest, listening to his own breathing. He’d swum out where nobody had ever been before, but it didn’t matter because he’d been there. “You’re not going to tell Mike, are you?”

“God, no. I’ll have to keep my distance for a while, though. You bruised the hell out of me.”

“Me?” Henry said, alarmed. “No I didn’t.”

She pushed aside the duvet and pointed to the front of her shoulder: a coppery, greening mark, almost literally a thumbprint. Henry’s stomach did a queasy flip.

“I’ve got a few more, I’m sure.” She twisted away, and Henry saw the corresponding fingerprints near her shoulder blade. “And this big one on my hip.”

“I’m really sorry,” said Henry.

“Don’t worry about it. Part of the social contract, right?”

Owen’s sheets felt silky and rich. Henry wasn’t sure whether he had the strength to stand. His swim, his night in the cold, had exhausted him like never before. Pella climbed over him, out of bed, and poured a finger of scotch into each of two tumblers. “When will they be back?” she asked.

To judge by the windowlight, it was nearing six o’clock. “Coshwale’s pretty far,” he said. “Probably two or three hours. More, even.” He let the scotch scorch his throat and warm his empty stomach.

“Well, you can’t be too careful these days.” Pella already had her jeans and flip-flops on. Now she knelt down and felt around beneath the foot of Owen’s bed. She lifted her T-shirt into view and shimmied inside. “Look how white this still is,” she said. “There’s not even any dust under the beds.”

“There might be some under mine,” Henry said. “But I think Owen cleans there too.”

“What a guy.” Pella half zipped her sweatshirt and began pacing around the room. “I don’t know what I’m so worked up about,” she said. “I mean, if my dad’s gay, and he’s happy, then it’s no big deal, right? Or even if he’s gay and unhappy, it’s still not that big a deal. A certain number of people are gay, just like a certain number of people have blue eyes. Or lupus. Don’t ask me why I just said lupus. I barely know what it is. And I know being gay’s not a disease. The point is, it’s all just probabilities. Numbers. How can I be upset about numbers?”

“You can’t,” Henry said.

“He’s a grown man who can do what he wants. And actually, it might be worse if Owen were a girl. If he were a girl he might turn my dad in for harassment, and it’d turn into a scandal and my dad would lose his job. That would be bad.” She poured herself another finger’s worth of scotch. “I guess Owen could turn him in too. But it seems less likely somehow. Maybe that’s sexist of me.

“But even if Owen doesn’t turn him in, they still might get caught. What would happen then? All hell would break loose.”

“I don’t think they’ll get caught,” Henry said. “Besides, Owen’s going to Japan.”

Pella was still pacing the room, looking distressed. Even if she’d been sitting next to him on the bed, he probably wouldn’t have had the guts to hug her, or to pat her on the shoulder and say, There, there. They barely knew each other. He’d probably never touch Pella Affenlight again.

“Maybe you should talk to your dad.” Henry hauled himself to his feet, tugged on warm-up pants and a T-shirt. He was shivering. “It seems like the two of you are pretty close.”

“Close,” she said, spitting the word like a curse. “We’re close, all right.”

Having lived in Phumber Hall for three years, Henry had become expert at distinguishing among different people’s footsteps. As soon as these passed the second-floor landing, he knew that they didn’t belong to any of the girls on the third floor, nor to either of the Asian Steves across the hall. Owen was back. But there was a second set of footsteps too. Henry stood up. Pella stopped pacing and looked at him, puzzled by what had no doubt become a very grave expression on his face. If he’d had more energy he might have shoved her into the shower or under his bed, which might have led to an even stupider sort of farce.

What really happened was that he was standing dumbly in the center of the room when Owen’s key scraped in the lock. Pella flopped down into the overstuffed armchair, her legs hooked over one side, and plucked a book from the shelf beside her. Henry looked down at his feet and thought, I’m not wearing socks. I always wear socks.

Schwartz remained at the threshold while Owen stepped into the room. “Hi, guys,” Pella said, glancing up from her book—The Art of Fielding—with an actress’s aplomb.

“Hi,” Schwartz said.

“Good day?”

“Not bad.”

Emboldened by the banality of this exchange, Henry did something he regretted instantly. He spoke: “How’d we do?”

Schwartz glanced at him, then at Pella, then back at Henry. “Buddha,” he said.

“Yes, Michael.”

“Forget to make your bed this morning?”

Owen scrutinized the bed, his lips pressed tightly together, his eyebrows contracted into an expression of total concentration. “It’s possible,” he said after a long moment, nodding gently. “It’s very possible.”

“Mm-hm.” Schwartz pointed toward the nook between Owen’s bed and the mantel. “And is that yours too?”

There in the nook’s convergent shadows lay a rumpled piece of silk or rayon or some other satiny fabric, icy blue in color. Owen gazed at it for a long time, as if willing it to disappear, or at least to become a more ambiguous version of what it so unambiguously happened to be. “No,” he said finally, his voice soft and thoughtful, after it became clear that Schwartz intended to wait for a response. “I suppose not.”

Pella started to speak, but Schwartz waved her off. “I’m not mad,” he said, his voice loud and cracking. “I think you’re a goddamn saint. Coming in here and laying on hands. Laying on mouth. Laying on whatever. I should have sent you sooner.”

“You could have sent somebody else,” Pella said. “Christ, you could have done it yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means. I don’t have to be the middleman. Mike, Henry. Henry, Mike.”

Owen stepped into the center of the room, held up a hand. “Okay,” he said in his best, most caramelly mediator’s tone. Why don’t we jus—”

“Not you.” Pella glared at Owen. “I know about you.”

Owen looked at her. A flicker of understanding, of consternation, crossed his face, and he subsided to the corner of the room. Henry just stood there, feeling invisible. Maybe that should have been a relief, in the wake of what he’d done, but instead it was making him angry, the way Schwartz and Pella were squared off as if he weren’t even there.

“I’m sorry,” Pella said, her voice changed and soft.

“For what? For fixing everything?” Schwartz shook his head. “No.” His amber eyes were unfocused, vacant, as if he’d gone blind. He turned and walked down the stairs.