“I have something to tell you,” I said. “Something hard.”
“Stand up,” she said, in her most Chancelloresque voice, reacting immediately to the note of fear that had crept into my voice. “I’m too old for all this rolling around on the floor.” She rose a little unsteadily on her heels, tugged down the hem of her black dress, and held out a hand to me. I let her pull me to my feet. Her wedding ring was like a cold spark against my palm.
Sara let go of my hand and looked over her shoulder, down the corridor. There was no one coming. She turned back to me, trying to make her face expressionless, as though I were the college comptroller come to deliver some bad financial news. “What is it? No, wait a minute.” She pulled a pack of Merit cigarettes from the purse she sometimes carried on formal occasions. It was a flashy silver beaded thing no bigger than twenty cigarettes and a lipstick, a gift from her father to her mother fifty years before, and utterly unsuited to either woman’s character. Sara’s regular handbag was a sort of leather toolbox, with a brass padlock, filled with spreadsheets and textbooks and a crowded key ring as spiked and heavy as a mace. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. Just before she lit her cigarette I thought I caught a faint whiff of burning bud in the air. Those kids standing out in the lobby, I thought. It smelled awfully good. “Sara—”
“You love Emily,” she said, looking down at the steady flame of the match. “I know that. You need to stay with her.”
“I don’t think I really have any choice there,” I said. “Emily left me.”
“She’ll come back.” She allowed the flame to burn all the way down to the skin of her fingers. “Ow. That’s why I’m going to—not have this baby.”
“Not have it,” I said, watching her maintain her cool administrator’s gaze, waiting to feel the sense of relief I knew I ought to be feeling.
“I can’t. There’s no way.” She passed her fingers through her hair and there was the momentary flash of her ring, as if her russet hair itself were flashing. “Don’t you think there’s just no way?”
“I don’t see any way,” I said. I reached out to give her hand a squeeze. “I know how hard it is—for you to—lose this chance.”
“No, you don’t.” She jerked her hand away. “And fuck you for saying you do. And fuck you, too, for saying …”
“What, my girl?” I said, when she did not continue. “Fuck me too for saying what?”
“For saying that there’s just no way I could have this baby.” She glanced away from me, then back. “Because there is, Grady. Or there could be.” From out in the lobby came a loud squeal of hinges and a burst of human murmuring. “He must be finished,” she said, looking at her watch. She blew a cloud of smoke to hide her face, and reached up to brush away the tear that hung from an eyelash of her left eye. “We should go.” She sniffled, once. “Don’t forget your jacket.”
Sara knelt down to retrieve my old corduroy blazer, which she had stripped from my body and folded into a pillow for my head. As she peeled it away from the carpet, something tumbled out of one of the pockets and clattered to the floor, where it lay shining like the hood ornament of a madman’s Rambler.
“Whose gun is that?” said Sara.
“It isn’t real,” I said, stooping to get to it before she did. I was tempted to stuff it into my pocket, but I didn’t want her to think that it was anything important enough to hide. I held it in the palm of my hand for a moment, giving her a good look at it. “It’s a souvenir of Baltimore.”
She reached for it, and I tried to close my hand around it, but I was too slow.
“Pretty.” She ran the tip of her index finger across the mother-of-pearl handle. She palmed the little pistol and slipped her finger through the trigger guard. She lifted the muzzle up to her nose. “Hmm,” she said, sniffing. “It really smells like gunpowder.”
“Caps,” I said, reaching to take it away from her.
Then she pointed it at my chest. I didn’t know how many bullets it held, but there was no reason to think there might not be one more.
“Pow,” said Sara.
“You got me,” I said, and then I fell on her and caught her up in a bouncer’s embrace.
“I love you, Grady,” she said, after a moment.
“I love you, too, my monkey,” I said, as with a twist of her thin wrist I disarmed her.
“Oh!” said a voice behind us. “I’m sorry. I was just—”
It was Miss Sloviak, standing at the head of the corridor, balanced atop her heels, hand on her hip. Her face was red, but her cheeks were streaked with mascara, and I could see that it was not the flush of embarrassment.
“It’s all right,” said Sara. “What’s the matter, dear?”
“It’s your friend, Terry Crabtree,” said Miss Sloviak, looking at me harshly. She took a deep breath and passed her fingertips through her black curls, several times, quickly, in a way that somehow struck me as very masculine. “I’d like for you to take me home, if you don’t mind.”
“I’d be happy to,” I said, starting toward her. “I’ll meet you all later, Sara, over at the Hat.”
“I’ll walk you out to the car,” said Sara.
“Well, it’s kind of a hike,” I said. “I’m parked all the way over on Clive.”
“I could use the air.”
We walked out into the lobby. It was completely deserted now, except for a sweet remnant of marijuana smoke in the air.
“I’m going to need one of my bags,” said Miss Sloviak, as we headed out of Thaw Hall. “From the trunk.”
“Are you?” I said, looking levelly at Sara. “All right.”
A pair of doors slam-slammed behind us, and I heard a low, nervous chuckle, like that of someone trying to remain calm on a roller coaster in the last instant before free fall. James Leer emerged from the auditorium with his arms outspread and draped across the shoulders of Crabtree, on his right, and on his left across those of the young man with the goatee who’d dropped by during office hours to let me know that I was a fraud. They each had a grip on one of James’s armpits, as if he might at any point collapse, and they were whispering all the usual platitudes of encouragement and reassurance. Although he looked a little queasy he seemed to be walking steadily enough, and I wondered if he weren’t just enjoying the ride.
“The doors made so much noise!” he cried. He watched in evident amazement as his feet in their black brogues followed each other across the carpet. “Whoa!”
As the two men steered their charge toward the men’s room, Crabtree happened to look my way. He raised his eyebrows and winked at me. Although it was only nine o’clock he had already gone once around the pharmacological wheel to which he’d strapped himself for the evening, stolen a tuba, and offended a transvestite; and now his companions were beginning, with delight and aplomb, to barf. It was definitely a Crabtree kind of night.
“This is so embarrassing! You guys had to carry me out!”
“Is he all right?” I said, as they maneuvered James past us.
“He’s fine,” said Crabtree, rolling his eyes. “He’s narrating.”
“We’re going to the men’s room,” said James. “Only we might not make it in time.”
“Poor James,” I said, watching as they turned into the hallway.
“I