I knew I was blushing. I looked away. “Sorry.”
“You’re a man, what can you do? You’re like pull toys. It must be awful.” A final adjustment; then she stepped back. That heat in her cheeks: was she blushing, too? “There you go. Have a look.”
She retrieved a compact from her clutch and gave it to me. It was made of a material that was smooth to the touch, like polished bone; it felt warm in my hand, as if it were radiating a pure, womanly energy. I opened it, revealing its bay of flesh-toned powder and small round mirror, in which my face looked back at me, floating above the flawlessly knotted pink bow tie.
“Perfect,” I said.
The shower shut off with a groan, widening my awareness. I had forgotten all about my roommate.
“Jonas,” Liz called, “we’re late!”
He bounded into the room, clutching a towel around his waist. I had the feeling of being caught doing something I shouldn’t have.
“So, are you two going to stand around and watch me dress? Unless—” Looking at Liz, he gave his towel a suggestive jostle, like an exotic dancer teasing an audience. “?a te donne du plaisir, mademoiselle?”
“Just hurry it up. We’re late.”
“But I asked in French!”
“You’ll want to work on your accent. We’ll meet you outside, thank you very much.” She gripped me by the arm, steering me toward the door. “Come on, Tim.”
We took the stairs to the courtyard. A college campus on a Saturday night follows principles of its own: it awakens just as the rest of the world is readying for slumber. Music came from everywhere, pouring out of the windows; laughing figures moved through the darkness; voices lit the night from all directions. As we stepped through the breezeway, a girl hurried past, holding the hem of her dress with one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other.
“You’ll do fine,” Liz assured me.
We were standing just beyond the gate. “Do I look worried?” Though, of course, I was.
“All you have to do is act like you belong. That’s really the whole point. Of most things, actually.”
Away from Jonas, she had become somebody slightly different: more philosophical, even a little world-weary. I sensed that this was closer to the truth of her.
“I forgot to mention,” Liz said, “I’ve got somebody I’d like you to meet. She’ll be at the party.”
I wasn’t sure what I thought of this.
“We’re cousins,” she went on. “Well, second cousins. She goes to B.U.”
The offer was disorienting. I had to remind myself that what had transpired upstairs had been an innocent flirtation, nothing more—that she was somebody else’s girlfriend.
“Okay.”
“Try not to sound too excited.”
“What makes you think we’d hit it off?”
The remark came off too blunt, even a little resentful. But if she took offense, she didn’t show it. “Just don’t let her drink too much.”
“Is that a problem?”
She shrugged. “Steph can be a bit of a party girl, if you know what I mean. That’s her name, Stephanie.”
Jonas caught up with us, all grins and apologies. We made our way to the party, which was just three blocks away. Previously, he had pointed out the Spee Club building to me, a brick townhouse with a walled side garden I had passed a thousand times. A college party is usually a loud affair, belching out a wide perimeter of sound, but not this one. There was no evidence that anything was going on inside, and for a second I thought Jonas might have gotten the night wrong. He stepped up to the door and withdrew a single key on a fob from the pocket of his tux. I had seen this key before, lying on his bureau, but had not connected it to anything until now. The fob was in the form of a bear’s head, the symbol of the Spee.
We followed him inside. We were in an empty foyer, the floor painted in alternating black and white squares, like a chessboard. I did not feel as if I were going to a party—parachuting at night into an alien country was more like it. The spaces I could see were dark and masculine and, for a building inhabited by college students, remarkably neat. A clack of ivory: nearby, someone was playing pool. On a pedestal in the corner stood a large stuffed bear—not a teddy bear, an actual bear. It was rearing up on its hind legs, clawed hands reaching forward as it were going to maul some invisible attacker. (That, or play the piano.) From overhead came a swell of liquor-loosened voices.
“Come on,” Jonas said.
He led us back to a flight of stairs. Seen from the street, the building had appeared deceptively modest in its dimensions, but not inside. We ascended toward the noise and heat of the crowd, which had spilled from two large rooms onto the landing.
“Jo-man!”