“My briefcase! Where’s my briefcase!”

I turned and saw the last corner of it sinking into the water.

Frank said, “I’m afraid it’s gone.”

“It can’t be! Everything’s in it! My notes, my . . .” He was almost crying.

My panic gone, I was quickly filled with anger. Eyeing the quarterback, I said, “I hope you’re satisfied, you stupid ass!”

“Me? I didn’t run into him.”

“You were calling the directions! You know there’s a footpath here, you know people use it, you saw me here, you certainly saw him!”

“I didn’t. I—”

“And the rest of you, running around like five-year-olds—blindfolded, for God’s sake!” Their blindfolds were off; they could walk away as freely as they pleased. But the boy couldn’t. The grim irony of the situation made me furious. “He could have drowned!”

“Look, we’re sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t going to rescue his briefcase.”

Satisfied that Frank was looking after the boy, the players retreated, mumbling to each other. I heard one of them say, “Man, what a bitch she is.”

I bent down in front of the boy. “You know, you’ll have to have a tetanus shot.”

“My notes, everything . . .” He bit his lip.

“His stick went into the river,” I said to Frank. “I’d take him to the health center, but I have to get to class. I have a test. Could you take him?”

“Sure,” he said, actually smiling at me.

I was in the middle of supper and telling Gloria about the incident when the doorbell rang. It was Frank.

“Come in. Did he get his shot?”

“Yes, he’s okay. I spoke to three of his professors this afternoon and told them what happened. They’ll arrange to have someone dictate the notes he lost. By the way, I invited him over for dinner tomorrow night. I wondered if you wanted to come too.”

The invitation came too unexpectedly for me to be anything but direct. “Sure. Why don’t you sit down and have some coffee? We were just finishing.”

“Thanks, but I have company.” He looked past me and said, “You’re invited too, Gloria.”

The double invitation annoyed me. And “I have company” conjured up a picture of that mousy girl with the groceries.

“And what are you looking at?” I challenged Gloria after he left.

“The willing fly about to enter the web.”

“You mean you’re not going?”

Her only answer was a smirk.

Frank made spaghetti and clam sauce and presented Larry with a new briefcase. After dinner we sat on cushions and drank wine. My face was as placid as Buddha’s, but my insides were roiling, first with anticipation, then with resentment. Frank turned the whole conversation over to Larry, asking about things like the Braille facilities in the library and the note-taking device blind students use. Larry needed little encouragement. He rattled on about his childhood, and the two of them tossed around the subject of who were more fortunate—those who had never seen or those who had lost their sight. I contributed nothing, even though Frank tried to rope me in by asking my opinion here and there. I kept pouring wine from the half-gallon jug and staring at Frank’s bare legs. They were so skinny that the thighs were barely wider than the knees. Why, I asked myself, would someone with those legs wear shorts? But then, why should I be staring at them? Why did I want to reach out and run my hands down them? Up to this time, I had slept with only two guys. Both of them had been handsome, nearly perfect specimens, but even so, I never became aroused simply by looking at them. Maybe because this new attraction was so alien to me, I was able to get hold of myself and switch from wine to coffee. The coffee kept my eyes off his legs, but watching his face and listening to his voice didn’t help my resistance. He listened to Larry with the same facial expression he had had while reading that book in the union grill: he wasn’t being merely polite, he was interested. Sullenly, I told myself he’d listen to a grasshopper if it could talk.