“Of course not,” I answered irritably. “I just don’t see why you’re so critical of him.”

“Me critical! Look who’s talking—Irene Rutledge, verbal lampoonist par excellence. Compared to you, I’m Little Nell.”

“All right, Nell, let’s drop it.”

As we drove back home, I was fully aware of the subtle side glances she was giving me. When we pulled into the parking lot, Frank’s car was gone. Gloria looked at the empty spot and said, “Well, that must have been a quick meal.”

“Maybe the girl took off with his car,” I said sullenly.

“I hope you’re not going to knock on his door to find out.”

“Let’s just forget it.”

“Exactly my sentiments.”

For the next two weeks I busied myself with reading, working on a tan at the campus swimming pool, and deliberating over which classes to take in the fall, when I would enter the Ph.D. program. Gloria had a party and conspicuously left Frank un­invited; if she expected a reaction from me, she didn’t get it. I was regaining the old grip on myself, the rock reassuming its comfortable firmness.

Then came the incident with Larry.

One morning in July, I saw a group of fraternity boys, identifiable by the pins on their sport shirts, running around blindfolded in the grassy area between the auditorium and the river which cut through the center of the campus. The mysterious game turned out to be Blindfolded Football, wherein the unblindfolded quarterback of each team called the signals and yelled out directions to the other team players. I thought it thoroughly ridiculous but just comic enough to watch a few minutes before moving on to my class. Standing on the dirt footpath about three feet from the river, I was soon noticed by one of the quarterbacks. He smiled and before the next play he shouted to his team, “All right, you guys, there’s a gorgeous redhead standing over here who’s waiting to see what you can do!”

Coming toward me on the footpath, but a good distance away, was a blind boy. In one hand was a briefcase, in the other the white stick he used as a “sweep” in front of him. Even farther in the distance, but approaching in the same direction, was Frank. Although I pretended to watch the players, I kept Frank in my sights, and I noticed quite plainly that the second he saw me, he turned abruptly and began to cut across the grass toward the audito­rium. He kept his eyes on the ground and quickened his step until it was almost a sprint.

God! I fumed. What does he think I am—poison?

“To the left! To the left! The left, Donovan, you dumb jerk!”

I turned in time to see a wave of players heading toward the river—and the blind boy. The boy stopped immediately, his head making the same back-and-forth sweeping motion his stick had made.

“Look out!” I yelled. “Look out for—” It was too late.

Some of the players did halt, but three crashed into the boy and sent him tumbling right into the river. For a few seconds, my legs wouldn’t move, and when they did, I found myself converging on the scene simultaneously with Frank. The boy was flailing the water, and the others, blindfolds removed, were shouting, “This way! Swim this way!” Fortunately, there was a good-sized stick right at my feet. I picked it up and called, “Use this—get him to grab hold of this!” (The reason we were all unwilling to jump in unless the boy went under was that the river was practically stagnant and notoriously filthy, not so much a river as an elongated cesspool. Upstream from where we stood there were patches of green slime beneath an overhang of trees.) The boy stretched out his hand, but a few inches remained between him and the stick. One of the quarterbacks surrendered it to Frank, whose long and lanky arm filled in the needed inches. The boy was pulled out, and Frank sat him down on the ground. The smell of the river on his clothes was atrocious; the players backed away from it.