They pulled their waterlogged clothes off, even their underwear was wet, and dried themselves off. How strange it was to be in this room, sorting through someone else’s clothes. In the closet Effie found satiny blue pajamas and a bathrobe. Henry found a baggy Princeton sweatshirt and pink swim trunks that were a couple sizes too big, but he pulled the string tight and they held to his hips. They laughed at each other. Effie’s nipples stood up through the pajamas; she wrapped the bathrobe tightly around her. Henry gathered their wet clothes in a bundle, rolling their underwear in his soaked trousers, and they made their way back downstairs.

“Now you have to stay the night,” Clara said.

Henry dropped their clothes behind the sofa, and they settled on the floor around the coffee table. Their drinks had been made already, their bowls had been filled—chunks of pork and white beans in a thick broth—and this was exactly where Henry wanted to be, in this circle by the fire, with these strange people, and a drink that would quickly go to his head.

“You’re going to get sick of us,” Effie said.

“Impossible,” Clara said. “There are six bedrooms in this house. We could each have our own room if we wanted. Although what would be the fun of that?”

They ate, and listened to the ceaseless wind and rain outside and the crackling of the fire. The windows had been closed, but drafts stole in and made the candles tremble, and their shadows danced monstrously on the walls. Max and Clara seemed more subdued tonight. It had been a rough morning, Max said. “Especially for this one,” he whispered, as if in secret, indicating Clara, but Clara said that was an exaggeration—anyway, she had always been able to recover quickly. “But what fun last night was,” she said. “It made me feel like I was a little girl again, staying up past my bedtime.”

“I’m glad to see you made it back,” Effie said to Alma, who was sitting next to her. It was usually Effie who tried to make conversation with Alma (Max never did), though Alma barely acknowledged her. Henry had tried once or twice too, but every time he spoke to her he felt dumb and exposed, as he did now.

“We lost you there at the end,” he said, and winced at the almost fatherly tone he’d put on it.

“I was looking at dresses,” she said simply, ladling more cassoulet into her bowl. “I think I found one for the dance Friday.”

“Dresses,” Max said. “What are you talking about?”

Clara laughed. “She’s going to steal a dress for the dance. From the thespians.”

“I’m going to borrow a dress.”