Eric’s long salt-and-pepper ponytail fell over the right shoulder of his blue and maroon cardigan. Underneath the cardigan was a denim Oxford and a hand-painted navy blue tie with a plaintive baby seal staring out at us.

I cocked an eyebrow at the tie as I took a seat.

“Sue me,” Eric said, “for being a slave to fashion.” He leaned back in his chair and waved a hand at his open window. “Some weather, isn’t it?”

“Some weather,” I agreed.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “So, how’s Jason doing?”

“He lives a very busy existence,” Angie said.

“He used to be an insular kid, believe it or not,” Eric said. “Very sweet, never a moment’s trouble to Diandra, but introverted since day one.”

“Not anymore,” I said.

Eric nodded. “Ever since he came here, he’s broken out. It’s common, of course, for kids who didn’t fit in with the jock or beautiful-people cliques in high school to find themselves in college, stretch a bit.”

“Jason does a lot of stretching,” I said.

“He seems lonely,” Angie said.

Eric nodded. “I could see that. The father leaving when he was so young explains some things, but still, always there’s been this…distance. I wish I could explain it. You see him with his…”—he smiled—“…harem, I guess, when he doesn’t know you’re watching, and it’s like he’s a completely different person from the shy kid I’ve always known.”

“What does Diandra think about it?” I said.

“She doesn’t notice it. He’s very close to her, so when he talks to anyone with any degree of depth, he talks to her. But he doesn’t bring women home, he doesn’t even hint at his lifestyle here. She knows he’s holding a piece of himself back, but she tells herself he’s just very good at keeping his own counsel, and she respects that.”

“But you don’t think so,” Angie said.

He shrugged and looked out the window a moment. “When I was his age, I was living in the same dorm on this campus and I’d been a pretty introverted kid myself, and here, like Jason, I came out of my shell. I mean, it’s college. It’s study, drink, smoke weed, have sex with strangers, take naps in the afternoon. It’s what you do if you come to a place like this at eighteen.”

“You had sex with strangers?” I said. “I’m shocked.”

“And I feel so bad about it now. I do. But, okay, I was no saint either, but with Jason, this radical change and his charge into almost de Sadian excess is a bit drastic.”

“’De Sadian’?” I said. “You intellectuals, I swear, talk so damn cool.”

“So why the change? What’s he trying to prove?” Angie said.

“I don’t know, exactly.” Eric cocked his head in such a way that, not for the first time, he reminded me of a cobra. “Jason’s a good kid. Personally I can’t imagine him being mixed up in anything that would harm either himself or his mother, but then I’ve known the boy all his life and he’s the last person I would’ve ever predicted would succumb to a Don Juan complex. You’ve dismissed the Mafia connection?”