Before Giancarlo could comment, the couple went off on a tangent about the virtues of matrimony over bachelorhood. Was it good for a man to live all alone for so long? Who would look after him when he got old? Where would he go? What would he do? There was nothing for Giancarlo to do but pretend to listen while he waited for the coffee to finish brewing.

“So, tell me,” he said when a pause in the conversation mercifully offered itself to him. “What brings you two here today? And why was it necessary to start banging on my front door like you were trying to knock it down?”

“Ayyy, we rang the bell ten times and you still didn’t answer,” Anthony told him. “The car was in the driveway, so we knew you must be inside sleeping.”

“Yes, and I might still have been,” noted Giancarlo through yet another yawn. “I got home a little late last night.”

“Out celebrating the end of school till all hours?” chuckled Anthony.

“Something like that,” he replied, his thoughts drifting back to the party. Not that he was anyone’s idea of a night owl, but Giancarlo truly had stayed out quite a bit later than the sensible hour at which he normally retired to bed.When the jazz trio quit playing and the caterer began to clean up, Giancarlo thanked the Sheffields and filed out with the other guests, intending to head straight home. It was Patricia who had, with no small amount of good-natured pleading, coaxed him into tagging along with some of their colleagues who were planning to stop at an all-night diner to rehash the party over a quick cup of coffee before heading their separate ways.There is no such thing as a quick cup of coffee when a group of academics, especially those returning from a soiree at the dean’s residence, sits down to gab. To no one’s surprise, least of all Giancarlo’s, the waitress was called upon more than once to refill their cups as the hour grew later and the conversation louder and more boisterous. Despite Patricia’s best efforts to keep him engaged in the confab, Giancarlo inevitably found his attention flagging, his eyelids growing heavy. When at last he could no longer keep up a good face, he abruptly stood, bid everyone a good night and a good summer, and headed out to his car. Patricia followed him out and, after extracting a promise from him to keep in touch during the weeks ahead, gave him a quick, awkwardly accepted kiss on the cheek. “See you in September, Giancarlo,” she had told him, a hint of sadness in her voice. Then she turned quickly away and hurried back to rejoin the others. Left alone in the darkness, he had wearily climbed into his car and driven home, filled all the while with a strange sense of loss that he could not quite comprehend.