“No, not tonight. Tonight’s just brandy and maybe a little pot—just enough to get fuzzy around the edges.” It was a school night and school nights kept him tethered. If the phone rang at six A.M., he’d have to get up, put on a tie and drive down to Beacon to endure another day among the adolescents. Brandy he could handle, pot even, but not the sacrament—the sacrament required a whole lot more space, an infinitude, really. And God, God too. Or at least the promise of Him.

He became aware then of a faint murmur of voices coming from down the hall and an even fainter drift of music rising from somewhere below. The doorframe dug into his shoulder, but he didn’t move.

When she spoke again, her voice was caught deep in her throat. “Do you want to join me?”

It was a delicate moment. There was nothing about her that was seductive but the question itself, and it wasn’t so much a question as a plea. She lay there motionless atop the covers in the flickering light, fully clothed, with her hair splayed out over the pillow and her legs crossed at the ankles. If her feet had been bare, that would have been one thing, but they weren’t—she was wearing a pair of thick white socks because the room was as cold as a cave, and he couldn’t help thinking how much easier all this would be if only it were summer and it was like it was in Zihuatanejo, everything free and easy and no worries about anything, not even socks.

“Well, actually,” he said, searching for the right tone, “the truth is, I was just curious, that’s all—you know, to see how this was going to go? But really, I have to get up in the morning. Or might have to. That’s the bitch of it with subbing, because you never know.”

She was silent a moment, and then, her voice tightening, she said, “If you’re looking for Lori, she’s with Royce, I think, down the end of the hall, last room on the left.”