He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “Just wondering, that’s all.” He stood there a minute more, for form’s sake, said, “Nice work,” and strolled back across the lawn, retrieved his glass from where he’d set it down beside the porch swing and went on into the house to pour himself another drink.

Three days later, when she still hadn’t turned up, it occurred to him to drive over to the college and see if she’d somehow gone back to her dorm room—if she even had a dorm room anymore. If she did, that would explain where she kept disappearing to, that would explain a lot, and as he slid behind the wheel of the first car he came to in the driveway—Ken’s VW Bug, keys in the ignition, fuel gauge stuck on RESERVE—he pictured her living a double existence, the enfant primitif devoting herself to barefootedness and mind expansion at the Alte Haus, but privately pursuing her degree all the same. In a skirt and blouse and what, penny loafers? Sure, why not? If anybody could pull it off she could. But then it was August now and school wouldn’t have been in session, would it? Unless they offered summer courses. Did they offer summer courses? He didn’t have a clue. He’d been in Millbrook nearly a year now and he’d never set foot on campus, not once.

It wasn’t much more than a mile from the gates of the Hitchcock estate, an easy walk, but he was driving because he was feeling a sense of urgency, an urgency he’d tried to contain over the course of the past three nights with prophylactic doses of alcohol and marijuana, but with little success. He needed her. He was blinded by her. And if he was drunk on cheap brandy at two in the afternoon, it wasn’t his fault.

There were cars in the lot out back of the big gabled mansion that dominated the campus, more cars than he would have imagined, and that encouraged him—somebody was here, at least. It took him a while to park, the dimensions of things gone flaccid on him and the earth and its burden of lawns and trees and buildings moving even faster than the car, but finally he maneuvered the Bug into a shrinking space between two massive Pontiac sedans—or no, one was a Dodge—and got things squared away to his satisfaction before making his way across the lawn and up the steps of the main building. There wasn’t a student in sight—nobody in sight, actually, not even a gardener or custodian. Bennett College, Closed for the Summer, like all colleges everywhere, and what was he thinking?