A boy stood in the fluorescent-lit hall. He had sandy hair and unfashionable glasses, flannel pants and a T-shirt that read GIVE BONE MARROW above a flexible, grinning femur. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said. “By chance has Beth Barrett yet returned?”

“No.” Molly limited her interactions with students. If anyone said “Hi” to her in the hall, it was that “Hi, I have a question” voice, “Hi, I have ulterior motives. Hi, I want to take advantage of you really fast.” Molly started to close the door.

“Wait,” the boy said. “Who’s on duty? The third-floor guy? There’s a problem.”

“There’s no problem,” Molly said. “Why don’t you run along?”

“But it smells like marijuana. I think it’s from 6A.” The boy’s glasses were so dense and uneven that his expression was unreadable. As he shifted, his eyes behind the lenses blurred and refocused. “Where’s the dog?” he asked. “Beth said someone was staying with the dog.”

Molly didn’t like that someone. It sounded too much like anyone, even though she didn’t call Beth her girlfriend yet, either, wasn’t ready to have a real girlfriend. Like she wasn’t ready to have a real job or a real music career, as though she had the option for either.

“I don’t hear him,” the boy said. “Chowder. Chowder.”

Molly cracked the door wider. She didn’t want the R.A. on the third floor hearing all this talk of drugs and dogs. The R.A. was only a junior himself and bleated to Beth about his parents’ divorce, his homesickness, the soulless pursuit of Economics. “Come in,” she said.

“Beth said I could walk Chowder anytime,” he said, upon entering. “I want to walk him.”

Molly slouched against the wall. There was a quality to this kid that made her want to thoroughly disappoint him. “Now isn’t a good time.”

The boy was a slice shaved off a more substantial boy. He picked up the leash, hung it on his finger like a snakeskin, swinging. Molly remembered seeing him now, with Beth in the hall, cuddling the shepherd’s big head, his fleece matted with fur. He was one of those kids with a dog back home who couldn’t stand a life free of gamey aromas and feces handling.

“Sit down, please.” Molly took the leash. “And stop groping things that don’t belong to you.” The Harvard kids, for all their intensity, just wanted to be treated like children. They relaxed when following orders.

Molly closed the door to Beth’s bedroom, establishing the possibility that Chowder was somewhere in the suite, though the softest knock sent him rocketing to the door, woofing with his tongue out, ecstatic to meet whoever might emerge from beyond the wooden frame. Rapists and serial killers, he welcomed them all.

The boy sat down.

“Who are you?” he asked. “I’ve seen you.”

“I’m Beth’s, you know, person.” Saying that out loud was awkward. Molly had never before admitted to an official relationship with Beth, or anyone for that matter. The fumbling sentence was out before she considered that perhaps Beth didn’t want students knowing she was gay. Perhaps that was why “someone” was watching the dog. Of course, Molly was wearing a man’s flannel and had shaggy hair. She was ever-present, and there was one bed.