“I like the theater, too, but I’m crazy about movies. If you’re not, I’ll probably bore you rigid.”

She laughed. “I like movies, and you don’t seem in the least boring.”

“That’s the nicest thing anybody has said to me in the big city,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “I have an appointment with some editing equipment. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see you on Saturday.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” she replied. She turned back to the piano and began to play again.

Peter left the recital hall and walked back to the film department, feeling a little light-headed. He felt some other things he hadn’t felt before, too.

Chapter 37

37

Alan Ripley switched off the light in his office and, in the gathering dusk, walked across the campus at Herald Academy in tidewater Virginia, kicking at little piles of leaves the wind had gathered. Autumn came late here, but now there was a real nip in the air. He wrapped his muffler tighter.

He climbed the stairs to his small apartment in the faculty residence and switched on the lights, then he lit the already laid fire and backed up to the hearth as it caught. When his backside got too hot to handle he poured himself a small scotch, settled in a leather wing chair near the fire, and picked up the le Carré novel he had been reading. He had just opened the book when the phone rang. He closed the book and grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

“Alan?” A vaguely familiar voice.

“Yes, who’s that?”

“A voice from the past. It’s James Heald.”

Ripley was pleasantly surprised. “James? It’s good to hear from you. I haven’t heard that voice since we left Harvard.”

“Good to hear yours, too.”

“Where are you? What are you doing?”

“I’m teaching set design at the Yale School of Drama.”

“Good for you. I’d heard you were working on Broadway at some point.”

“Yes, but it was too fast a track for me, and the gaps between jobs were too long. I’ve been at Yale for nearly two years, now, and it suits me better.”

“Congratulations. It sounds like a good place to be. How did you find me?”

“Well, I stopped in the dean’s office for a minute last week and I caught a bit of your performance.”

“Performance? What do you mean?”

“Your screen acting performance.”

“You baffle me.”

“Didn’t you act in a student film down there?”

“Oh, Christ, yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t make the connection. We don’t really have a film department as such, and I acted as faculty adviser on a student project last year. I got roped into playing a part. That must have been what you saw.”