He cleaned the dorm room to give himself something to do, but after a while he realized that what he was really doing was waiting for Ben to call, and the thought peeved him and so he decided to walk to North Campus. Outside there was still the crowd watching the baseball game along the iron railing of the balconies; the dorm was shaped like a cross, and two of the sides faced each other, with the balconies running along the sides, giving access to the lines of suite doors, plain and geometric. Balmy in the afternoon sun. He took the elevator to the ground floor, then headed out of the lobby into the spring warmth, past people sunbathing on the lawn in front of the dorm, waving at Sheria with someone he didn’t recognize. Sheria was seated on a blanket holding a book in her lap, eating something in a plastic wrapper, frizzy hair blowing this way and that in the breeze. He had met her at Governor’s School, a summer program for gifted high school students. She hollered something at him and he cupped his hand to his ear; she shook her head and said, “Come see me later,” and he heard that, and signaled that he would. Scanning the bare bodies on their towels, the girls in their bathing suits, the boys in their jeans, he refused to search for Ben, who was too cool for suntan lotion and too restless for sun worship. Ronny took the path that led past the regular row of brick dormitories, counting the fans in the open windows, more sunbathers on the narrow patches of grass, a plump girl in a purple romper riding a blue bicycle slowly. The scent of pot from someone’s room wafted past, and a bedraggled cat hid behind the struggling shrubbery along the front of Teague. Threads of Heart and Springsteen mingled with the fading cheers from the baseball game. The campus was all trees and brick, pine needles and shade. Near the end of semester, everybody was wearing shorts, open shirts, midriff-baring blouses, ambling with books in their arms, hoping to find a pretty spot to study for exams but distracted by the beautiful day.

He found the usual collection of creative writing students on the steps in front of Pine Hall, including Lily, her long, thick hair wrapped over one shoulder. “So it’s Mr. Mallory, how lovely.”

“Not feeling very lovely at the moment,” he said, and sat next to her, irritating her friend, a poet, who was bending toward her with the earnest look of someone about to burst into free verse.

So he told her what had happened and she commiserated. “Well, there ought to be lots of apartments open for the summer, I guess. Your poor mom.”

“Why is she the one who gets the sympathy?”

“Nevada,” she said.

After a moment he laughed. “I suppose. And at least I don’t have to go back to Goldsboro this year. If I can figure out what to do.”