“You passed out kind of early.”

“Passed out?”

“Fell asleep, then. I didn’t get back that late.”

“Well, they brought some beer, too.” He grabbed at his generous waist and displayed a slab of it. “You can’t keep up a gut this size drinking diet soda, Ronny.”

“I guess.”

Kelly pulled on underwear lying at the side of the bed. “This room smells like crap.”

Ronny rose off the mattress enough to open the window. Fresh air was welcome, and a breeze set the window shade to fluttering.

Kelly hefted the boxes and took them out the door. When he came back he found a towel, sniffed it, and slung it over his shoulder, feeling around under the dirty clothes for his shaving kit. He had a stereo atop the built-in chest of drawers and put on a Led Zeppelin album, Houses of the Holy. “This is one of those fucking days, right? My head feels like shit and I have to study all day.”

“You must have an exam tomorrow.”

He played a measure or two of air guitar, his gut swaying; he was big and solid, his skin so pale you could see the blue veins running under. “The Song Remains the Same” was starting to play. “Lucinda’s coming over later,” he said, opening the small refrigerator at the foot of his bed, taking out a beer. He popped it open and took a long draw from it. “You going to let us have some privacy, right?”

“Sure. I’ll be out all day.”

“Leave the door open if you go.” Kelly’s feet slapped on the floor as he headed to the bathroom.

The fact that Kelly had warned him about the girlfriend—rather than throwing him out of the room without notice—was the closest to friendship they had ever come. Ronny dressed quickly, decided to head to the student union. Soon he was alive in the clear morning, hesitating on the balcony in case Ben should appear across the way, then ambling along the brick pathways and through the pines near the football stadium. Clear, cool, dry, the air was scented of tree-flower smells, hollies in bloom, jasmine, pinesap.

At the student union he bought a copy of The Chapel Hill Newspaper and found a stack of apartment-finder magazines near the door to the snack bar, where a few listless Servomation employees in ill-fitting uniforms were idly cleaning counters. He sat in one of the booths near the window and read the papers, despairing at once at the amount of the rent he would have to pay, phrases like “one month’s deposit,” “lease term of one year,” nothing that he could rent for a summer. No time to arrange for a roommate to share expenses. Wondering idly whether he could sleep on Lily’s floor—though her sister already lived with her, and the stone house they leased was tiny. A tiny gall of panic fluttered in his midsection.

He took the apartment finder to the Daily Tar Heel office, where there were phones he could use for free. The student union was a modern building, all glass and terrazzo, a bank of pay phones along one wall, an information desk in the central lobby, steel-framed stairs leading up and down to offices of student government above and below. The newspaper offices were an afterthought, tacked onto the corner of the building in what had been intended as a large lounge with seating, glass outer walls, gallery space for art and photographs; the space had been halfheartedly partitioned off from the outer lounge and stuffed with desks, chairs, typewriters, two news teletype units silent at the moment, and a pair of offices for the business manager and the advertising staff. Haphazard, chaotic, full of noise during the semester, haunted by the memory of all that activity now. He found a telephone and sat down, kicking at an empty metal waste can.