“Yeah.”

“Hey. How about your job?”

“I have to go back Monday morning and talk to the shop supervisor. They need somebody for part-time. Which is probably enough for me to live on if they pay something decent.”

“Oh, sure. It’s Chapel Hill, remember? Who pays students decent? I work like a dick for room and board.”

“Anyway, I can make it work.”

“So if you hear about this job Monday, I could come get you then. And bring you back here.”

“Depends on when I start work. Your mom said it’s okay?”

“Yes. She will. Believe me she will, I can tell.” He lowered his voice some. “Sorry, I don’t want my dad to hear. He can be the biggest moron. She asked about you already, that’s all.”

“So?”

“So I got you reading my mind and I got her reading my mind.”

Ronny laughed, had a hard time stopping.

“Laugh, you little fuck.”

“I think one other reason you like me is because you don’t have to watch your mouth.”

“Don’t get me started on that.”

“What happened to the beach?”

“What? Oh, that. I’m taking Jen Sunday. That’s all. I told her we can’t stay. She’ll just have to deal with it.”

There was first the closeness, the feeling there was no distance between them, and then so casually the mention of Jen, the confusion that followed. Ronny said, “Okay. I have to go.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re the one who brought her up, Ronny. Jesus.”

“Don’t worry about it. I really can’t stay on this phone for any longer.”

“You all right?’

“Yes. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

But when he hung up he felt the hollowness again, and a little sick from the feeling, knowing Ben would see Jennifer, knowing they would touch each other, do other stuff. The feeling of jealousy shook through him, so that he fumbled with the door when he turned the lock, forgot about the light and had to open the door again, and felt how foolish it was, what he was doing, if you thought about it from a slightly different perspective. He turned out the light and closed the door.

Architecture

CAMPUS WAS A UNIVERSE OF TREES, poplars and oaks on McCorkle Place, on Polk Place, both squares fogged by branches and leaves; pines stood sentinel around the gray curves of the football stadium; this part of campus was a walk through a forest woven with brick paths, punctuated by people from the physical plant department who moved from place to place taking up the bricks and laying them down again. Light filtered through the leaves in a fluttering way, found wavering routes to the ground. The quiet of the place, between the end of classes and summer school, gave him an awed feeling, that he was a wanderer here, that all these buildings were vacant, a wilderness of classrooms. He glimpsed rows of old wooden desks through the windows of Bingham Hall, plaster walls all cracked, chalkboards that needed cleaning. The round dome of Wilson Library rose above the treetops and made some kind of assertion, the building itself massive, all pale stone from the rotunda to the foundation. The sharp peak of the tall, thin Morehead Bell Tower stood just behind it at the center of neatly pruned shrubbery; there was a story that the Wilsons and the Moreheads hated one another, and the bell tower aimed to put a dunce cap on the dome of the library if you viewed it from South Building, the home of the university chancellor, at the head of Polk Place. The tale was handed down from student to student, taking on the form of truth in the wake of so much repetition. Could be it really was.