“How many do you have?”

“Three. I’m the only boy. My mother says I’m a better man because of all the female attention. She likes that I took this class.” His jeans were baggy, not flared like Ronny’s, and he walked with his books tucked under his arm and his hands shoved into his pockets, head down, purposeful, the wind in his hair.

“My mom’s just glad I decided to go to college at all.”

“She’s unique, your mother? The way she leaves you to take care of yourself like this?”

“She’s always done that. And I had to take care of her a lot, too. She doesn’t like to cook and she doesn’t like to clean so I had to learn how as soon as I was old enough.” It felt odd to talk in this way about his mother, but the conversation had started about her, about the fact that she’d suddenly decided to marry somebody she barely knew and to move to Nevada, a place she’d never even visited. “Because naturally she likes a tidy house even if she doesn’t like to do anything about it herself. My grandmother used to come over and cook for us sometimes, and Ma liked that, too.”

“Mrs. Delacy will like you if you’re neat like you say. Some of the guys are real slobs.”

“Are you?”

Big, warm grin on his face. “Sometimes. But then I hear my sisters in my head fussing about my socks all over the place and et cetera.”

“You sound like you know the landlady pretty well.”

“We’re friendly. She’s really old, she needs help sometimes. Her husband died and left her the house and she’s had a tough time taking care of everything.”

They chatted a little longer about the ways that women often got left in the lurch. Fresh from the seminar, their heads were buzzing with ideas that made them feel good about themselves. Jamal had a stolid quality, as though he was older than his years. The house was across from the university-owned hotel, the Carolina Inn, all brick and old-style window pediments, sitting very close to the street. There was the traffic of the university and the cars headed to Franklin Street farther up, and then the sudden quiet of what might have been a residential street in earlier days. Now it was a mix of houses and fraternities. The boardinghouse sat within a fenced yard, tall trees at the back. Ronny and Jamal stood in front of the house, a two-story clapboard, square and neat, with a porch along the front, shaded by a sturdy young oak about the height of the roof. Jamal led Ronny into the living room through a little entryway, paint faded, everything a bit tattered, and there they were, standing in the midst of dark wood and the gleam of old glass, Jamal’s voice booming. “Hey, Mrs. Delacy! I solved our problem.”

She walked into the room, wavering in the light, as if she were not quite present, in a plain dress of pale blue, an apron at her waist, the pockets bulging with papers that she touched, once, to make sure they were in place. She had startling eyes, magnified by her glasses; the eyes appeared too close together for their size, as though she had two faces superimposed one on the other. Ronny was uncertain she actually saw him.