AFTER MONDAY PRACTICE AND BEFORE SEATED MEAL, AHMED came back to the room carrying a large cardboard box with many complicated postage and customs seals. He set it on the couch and went to the bathroom for his long shower. Ben stared at the package impatiently. He was still sore from the meet, a loss that everyone seemed to consider admirable. Matt had also lost, but the team overall had won. That same day squash had lost to Andover, with Ahmed winning at the JV team’s number two spot. Ben hadn’t looked at the printout of Andover’s squash lineup—he knew he had probably beaten most of them in Juniors.

Ahmed returned to the room in his robe, his hair now long enough to hang on to water from the shower, and laid two ties out across his desk—purple-and-gold stripe vs. purple-and-green paisley. Before deciding, he cut the tape on the box with the edge of his plastic ruler. He lifted out a shearling coat down to mid-thigh with white fur lining and three-inch-long horn fasteners that fit through leather thong loops.

“Absolutely not, Ahmed.”

“What?”

“There’s no way you can wear that here. You’re going to get crucified in that coat, man.”

“No, this is an excellent coat.” Ahmed opened the fold-over card that had also been in the box. “My father sent it from Spain.”

“You really can’t.”

Ahmed looked like he couldn’t bear Ben’s disapproving of it. “It is an excellent coat,” he insisted.

They took a cab to the Mountain Man in the shopping strip fifteen minutes away.

“Trust me, one like mine is going to serve you a lot better in the snow.” Ben showed Ahmed how the sleeves on the North Face were cut so that when you lifted your arms above your head, the waistline of the jacket didn’t lift up.

“But my coat is so long that when you lift your arms it comes up only a little bit.”

Ben explained how Gore-Tex worked, how it let moisture escape but didn’t allow rain or snow in.

“But this is so thin, it will not be warm,” said Ahmed, pinching the sleeve of the jacket on the hanger.

Ben explained layering, how Ahmed could get a down underlayer and a fleece underlayer for different temperatures.

“But then I would need to have three coats instead of just one.”

Ahmed could get a dozen of them and not even notice, but Ben stayed quiet. Ahmed instead bought a dozen break-open hand-warmer packets before they left.

*  *  *