“I dabble.” She looked at him more intently. “Are you being a nice person to your roommate?”

“I’m sorry?”

Just then Ian Richardson, a broody upper-former from newb boxing, came out the back door, and Ben moved to make room for him to pass.

“Hey,” Ian said to Ben. He turned to Alice. “You ready?”

“Yup, just shootin’ the breeze. You ready?”

“Yup.”

Alice got up and gave Ben a little two-finger salute.

“Viva Sparta,” she said.

“All for one and one for all,” Ben said. He watched the two of them walk across the Two-Laner, Ian’s shoulders pulled up slightly toward his ears. The streetlamps pushed back the new darkness, and they walked past the gym into the cover of the woods.

*  *  *

An orange molded-plastic chair on chrome legs was set next to the pay phone in the basement laundry room, and Ben sat there, trying to move himself to call home. This was adjacent to the storage area where newb boxing had happened, and Ben tried to smell throw-up but didn’t think he could make out anything other than fabric softener and dust and the massive foundation. Ben felt again in the late-late summer the foundation’s coolness.

Ahmed had come back that night from the Dish and said that the news of his father donating the pool had become known, and at lunch a group of kids had brought him bowl after bowl of Jell-O, bowing and asking him if they could be of any further service, until he had dishes of Jell-O stacked all over his tray. Ahmed had asked Ben what that meant, and Ben had told him it was just a prank.

Now in the basement, the phone resting in his lap, Ben looked across the room at the wall. It was built of irregular chunks of limestone bonded together with ashy mortar. Ben fixated on the shapes, seeing them as individual rocks and then again as parts of the wall.

At last he put the pleasurably heavy receiver against his ear and dialed the long calling card number. He imagined calling Alice, being able to tell her things without having to worry about the way she would see him looking at her.

“Hi, Mom!”

“Little bird!” Genuine excitement and unmistakable tiredness. “Tell me everything. So, you got there…” Ben forgot to be resentful that he was the one calling them. He relayed an edited version of events since his dad had dropped him off.

She laughed, and Ben almost curled up with the pleasure of hearing her laugh. Eventually he came up to the present day. “Is Dad there too?”

“He’s out getting stuff for dinner.”

Her voice knew. Ben outlined what Markson had told him. When he was done there was quiet between them.

“What’s happening, Mom?”

“I’m sort of finding out now.” This was the tone she used with adults; Ben had wanted her to talk this way, but it had come so quickly.

“And?”