The worst thing about having no money was that it was coming at the wrong time. If he had already been at the school for two years—a couple girlfriends in his past, reliable crowds at his squash matches, a reputation for drinking now and then but nothing crazy, always the right comeback at the right time—the news that his family had no money could be glamorous. He would be facing real life while the rest of the school sailed around in complacency. Other kids would catch themselves worrying about exams or who to sit with at lunch and then they would remember that Ben had real things on his mind.

He would have had two years of skiing in Sun Valley and hanging on the beach on Martha’s Vineyard, two years of mountain biking in the woods, two years of buying every third pizza, of letting someone else do the math when the check came. Cab to town? Bus to Boston? Tickets to Phish at the Garden? Gas when they got invited to grad parties? Vasque boots for a backpacking trip? All the things Teddy had done and talked about. A couple CDs every few weeks at Sonic Boom, packages of Maxell tapes from the bookstore. After that, suddenly having no money would be a trial to face down instead of an identity, or a barrier to forming any identity. Guys would say, “My parents took care of your ticket, man. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Then, with this foundation, when he decided to withdraw, he could depart on a cold morning. His friends would come out and shake his hand with some sort of strange envy, and the girls he had dated would come too, and Alice would be there and they would all watch the car pull away. They would wait for him to turn around and look between the horizontal filaments of the back glass, but he would keep looking straight ahead until the car was several minutes off campus.

But to be both out of money and obscure—there was no, absolutely no glamour in that. When the news of his family’s emptiness got around—if enough people were even interested enough for it to get around—he imagined people saying, “Oh yeah, Weeks…Well, he was going to wash out anyway,” or “Wasn’t he supposed to be good at squash?” all while still thinking about that thing Lily Jarvis said at the toaster bar earlier.

Now the ball was warm enough to sit up off the back wall, and for several forehands Ben just coiled up his body and let it unwind, and the ball leapt to the front wall and traveled back flush against the side wall, perfect, and up off the back wall right to where the racquet face lashed it again.