They couldn’t know that Aston had made sure six sunken gullies in the red-brick pathways were fixed and the Math Building was finally repainted. Several panes in the chapel’s stained-glass window depicting the rise of Lazarus had blown loose in a late-summer windstorm, and the school had brought in a specialist from Wisconsin to repair it. Aston kept reminding everyone about the new squash courts: had they seen the old boiler out front that used to dramatically overheat the courts? And had they seen the raw patch of the pool building site? If everything went according to plan, the pool would be finished in eighteen months.

Ahmed and two other foreign students—Rolf Unger from yearbook and Hideo—banded together out of necessity, and Ahmed said he was going to take them to Lupo, an Italian restaurant. Ben thought it would be in Boston again. Then he saw Ahmed on the couch flipping through a glossy brochure filled with photos of planes from a company called Let’s Jet.

“Where are you going?”

Ahmed said, “New York. It is not too far.”

“You’re going by yourself?”

“Mr. Rafsanjani is meeting us there.”

“Who’s that?”

“He works for our family.”

Ben went with Hutch and Evan’s parents to the Wagon Wheel in town, and Hutch’s white-blond mother had too much to drink and said several times, “Well, your friend Ben is just the absolute cutest. I want to put him in my pocket! Another ice cream, just in a dish this time? He’s about to disappear.”

Hutch’s father assessed the group. He said things like, “Have you thought that out to its end point?” or “Would you explain further?” and Hutch would grow quiet.

Back at the dorm after check-in, Ben went to Hideo’s room and found him lying back on his bed with his eyes closed and all the lights on. He said Ahmed had refused wine because of haraam but insisted the other two have whatever the sommelier recommended, and Hideo had ordered a bottle of Barolo by himself. The chaperone had smiled and agreed.

Hideo had the chaperone’s heavy business card on his desk.

S. OLIVER RAFSANJANI
EXTENSION OF THE HAND OF

Sheik Abdul Rahman bin-Mohammed
bin-Faisal Al-Khaled

+44-XXX-XX-XX-XX
+971-4XX-XXX-XXXX

“Ahmed insisted on ordering for us,” Hideo said. “He read that the bluefin tuna at this restaurant was ‘world-class,’ and so he would not let us get anything but that.”

Ben didn’t say anything for a while. “Was it good, though?”

Hideo didn’t answer right away. “It was so good.”

The next day, the campus was newly empty.

*  *  *