“I don’t know,” Eric said. “I thought my class had a pretty good discussion going today—not the part you saw, of course, that was sort of a mess. But after you left, I think we got Louis to understand something about the power of subtlety.”

“The power of subtlety,” Marianne repeated, peeling, from her computer screen, some of the sticky notes she’d left for herself, mostly phone messages she’d forgotten to deliver. “Well. I hope Manfred remembered to take his medicine. Also: I think we’re back to square one.”

“Didn’t you talk to Mark? They loved the tour. They think there’s a lot they can do for us. So, good job. Really, I’m proud of you.”

“This was not what you or your brother said it would be,” she said. “These people had charts, and graphs, and a plan of attack. They had facts and figures. They had promotional materials.” She scrambled the Rubik’s Cube and handed it to Eric.

“They’re businesspeople,” Eric explained. He turned the cube this way and that, then set it down again on the desk, as if it were an objet d’art rather than a puzzle he was meant to solve. “They have an interest in the bottom line. They also oversee six or seven other campuses—”

“They have a Christian cosmetology school, Eric,” said Marianne. “That’s where they were headed next, after they were done with our tour. Doesn’t that strike you as strange? Shouldn’t a Christian cosmetology school be, like, soap and washcloths?”

“Ha,” said Eric. That was the most he was contributing these days, in terms of laughter. He’d been this way, serious and preoccupied, right before his divorce. Marianne had worked overtime to be amusing and distracting, sending dirty postcards and performing her famous Bill Clinton impression over the phone, but all he’d give her was a wan ha, or maybe ha-ha, if something was really funny. When it was over—next Friday, when the students left—he’d be able to relax.

“And they have a Christian medical billing school, and a Christian law school, devoted, I’m guessing, to the replacement of the Bill of Rights with the Ten Commandments,” Marianne went on. “None of this bothers you?”

“Marianne,” Eric said quietly. “What do you want me to do—fire Tom and Lorraine? Cut their pay? Send everybody home?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Did you see that reading the students were having? The bowls of raisins and cookies? Their manuscripts under their chairs? Nothing GWGW wants to do is gonna change that spirit they have.”