In the shower, he wondered what it was going to be like when everybody else came back from spring break. What was he to her? What did she need from him? Was he going to tell every dude who called her a name to fuck off? Trevor put on the best shirt and pants he had. Claudia had stressed the club had a no-sneakers policy, which didn’t leave him much choice. Still, his wavy hair was cooperating, his fingernails were trimmed, his face was shaved and smooth. He even smelled good: soapy clean and just a dab of the cologne his high-school girlfriend had given him for his birthday last year. All his life he’d been told he was good-looking, and he knocked at Claudia’s suite feeling confident. But when she opened the door Trevor knew he’d made a mistake agreeing to tag along. Claudia Castro was so far out of his league he might as well have been playing a different sport. She was his height now, standing in the dorm room doorway in the kind of high heels there were entire genres of porn dedicated to. Her long tan legs literally gleamed beneath a miniscule silk dress. She looked like a movie star; she practically was a movie star. If they hadn’t literally collided in the hallway last weekend she’d have graduated without ever knowing his name.

“You look great,” he said.

“Thanks.” She touched her hair. “I think this is the first time I’ve worn a bra in a week.”

Outside the dorm, Claudia hailed a cab.

“Didn’t you say the party was on Ninth Street?” asked Trevor. “That’s only six blocks.”

“I can’t really walk in these shoes,” said Claudia.

Ah.

Trevor had to crane his neck to see to the top of Ben’s brownstone: He counted one, two, three, four, five levels of windows, all dark, shades drawn. There was an unlit gas lantern in the little square front patio. Ivy crawled up the exterior.

“Ben’s mom is kind of a hermit,” said Claudia. She opened a waist-high iron gate to a just-below-street-level door and knocked. “She’s always around, but she stays away.”

“What about his dad?”

“He died when Ben was nine. Motorcycle accident.”

Trevor’s uncle had died that way when Trevor was thirteen. Uncle AJ and Trevor’s dad had been riding together since they were young; dirt bikes first, then they both got Hondas in their twenties, when they could afford the insurance. Before either had wives or kids or problems. Would Claudia be interested in the story of how Trevor was pulled out of biology class to learn the news? Or that he’d spoken at the funeral? He didn’t have time to find out.

“She’s here!” squealed a blonde. “Where the fuck have you been? For real? I think I texted you twenty times!”

“Adrienne,” said Claudia, “this is my friend Trevor.”