“Contractually,” Ford said, flustered now and confused, too, and why shouldn’t he be; she might as well just admit what was going on. John Grant had materialized out of her past, just as she had always feared he might. John Ogilvie Grant: the biggest mistake and the best summer of her life. Angie closed her eyes and shook her head, willing it to clear and not getting very far at all.

She called the office to give Rivera and Tony the good news, heard the beginnings of a party in the background, and made excuses having to do with the unreliability of the fax machine and a decent printer. At the copy shop she could use a computer to write the cover letter and then fax the damn thing off, before she thought better of the whole business.

Except writing the letter wasn’t going to be all that easy.

Dear Dr. Grant.

No, he hated to be called “doctor” and it was stupid to pretend they were strangers.

Dear Professor Grant. Dear Mr. Grant. Dear John.

Better address the letter to the President, pretend she had overlooked the bit about communicating with the English department. Angie put it together in her head as she trudged down Washington. We are very pleased to accept your offer. Signed hard copy to follow by mail. Succinct, businesslike, but not unfriendly. Couldn’t go wrong there. Why was it then that a different letter kept writing itself in her head?

Dear John. We need the work. We’ll do a good job and deal with Miss Zula. I’ll go out of my way to avoid you if you’ll do the same, and why is it you aren’t married yet?

Of course, he might be. She tried to imagine that, and failed. She could see him as many things: chair of a department, dean, president. But not married, not yet. It wasn’t in his plans.

He had charted the perfect career for himself. Ogilvie as an undergrad, advanced degrees at Brown and Harvard, a year at Cambridge, assistant professor at Columbia, promotion and tenure and then five years as a tenured professor at Princeton. Now back to Ogilvie. A lifetime ambition, and one he had never been able to explain to her, not so that she understood. Because he didn’t understand it himself.

You can always tell the chair of an English department, he told her once. It’ll be the person who runs the slowest. But he had gone to Ogilvie of his own free will, she knew that without being told: it was impossible to imagine him doing anything that he didn’t want to do. With some exceptions.

Better not to think about John Grant in her bed, but memories couldn’t be erased, not even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t. And that was the heart of the problem.

They had watched each other for a whole academic year, September to May.