Angie thought about that for a minute. “But you don’t have any film faculty.”

“We’re going to be searching this year,” John said. “Two faculty positions, one administrative to run this place.”

They would be looking for a new medievalist, too, Angie knew, but now was not the time to be thinking about Caroline Rose.

He said, “You interested?” His tone was perfectly easy, as if he had an endless supply of good things in his pocket, things that were hers for the asking; things he wanted her to have.

Angie sat up and scooted away before he could stop her. “I might teach one course in the fall for you, but that’s it.” She looked at him over her shoulder as she began to shift through the stuff on the floor. “You’ll have five hundred applications, you won’t miss mine. Here”—she tossed him a take-out carton—“the last of the dim sum. Mangia, Harvey, you’ve got to keep up your strength.”

He was starting to say something, trying to draw her back into this discussion: the wheres and whys and hows; whether they could live together; if they’d survive living apart; what the costs would be, the dangers, the sacrifices; what she was willing to risk. He had already risked everything, but he would never remind her of that, and she was thankful.

John said, “Come here.”

She saw the juice carton and grabbed it, and caught sight of what it had been covering up: a small photograph, no more than three inches square, molded to the shape of John’s wallet, slightly frayed at the edges, as if it had been often taken out and studied. A photograph of her. Five years younger, just out of graduate school, frightened, miserable, in love. She was sitting on a Long Island beach in a drizzle, on a Sunday afternoon in August. Rain or tears or both on her face, her hair a mass of blue spikes. She had been thinking about leaving John, about walking away from things she couldn’t cope with, didn’t understand; walking away before he had a chance to see her for what she was. As she had, that very night.

Now John was watching her look at the photograph. His expression was thoughtful, too, a little wary, hopeful.

Angie got up and went around the coffee table to sit on the edge of the leather couch. He took the photo from her and put it aside, cupped her face with his hand, and smiled at her.

She said, “John. What were we thinking?”

He shook his head. “We weren’t thinking.”

“I have some questions for Miss Zula.”

“Later,” John said, drawing her down to him. “Tomorrow, or maybe the day after.”

TWENTY-ONE