Full of dread, Angie turned toward the river and took it in: the graceful bend of the willows, the sun on the water, and the sweep of oars as the single scull came into view. John Grant, tousle-headed, as though he had gone directly from bed to the river, his skin flushed with sun and exercise. The perfect shoulders and arms clenching and relaxing in an easy rhythm and then his face coming up, turned toward them. In the distance a train whistle blew, long and plaintive.

Hysterical laughter, Angie told herself firmly, would be a mistake.

Later, John would try to reconstruct for himself how things could go so wrong in the space of a few seconds. A week’s worth of planning, all gone in that single sweep of the oars that had brought him around the bend in the river. His first time on the water since the regrettable incident at Junie Rose’s birthday party. He had been feeling good, and settled, and glad of the morning until he looked up and saw them there: Angie Mangiamele and Caroline Rose standing side by side. It was a sight to put a better man than John Grant off his stroke, but at least the river was running fast. Just as quickly as they had come into view they were gone.

Angie Mangiamele in shorts and a faded, shapeless Nirvana T-shirt that was ten years old at least. He knew this because it had been faded and old when he first saw it, hanging on the bedpost in the tiny bedroom of her apartment near NYU. He still remembered how it smelled.

It had seemed so straightforward, in the last few days of self-imposed house arrest. He had written it out for himself, the things he would say. Just as soon as he fully recovered he would knock on Angie’s office door, and initiate the conversation they obviously had to have. They were both adults, after all, and reasonable people. A few ground rules and they would be able to interact in public without problems.

On another list he made an outline of the things he would tell Caroline, who was the most reasonable and rational of human beings. Just a few facts, put in perspective, and that would be the end of the matter.

Except, of course, he had never imagined that Angie would still own that T-shirt, or what the sight of it might do to him, the memories it could drag up. Such as what Angie smelled like, in the early morning. Angie in the morning. He had not put that on his list, and that, he realized, was a serious flaw in his reasoning.