The Rule of Four

At last I manage a knot, a sort of walnut with wings. I look in the mirror

and decide it's good enough. I slip on my jacket. A perfect fit, even better than my own suit.

Gil is still silent, watching himself in the mirror, as if his image were a painting. Here we are, at the end of his presidency. His Ivy farewell. Tomorrow the club will be run by next year's officers, the members he created at bicker, and Gil will become a ghost in his own house. The best of the Princeton he knew is coming to an end.

Hey, I say, walking across the foyer into his bedroom. Try to have a good time tonight.

He doesn't seem to hear me. He places his cell phone on its charger, watching the light pulse. I wish this wasn't the way things turned out, he says.

Charlie'll be okay' I tell him.

But he just eyes his jewelry case, the tiny wooden chest where he keeps his valuables, and runs his palm across the top, brushing off the dust. Everything in Charlie's half of the room is old but spotless: a pair of athletic shoes from freshman year sits at the edge of the closet, laces tucked in; last year's pair is still being broken in on weekends. But everything in Gil's half of the room seems unlived-in, new and dusty at the same time. From inside the box he lifts a silver watch, the one he wears on special occasions. Its hands have stopped moving, so he shakes the casing gently, winding it.

What time you got? he says.

I show him the face of my watch, and he sets his to match.

Outside, night has risen, Gil takes his key ring in his hand, then the phone from its charger. My dad's favorite day of college was the Ivy ball his senior year, he says. He always used to talk about it.

I think of Richard Curry, of the stories he told Paul about Ivy.

He said it was like living a dream, a perfect dream.

Gil places the watch to his ear. He listens to it as if there is something miraculous about the sound, an ocean trapped in a seashell.

Ready? he says, pulling the band around his wrist and fastening the metal.

He focuses on me now, checking the cut of the tux.

Not bad, he says. I think she'll approve.

You okay? I ask.

Gil adjusts his jacket and nods.

I don't think I'll be telling my kids about tonight. But yeah. I'm fine.

At the door we both take one last look before locking up. With the lights out, the room comes to shadows. When I look out the window at the moon one last time, I see Paul in the reflection of my mind's eye, trudging across campus in his worn winter coat, alone.

Gil looks at his watch and says, We should be just on time.

Then he and I, in our black suits and black shoes, head out to the Saab in the shoals of the night-colored snow.

A costume ball, Gil had told me. And a costume ball it was. We arrive to find the club magnificent, the center of all attention on Prospect Avenue. Tall berms of snow rise like ramparts along the brick wall that surrounds the club, but the path leading to the front door has been cleared, and the walkway has been covered with a thin layer of black stones. Like rock salt they melt a swath through the ice. Mirroring the effect are four long cloths draped down the front bays of the clubhouse, each one with a vertical stripe of ivy green flanked by thin pillars of gold.

As Gil parks the Saab in his space, club members and the few other invitees are approaching Ivy ark-style, in twos, each entrance staggered from the next in polite intervals, careful not to intrude on one another. Seniors arrive last, because warm receptions are customary for graduating members, Gil tells me as he shuts off the headlights.

We cross the threshold to find the club bustling. The air is heavy with the heat of bodies, the sweet odor of alcohol and cooked food, the slurring conversations that form and re-form across the floor. Gil's entrance is met with clapping and cheers. Sophomores and juniors stationed across the first floor turn toward the door to welcome him, some crying Gil's name aloud, and it seems for a second that this could still be the night he hoped for, a night like his father had.

Well, he says to me, ignoring the applause when it continues too long, this is it.

I look around at the club's transformation. The work Gil has been doing, the errands and planning and conversations with florists and caterers, is suddenly more than just an excuse to leave our room when things aren't well. Everything is different. The armchairs and tables that were once here are gone. In their place, the corners of the front hall have been rounded by quarter-circle tables, all hung with silky cloths in regal dark green and decked in china platters trembling with food. Behind each one, as behind the wet bar to our right, stands an attendant in white gloves. Flower arrangements are everywhere, not a speck of color in any of them: just white lilies and black orchids and varieties I have never seen before. In the storm of tuxedoes and black evening gowns, it's even possible to overlook the brown oak of the walls.

Sir? says a waiter dressed in white tie, who has appeared from nowhere bearing a tray of canapes and truffles. Lamb, he says, pointing at the first, and white chocolate, pointing at the second.

Have one, Gil says.

So I do, and all the hunger of the day, the missed meals and hospital food fantasies, all of it instantly returns. When another man circles by with a tray of champagne flutes, I help myself again. The bubbles rise straight to my head, helping to keep my thoughts from drifting back to Paul.

Just then, a musical quartet kicks up from the dining room antechamber, a place where weathered lounge chairs used to stand. A piano and drum set have been tucked into the corner, with enough room for a bass and electric guitar in between. For the time being, it's RB standards. Later, I know, if Gil has his way, there will be jazz.

I'll be right back, he says, and suddenly he leaves my side, heading up the stairs. At every step, a member stops him to say something kind, to smile and shake his hand, sometimes to hug him. I see Donald Morgan place a careful hand on Gil's back as he passes, the easy, sincere congratulations of the man who would be king. Junior women already in their drinks look at Gil with foggy eyes, sentimental about the club's loss, their loss. He is tonight's hero, I realize, the host and guest of honor both. Everywhere he goes he'll have company. But somehow, without anyone by his side— Brooks or Anna or one of us-he looks alone already.

Tom! comes a voice from behind me.

I turn, and the air converges in a single fragrance, the one Gil's mother and Charlie's girlfriend must've worn, because it has the same effect on me. If I imagined that I liked Katie best when I saw her with flaws, with her hair up and her shirt untucked, then I was a fool. Because here she is now, tucked into a black gown, hair down, all collarbones and breasts, and I am undone.

Wow.

She puts a hand on my lapel and rubs off a flake of dust that turns out to be snow, still lingering in this heat.

Same to you, she says.

There is something wonderful in her voice, a welcome ease. Where's Gil? she asks.

Upstairs.

She pulls two more flutes of champagne from a passing tray.

Cheers, she says, giving me one. So who are you supposed to be?

I hesitate, unsure what she means.

Your costume. Who'd you come as?

Now Gil reappears.

Hey, Katie says. Long time no see.

Gil sizes the two of us up, then smiles like a proud father. You both look beautiful.

Katie laughs. So who are you supposed to be? she asks.

With a flourish, Gil swings back the side of his jacket. Only now do I see what he went upstairs to get. There, hanging between the left flank of his waist and his right hip, is a black leather belt. On the belt is a leather holster, and in the holster is an ivory-handled pistol.

Aaron Burr, he says. Class of 1772.