thinks it's a joke.
We're standing in the middle of the main hall, close enough to the dance floor to see Parker with his hands on Veronica's hips.
That son of a bitch. What'd you do about it?
I told Gil. When she speaks his name, her eyes travel to the stairs, where Gil is making conversation with two juniors.
That's all?
I expect her to invoke Donald's name, to remind me where I should've been, but she doesn't.
Yes is all she says. He kicked Parker out of bicker.
I know she means I should let this go, that this wasn't how she wanted me to find out. She's been through enough already. But my temperature is rising.
I'm going to say something to Parker, I tell her.
Katie looks at me sharply. No, Tom. Not tonight.
He can't just act-
Look, she says, cutting me off. Forget about it. We're not going to let him ruin our night together.
I was only trying to-
She puts a finger over my lips. I know. Let's go somewhere else.
She looks around, but there are tuxedos in every direction, conversations and wineglasses and men with silver trays. This is the magic of Ivy. We are never alone.
Maybe we can use the President's Room, I say.
She nods. I'll ask Gil.
I notice the trust in her voice when she says his name. Gil's been decent to her, better than decent, possibly without even meaning to. She came to him about Parker, when I was nowhere to be found. He's the first person she thinks of now, for something small. Maybe it's meaningful to her, that they talk over breakfast, even if he almost forgets it. Gil has been a big brother to her, the way he was to me freshman year. Anything good enough for him is good enough for us both.
No problem, he says to her. There won't be anyone in there.
So I follow Katie downstairs, watching the shifts in her musculature beneath the gown, the way her legs move, the tightness of her hips.
When the lights go on, I see the room where Paul and I worked so many nights. The place is unchanged, untouched by preparations for the ball, a geography of notes and drawings and books piled into mountain ranges that thread through the room, as tall in places as we are.
It's not as hot in here, I say, searching for something to tell her. They seem to have turned down the thermostat in the rest of the building to keep the first floor from overheating.
Katie looks around. Paul's notes are taped to the shoulders of the fireplace; his diagrams feather the walls. We are surrounded by Colonna.
Maybe we shouldn't be in here, she says.
I can't tell if she's worried that we'll intrude on something of Paul's, or that Paul will intrude on something of ours. The longer we stand, sizing up the room, the more I can feel a distance forming between us. This is not the place for what we need.
Have you ever heard of Schrodinger's cat? I say finally, because it's the only way I can think to raise what I'm feeling.
In philosophy? she says.
Anywhere.
In my lone physics class, the professor used Schrodinger's cat as an example in wave mechanics, when most of us were too slow for v = -e
Yes, she says. What about it?
I feel like the cat isn't dead or alive right now, I tell her. It's nothing.
Katie puzzles over what I'm getting at. You want to open the box, she says at last, sitting on the table.
I nod, propping myself up beside her. The enormous wooden plank accepts us silently. I don't know how to tell her the rest of what I mean: that we, individually, are the scientist on the outside; that we, together, are the cat.
Instead of answering, she takes a finger and runs it behind my right temple, tucking my hair behind my ear as if I've said something charming. Maybe she already knows how to solve my riddle. We are bigger than Schrodinger's box, she's saying. Like any good cat, we have nine lives.
Does it ever snow like this in Ohio? she says, consciously changing the subject. Outside, I know, it's begun again, driving down with more power than before, all our winter in this one storm.
Not in April, I say.
We're side by side on the table, just inches apart. Not in New Hampshire either, she says. Not in April, at least.
I accept what she's trying to do, where she's trying to take me. Anywhere but here. I've always wanted to know more about what her life was like at home, what her family did around the dinner table. Upper New England in my imagination is the American Alps, mountains at every turn, Saint Bernards bearing gifts.
My little sister and I used to do this thing in the snow, she says.
Mary?
She nods. Every year when the pond near our house would freeze over, we would go crack holes in the ice.
Why?
She smiles, beautiful. So the fish could breathe.
Members pass across the top of the stairs, little pockets of heat in motion.
We would take the ends of broomsticks, she says, and make holes all the way across the lake. Like punching holes in the top of a jar.
For fireflies, I say.
She nods and takes my hand. The ice skaters used to
My sisters used to take me sledding, I tell her.
Katie's eyes twinkle. She remembers she's got something on me: that she's a big sister, and I'm a little brother.
There aren't a lot of big hills in Columbus, I continue, so it was always this one.
And they would drag you up the hill on the sled.
Did I tell you this already?
That's just what big sisters do.
I can't imagine her pulling a sled up a hill. My sisters were strong as pack dogs.
Did I ever tell you about Dick Mayfield? I ask her.
Who?
This guy my sister used to date.
What about him?
Sarah used to kick me off the phone every time Dick would call.
She hears the jab in it. This, too, is what big sisters do.
I don't think Dick Mayfield had my number. She smiles, folding her fingers into mine.
I can't help thinking of Paul, of the dovetail he made with his hands.
Dick had my sister's number, I say. All it took was an old red Camaro with flames traced on the sides.
Katie shakes her head disapprovingly.
Study Dick and the Chick Machine, I tell her. I said that one night when he came over, and my mother made me go to bed without dinner.
Dick Mayfield, conjured from thin air. He called me Tiny Tom. We went riding in the Camaro once, and he
