“Oh, please, Paul. It’s over and done with, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, I do. I like being your friend. It’s one of the things I like best in my life. Certainly better than that goddamned fraternity. But I can’t even look at you now without feeling terrible. I don’t want to be around you. I don’t want to think about you. I don’t want to talk to you. When you look at me I feel sick. So I have to put things right with you, Rachel.” He ran both hands through his hair. “Although putting things right will probably get me kicked out the door, but I’ll take my chances.”
By this time Rachel was more impatient than alarmed. “For heaven’s sake, Paul, tell me what’s wrong.”
So he sat down on Rachel’s bed next to her and, after a moment, began to tell her why he had been so sure about Harry Gallagher.
“Do you remember when Harry sent you out to the kitchen to get the ice cream?” Rachel nodded. “Well, as soon as you left the room he tried to convince me to leave so he could get you to bed, only I wouldn’t go. So then he said I could stay as long as I kept out of his way. He said he’d give a signal when it was time for me to get lost.”
Paul looked away. Cleared his throat. “There’s a code we use,” he said. “All of us. It’s something we’re taught during Hell Week. Part of our initiation. I’ll bet you could walk into any boardroom in this country and ask for the signal for ‘okay, boys, this one’s ready,’ and a bunch of hands would go up.” He tried to chuckle but couldn’t quite manage it. Took a deep breath and blew it out loudly. “I live with a bunch of people who can be pretty vulgar, Rachel, and I guess when I’m with them I can too. I’ve seen a lot of disgusting stuff, and I’ve heard some things that I hope to God are lies. But I’ve never seen anyone act quite like he did that night. He was practically drooling. I don’t know, maybe he just seemed worse to me because you’re my friend.” He looked at her for a moment. “I know I should have intervened, but I was angry with you. For involving me. For making me an accomplice to something I had warned you to avoid. Besides, at that point you weren’t very drunk and I figured you could take care of yourself, make up your own mind. I didn’t know how … inexperienced you were. If I’d had more time, maybe I would have decided to get you away from him, but then you came back in with the ice cream, and Harry spent the next hour plying you with banana liqueur and I Love Lucy, for God’s sake. And I sat there and watched him putting his hands on you and watched you let him and didn’t know whether I should stay or leave or haul you out of there. And then suddenly Harry gave me the signal from behind your head while he was reaching up your sweater with his other hand and he wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking at where your pants had come un-snapped, and I went into the hallway and watched you until I felt like I was watching a movie. I almost left, but I couldn’t just leave you altogether. And then he took you off, out of my sight, and it was out of my hands.” Paul rubbed a knuckle against his lower lip and looked away from Rachel, who was squinting with distaste and eager for him to be gone.
After a while, she went out the door and down the hall to the bathroom. She was gone for a long time. When she returned, she took a small suitcase out of her closet. “Give me your car keys, Paul,” she said as she folded up her nightgown.
“My car keys? Why?”
“Because I want to go somewhere for a couple of days and I don’t have a car. Is there a problem?”
“No. No problem. Where are you going?” He pictured Rachel driving his old, beloved, bottom-heavy Impala and felt sick to his stomach.
“I really haven’t decided,” she said impatiently. “Somewhere that isn’t here.”
Once in the car, however, she knew exactly where she wanted to go. Cape Cod was only a couple of hours away. She could be there by ten. It had been three years since her parents had taken her to New England to look at colleges and to see the Atlantic for the first time, but she felt sure that she’d be able to find the little inn on the Cape where they had stayed for a day. The rooms had been plain and clean with wooden floors and white curtains. Sheets that smelled like wind, and a view of sea and sky.
Crossing the canal was like crossing a border somehow. The air changed, grew sugary with fog, then clear and chill, then foggy again. The trees became stunted and bent. The road was dark, and the headlights of the Impala made the eyes of every meandering raccoon into minute beacons. She encountered few other cars, heard little but the wind, felt her hair thicken with salt, and was glad she had come.
By the time she reached the inn it looked as if everyone had gone to bed. For a moment she was even afraid that they might have closed up for the season. But after parking the car in the small gravel lot, she heard through the still air the sound of voices and of music softly playing. She followed the sound to a lighted window and an unlatched side door. With rising anticipation, she opened the screen door and gave the heavy inner door a shove.
Rachel did not know it, but she had stumbled upon one
