"Naw," he said. "Not really. Not for me."
"How about making the beer taste better?"
"All right," Keith said. "OK. Right."
"Because you've been up against it. Because you've been part of something bigger than yourself. It's a kid's game but it's not really a kid's game, is it?"
"At a certain point," Keith said, "it's not a kid's game anymore."
"What is it? What is it like?"
"Like everything else," Keith said.
"It's like life, isn't it?"
"It's life," Keith said. "But it's awesome. It's better."
"More perfect," Michael suggested. "Transcended."
"Right," said Keith.
"Take another look at the end of The Red Badge. Get on the Web and search out the phrase 'moral equivalent of war.'"
Keith looked up at him from the act of writing it down. "Isn't that a cliché?" he asked.
"It's a cliché when politicians use it because they don't know what it means. Otherwise it remains a living insight. Write me something about it for extra credit. See if you can do a search for the origin of the phrase."
"My girlfriend's a kind of a hacker."
"Good," Michael said. "As long as she doesn't write the paper for you."
Michneicki packed up his notebook and his copy of Crane. Before he left, Michael said, "Ask her if she knows how to get around a password."
"Whoa," the youth said. "I don't know if she's that kind of hacker."
5
IN THE COURSE of the spring semester, Norman Cevic managed to introduce himself to Lara and ask her to lunch. They met at a dichromatically jacked-up space called Chequers with a Q, an eating house that would prove to be a local inevitability. The place catered to middle management from the handful of high-tech plants that clustered around the university. It supported a large tank full of illuminated tropical fish and for years had offered a busy, pretentious array of precooked "cuisine" that arrived at the kitchen frozen in plastic bags inside cardboard boxes, like low-grade trail mix. Subscribers to the boxed food also served the bloated lyrical menu, which was full of jokey, familiar insolence at the expense of the clientele. There were smiley managers to curse under their breath at the staff, but no cooks.
When Norman arrived Lara eased their conversation toward the subject of Michael.
"A good guy," Norman said. "Good."
"That's rare," she said.
"I wonder how rare. There's absolutely no statistical data."
"The anecdotal evidence is troubling, no?"
Norman, amused, pounded the bottom of a salt shaker. "Yes it is. But without reliable numbers we're flying blind."
"Why do you say he's good?"
"Well, let's see. He keeps his promises. He thinks about what he does. He's considerate, concerned with other people. He's a good teacher and he works hard." Norman paused to dip his fries in ketchup. "That's a start. Boy," he said, "I like the french fries here."
"Yes, they're quite well done. What else is he? Besides good."
"Married."
"So?" Ambushed, she flubbed and fluttered. "That's nothing to me, I assure you."
"I knew that," Norman said. "I assure you." He made her endure his leer. "Gee," he said, "you're actually blushing."
"To ask about a colleague…"
"Sure, sure," Norman said. "When I say he's married I'm not kidding. He's ruled by a strong woman. His life is circumscribed. Really," Norman said, "she's good for him. He's a lucky man." He looked thoughtful. "She truly is a great woman. Damned attractive too."
Lara shrugged to express her conditional acceptance of the possibility. He was plainly Kristin's admirer, which did not necessarily make him her friend.
"You know," Norman said, "they're giving a party next week. They're supposed to anyway — it's their turn to buy the booze. Not that Kristin wants to. But this time I think she has to play hostess."
"Going?"
He nodded without looking at her. Nearby, the Lions Club was having lunch. A little banner was in the middle of the table. It reminded her, absurdly, of the island. And it reminded her also that St. Trinity was a place as alien to her — more alien — than the forest around them now. In her St. Trin, Lions Clubs were significant. A former president had once drowned most of the membership off a principal tourist beach.
"If one of Kristin's compulsory parties is your idea of a good time," Norman said, "you can go as my date."
She thought about it for a moment. How amusing it would be. "Dear Norman," she said. "I should be delighted."
As it turned out, things were really not so bad. A woman named Arabella sang and played Schubert on the household piano, whereupon her husband recited Sonnet 128: "How oft when thou, my music, music play'st…"A sad, red-faced man named Mahoney drank alone. A young couple in exile from Manhattan talked to Norman about American policy in the Caribbean. Lara waited for the part about how George Bush the First had planned to sabotage the Panama Canal Treaty, but that had been dropped from the routine.
In Lara's eyes, Michael shone. He was drily funny and rather quiet, though he drank almost as much as the roseate Mahoney. His drinking surprised her. It was also being observed with disapproval by Kristin Ahearn.
She was tall and slim, with jet-black hair flecked with gray and eyes of a dramatic shade, the color of faded blue flannel. Her lips were pale, thin and unadorned. Big-boned was a suitable term for her; her bones were everywhere in evidence, like the yoke of collarbone that swelled beneath the ivory skin of her décolletage above the low-cut academic-gypsy velvet blouse. Her long lissome lower quarters were sheathed by a beige skirt in the same volkisch style: suede, wide-belted, tight at the hips, flaring around the knees and high enough to show her tough laced boots. A lofty, steel-eyed bitch, and she did not think much of the company, Lara included.
One thing was puzzling. Her social energy that night was concentrated on the nervous overseeing of her handsome husband. From that accusatory focus, all that seemed to distract her was the close presence of Norman Cevic. When he was near, it seemed to Lara, this tower of ivory was prey to little tremors and fidgets. A hand to the midnight-black hair, a cocking of the pelvis that shifted her contrapuntal stance. Even a little wiggle. And although it was probably Lara's imagining, it seemed to her that as Kristin leaned into Norman's space to hang upon his words, she could just possibly be angling a few soft inches of substantial, velvet braless bod where he might find them.
Did she know she was doing it? How much did she know? Lara had discovered a beautiful young boy hiding near the back stairs to spy on the party. His mother's long face and inky hair, his father's long-lashed eyes. Un mignon, their boy.
An elderly professor sang "The Watch on the Rhine" in German. Lara spotted Michael on his own, making drinks in the kitchen. She went over to him.
"You shouldn't drink so much," she told him. "No wonder you can't sleep."
He turned in surprise, stared for a moment and laughed at her.
"Think that's it?"
"I'm sure of it."
As she watched he put the two drinks he had been making on a tray and poured a straight shot for himself in the nearest available glass.
"In for a penny, in for a pound."
She shook her head in mock sadness as he drank it.
"I'll be your cure for insomnia," Lara said.
He looked quickly through the kitchen door, checking, she had no doubt, for the supervisory presence of Kristin. Lara turned and followed his glance. They were in the clear.
"You were spying on me," she said. "You tried to break my password. You were observed." He looked amazed.
"Couldn't resist, Lara."
"You mustn't." This time it was she who turned to watch their backs. "Don't!" The stern look she gave him was darkened by anxiety.