I stepped into the weird hospital elevator with its facing doors and pressed the button for the fourth floor.

He loved Ava Gardner. They shared a birthday, December 24. I sat up late with him one night watching The Snows of Kilimanjaro. At the end he said, “I love that movie—except for that goddamn Gregory Pecker.”

He played several instruments, the guitar, the harmonica, and that goddamned organ. He could bang out Baptist hymns, Jerry Lee Lewis-style, on the piano. He was always making some kind of noise—he whistled, he jangled the change in his pocket, and he tapped out rhythms on the steering wheel with his wedding ring. He had a wide assortment of annoying habits, cleaning his fingernails with his pocketknife and poking in his ears with his car keys. And, of course, the beer.

I met with Dr. Adkins for five minutes, and I sat with Hunter for another ten. He’d curled up into the fetal position, his hands and feet drawn up like a desiccated mummy’s. The white stubble on his face had grown longer. He had his first beard.

Here was a man who was going to disappear from the face of the earth in the next twelve to twenty-four hours. A crazy, alcoholic, bastard of a man who had somehow managed to marry three times, raise a family, and elope in his sixties with a woman in her forties. He’d lived, outrageously, for eighty-two years.

“I love you,” I told him. “Goddamn you.”

Abby was waiting for me in the hospital lobby. She’d changed into a more subdued color back at the hotel, trading the blue silk blouse for a black turtleneck. She had on black pants and black loafers, and her contact lenses had begun to itch, so she was also wearing her glasses. The overall effect was very Malcolm X.

“How is he?”

“Dying. It all seems so strange. I feel like I should be up there, sitting a vigil. Instead, I’m meeting friends for lunch and dinner. I’m shopping at the flea market and reclining in the Jacuzzi tub at the Velvet Cloak. Nana and my mother, they’re in holiday mode. It’s like I’m just here for a visit, when I’m here to help my grandfather die.”

“You’re here to do both,” she said. “Visit the living and aid the sick. This is what happens when someone gets old, honey. With your grandfather, it’s all about waiting. You don’t need to do that waiting here in the hospital. It’s better if you don’t.”

We walked to the car through the cool night air. The breeze felt slightly damp. In the summer there would be no cool nights. Raleigh would turn into a twenty-four-hour-a-day steam bath.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“For pretending like my family is normal.”

“Speaking of which,” she said, “are you ready for dinner at the Kanki?”

“Only if burning at the stake is not an option.”

Susan and I gave Abby a ride home from the party. We invited her to come with us to Chapel Hill, but she declined. She said she’d told her mother that she was going to spend the night at Kim’s. Now she was afraid that Edna would call to check up on her and Nick, or Joe, or someone else who’d taken a hit off of Lucky Eddie’s joint would answer the phone.

“If she smells reefer on me, I’m a dead woman,” Abby said. “She sniffs me for evidence, reefer, sex . . . she’s like a bloodhound.”

“It’s okay,” I assured her. “You don’t smell like pot. You smell like Lysol.”

“Good. I sprayed the hell out of myself with the bathroom air freshener.”

“You’re all right. She’ll never know.”

“I hope not. You better hope not. She won’t be satisfied just killing me.”

“Abby, I’m sorry.”

“No,” she sighed. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

I opened the car door and pushed the lever on the front seat so she could get out. We hesitated for a moment, standing there beneath the broken street lamp in front of her mother’s apartment. Susan had left the engine running, and I imagined Edna peering at us through the curtains. Abby must have imagined it too. She glanced quickly at the house and shivered. Then, unexpectedly, she leaned forward and hugged me.

“I love you,” she said. “You’re my best friend.”

“I love you, too. You’re still coming to the beach, right?”

“Yeah. I just need to think of something to tell Edna.”

“Tell her you’re eighteen.”

“I might as well tell her to kiss my ass.” When I laughed, she said, “Shh. Poppy, will you call me tomorrow?”

“I will. First thing.”

“Do it,” she said seriously. “Please.”

She waved good-bye to Susan and me and let herself in the front door. There were no lights on inside, so I hoped the coast was clear. The drive to Chapel Hill was long and for the most part silent. I was exhausted. Susan was contemplative. Back at her apartment, we undressed and climbed into bed. I held her tightly, my arm around her waist, her back pressed against my chest.

“Poppy,” she said. “Do you mind if we just go to sleep?”

“I don’t mind. I’m tired.”

“Me too. About the beach trip,” she began. “We need to talk . . .”

I didn’t hear what she said next. I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

“If my mother refuses to go to Hilton Head, I’ll have to go home and help my father. You see that, don’t you?”

I did see. I just didn’t want to. Susan sat on the bed hugging her knees to her chest. I sat across the room with my back against the door, trying very hard to look cool and aloof rather than immature and sulky.

“Tell me you understand.”

“I understand.”

“Thanks for saying it like you really mean it,” she replied sarcastically. “I don’t know why you’re being like this. I could come down to the beach a day or two later, as soon as my mother is settled. It’s not a big deal.”

“I suppose it’s not,” I admitted, relenting. I could finesse Susan’s late arrival with my mother. I could tell her about Hilton Head and that Susan would meet us down there. A day or two unsupervised by our so-called chaperone wasn’t the end of the world. My mother would probably be okay with that. Abby and I had been planning to ride with Susan, but I supposed we could ride with Kim and Jack.

What I didn’t know how to deal with was the real issue at hand, Susan’s physical withdrawal. We’d both been tired the night before, and I’d been content just to sleep. In the morning, however, I thought things would be different. They weren’t. First I’d waited, and then I’d asked. The look I received in response told me that I’d stepped across some invisible barrier into forbidden territory. I realized then that Susan had always initiated sexual contact. I’d never asked; I’d only been available. I wanted that to change. I wanted to be an initiator, an equal, not merely on tap.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be juvenile.”

“You weren’t.”

“Susan . . .”

“What?”

I stood up and walked over to the bed. She remained in the same position, knees still tight against her chest. I held out my hands. After what seemed to me a very long time, she reached up and took them, allowing me to pull her to a standing position. I looked down at her. She refused to make eye contact.

“You’re angry.”

She shook her head. “I’m not.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t like to argue. And,” she looked at me now, “I don’t like feeling guilty.”

“Did I make you feel guilty?”

“You did,” she said. “You do. Sometimes.”

“For what?”

“For a lot of things. For not meeting your expectations.”

I stepped back. “When have I ever . . .”

“I can tell when you’re disappointed,” she said. “I can tell when you don’t understand, or when you don’t want to understand.”

“We’re not talking about the beach anymore,” I said. “Are we?”

“The issues are related.”

“My expectations. Should I not have any?”

“It’s just . . . sometimes this is too close,” she said. “Too confined.”

I tried to make a joke out of it. “Is this where you say, ‘Don’t fence me in,’ or something like that?”

“It might be.”

The right thing to do would have been to agree, to say that I didn’t want anything from her that she didn’t want to give. I should have played it cool and asked her to drive me home. I should have been older than seventeen.

Instead, I kissed her. I kissed her until she kissed me back, until she put her arms around my neck and pulled me close, no more interested in letting go of me than I was in letting her feel unconfined. When I pushed her back onto the bed, she went without hesitation. I undressed her quickly and made love to her aggressively, surprised by my own actions and thrilled by her response, which was enthusiastic and voluble.

I’d solved one of my problems. I could initiate. I could push past her resistance and my reticence and take us to a new level of awareness and intimacy. The result was better than gratifying. As I held her afterwards, compliant and clinging, I felt triumphant. She loves me, I thought. More than she knows.

It might have been true. Susan never said that she loved me. She only sighed and smiled and let me believe. It was only later, through trial and error, that I learned to separate sex and love. I got used to the idea that they weren’t one and the same. I just never managed to grow callous enough to like that.

My father left the party shortly after midnight. He was completely wasted. Shirley drove him back to the Brentwood in the Ford Escort, and, the next day, they drove my graduation present back to Michigan. Eddie left me a card with a hundred bucks in it. I found it in our mailbox when I came home from Chapel Hill.

“I wasn’t really counting on the car,” I told Jack. “He lies like a rug.”

“Still,” Jack said. “If your dad promised . . .”

“He didn’t. He told me on the phone that he was going to give me a car. It was just some of that blah-blah-blah he does. I don’t think he hears what he’s saying half the time, or maybe he does hear it and because the words sound good he says them. They don’t have any meaning. I’m surprised that he came to my graduation. I don’t know why he bothered.”

“Shirley has a daughter the same age as you. Eddie’s probably trying to make her think he likes kids.”

“So why is he going to Parents without Partners?”

“I know that,” he said. “They were talking about it on the way down here. Shirley was a member. He met her somewhere else, and she invited him to join. Man, it was a strange trip riding with them. Too weird. He tells her stuff like, ‘I was an assassin for the CIA,’ and she goes all gooey-eyed and says, ‘Really?’”

“Is she stoned all the time?”

“As near as I can tell. She used to be in some rock band, or hang out with some guys who were. So, can you give me a ride to Kim’s house? She’s invited me over tonight. We’re going to watch videos and stuff.”

“Yeah, but I’ll have to borrow my grandmother’s car. Fuck Lucky Eddie.”

I apologized to Abby for calling so late. It was a quarter past nine, and Edna had answered. She was polite, as always, and called Abby to the phone with no trace of irritation in her voice. I knew better, of course. Non-emergency phone calls to the Johnson house were restricted to the hours between eight a.m. and eight p.m.

“She’ll give me a lecture on your phone manners,” Abby said. “So what? I’ve heard it before.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I got back from Chapel Hill late this afternoon, and I had to drive Jack to Kim’s house. I’ll probably have to pick him up, too. Otherwise, Kim will just keep him there all night, and my mom will have a fit. Two nights in a row is out. It’s that curfew thing—while Jack’s staying here, it applies to him, too.”

“I know. I keep telling my mother that there’s nothing I can do after midnight that I can’t do before. Maybe she thinks I’m going to turn into a pumpkin.”

“Speaking of which,” I said, “we may have to ride down to the beach in the Great Pumpkin. Susan might have something she needs to do with her father next Saturday. This is a maybe, not a definite. If she has to do it, she’ll join us later, Sunday or Monday.”

“Poppy,” Abby said, her tone serious, “there’s something I want to talk to you about, but I don’t want to do it over the phone.”

“Do the walls have ears?”

“My mother has ears.”

“Do you want me to come get you? We can walk around Shelley Lake and then stop at Kim’s to pick up Jack. I’d rather not go over there by myself anyway, if you know what I mean.”

“Come get me,” she said. “I’ll bring a bucket.”

“Why?”

“We can fill it with cold lake water. It might come in handy.”

“Why do we always end up walking around this lake in the dark?”

“We like the excitement.”

Abby tripped over some invisible object on the dark path, and I grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. “I’d like some lights,” she said.

“Don’t misinterpret this,” I replied, “but would you like to hold my hand? I see better in the dark than you do. It must be my magic lemur eye.”

“That’s a handy disability you got there.”

“I know.” I squeezed her hand. “And believe me, I work it.”

“Knock that off. Are you trying to make a convert?”

“Never. So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“I need to know if you’re going to N. C. State or not. I’ve listed you as my preferred roommate. Edna thinks it’s a done deal.”

I believed that, given the chance, I should go to Chapel Hill. I was an English major, and UNC was the premier liberal arts school. I also wanted to be with Susan. The answer seemed clear and yet I hesitated, surprised by how much I didn’t want to tell Abby no. “I still haven’t heard from the financial aid office,” I hedged. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford UNC.”

“You have aid from State. You’ll get aid from UNC. It’s all the same.”

“I filed my application late. For some reason, UNC seemed out of reach last fall. Probably because I was doing such crappy work in Calculus. I’m sorry. If I’d filed it sooner, I could tell you for certain . . .”

“I don’t want to put pressure on you,” she said, “but I want to room with you. I just thought I’d tell you that.”

We walked along in silence for several minutes, hand in hand. I could picture rooming with Abby. I was certain we’d be happy living together. She’d be good for my discipline, and I’d be good for her—I stopped, suddenly realizing that I didn’t know what I’d be good for.

“Why do you want to room with me?” I asked. “I mean, I know why you’d be great to live with, but I can’t think what I’d bring to this equation.”

She stopped walking. “Are you serious or are you just fishing?”

“Fishing for what?”

“Compliments. Listen,” she said firmly, “because I’m only going to say this once. It’ll probably come out all corny, and I hate that, which is why I never want to have to say it again. Okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed.

She took a deep breath. “You’re smart, you’re decent, and you’re funny. You’re kind, and you’re generous. There is no one I like as much as I like you. I like you better than any other person on the planet. I want to room with you because I think it would make us both happy—I know it would make me happy, and I hope it would make you happy. I also think that we could help each other. This is a big deal for me, and it’s the same kind of big deal for you. We’re the first people in our families to go to college. That scares me. You make me less afraid.”

“Wow.”

“Speech over. Don’t get a big head.”