orange juice. I wondered if she had already gone down to breakfast. Some people made the trek in nightgowns and pajamas, as if they were still living at home, just traipsing downstairs for pancakes with their parents and not to an institutional dining hall that served four thousand people a day.
“I just thought I heard your mom,” Marley said. “I guess you sound like her.” She stared at me intently. “I met her last night. She was really nice. She asked me all about music. Did she tell you?”
“She mentioned it,” I said. I pulled up my coat sleeve and looked at my watch. A normal person would have seen this as a signal to move aside.
“She’s pretty, too. I can’t believe she’s your mom.” She shook her head and pulled one braid over her eyes. “Not ’cause she’s pretty, I mean. I mean she looks young.”
I stopped trying to get past her. I leaned back against my door frame, my arms crossed, still barring entry. But I smiled, more or less inviting her to keep talking. “Yes!” I said, my voice just a little louder than normal. “I agree. She is pretty. And she does look young!” I was still anxious to leave for the library, but I could picture my mother, well within earshot, crouched beneath my clothes with Bowzer. If there was ever a time she might need to overhear something good about herself, I guessed it was pretty much now.
Marley seemed pleased by my sudden enthusiasm. “She’s funny, too!” She nodded at me, as if I had just convinced her of something. “She played the saxophone when she was in junior high. I’m sure you know that. But she was making fun of herself—I guess she used to get in trouble with her teacher for bulging her eyes when she played?” Marley pantomimed playing a saxophone with bulging eyes.
I said nothing. I did not know that my mother had ever played the saxophone.
“She was out here for a long time,” Marley added. She tried to look over my shoulder again. “Waiting. Were you late or something?”
“No.”
“Hmmm.” She stepped back, studying my face. I took advantage of the space between us to step into the hallway. My mother had gotten whatever ego boost she was going to get from Marley, and it was time for me to go. I turned, shut my door, and searched my bag for my keys. Configuration refers to the three-dimensional orientation of atoms around a chiral center. It can be designated R or S.
“She lives close by?”
“What?” I looked over my shoulder. “Yeah. In Kansas City.”
“Oh, you’re lucky. I bet you get to see her all the time.”
I had to laugh at that, a low, self-pitying chuckle. I wasn’t sure if my mother had heard. If she had, even in her present situation, she might think it was funny, too. Only Marley wasn’t in on the joke.
“I’m not laughing at you…,” I started.
When I looked up again, she was already walking away, her slippers silent on the floor. She disappeared into her room without another word.
The English Department was in the ugliest building on campus. Wescoe Hall was initially intended to be a parking garage, but the university changed its mind and decided to make it the humanities building, apparently pretty late in the game. It was just a sad thing to look at. The surrounding buildings were beautiful, all limestone and brick, many of them castle-shaped, with flags waving from terra-cotta roofs and high, arched entryways. The science library was particularly impressive, all soaring architecture and beveled glass, the gift of some generous alumnus. Wescoe, on the other hand, was short and squat, concrete gray; the first two floors were basements. The upper floors were okay—they put in a lot of windows, and the classrooms were large and bright. But as you descended into the lower floors, where the instructors had their offices, the halls started to feel like tunnels, illuminated only by flickering fluorescent lights. Smokers huddled at both belowground entrances, and sometimes, even inside, the air smelled a little like car exhaust, as if the building somehow knew of its original destiny and was still working to play the part.
But during my conference with my English professor that morning, I felt an urge to breathe deeply. I had just come from the science library, where I’d spent the last two hours under the high ceilings staring at molecules and trying to flip them around in my head. Actually, I’d