chronology guide him toward the elusive end. In the Vale of Tawasentha, / In the green and silent valley… He had moved out to the Springs, where he lived in a rented bungalow on a friend’s property and spent his days in a yurt he had erected himself, overlooking the rocky bay. Inside the yurt he typed at a manuscript that Bruce had never seen any part of and knew nothing about; he worked on his “art projects,” which were mostly red circles painted on board, painted as large as the turning circumference of his father’s body allowed. “It’s just what I feel like doing,” he told Bruce. “Making these circles. The world is too big to learn anything new. So I stand inside and draw a line around myself, over and over.”
“Wasn’t he a teacher,” Jeb asked.
“Adjunct mathematics professor. Up at Columbia. But he retired.”
“Ah.”
They drifted into silence. Bruce wanted a drink, thought of asking Jeb to go to the bar with him. But he feared that they would get separated if they moved from where they sat. It seemed the two of them should remain together until he found something real to love about his old classmate. That was it. It felt important, right now, to love something about Jeb Jackman. He signaled the waitress, who was stacking dessert plates at a nearby table. She frowned at him, then mouthed over the medium din of the electric bass, the wailing backup singers, “I’ll be right there.”
“Shit, brother, you’ve got the right idea,” Jeb said. “That girl is not to be believed.”
“Yeah, well. I’m just thirsty.”
“Sure,” said Jeb. He laughed once, an aggressive “pah” that laced the inside corners of his lips with spittle, though the expression in his eyes remained grave. The girl made her way over to them.
“You wanted something,” she said to Bruce. It was a statement, not a question, and from the slight nasal inflection in her voice, the bemusement that played across her mouth, the way she stood over him, taller than he had realized, her shoulders set in a languid slope that seemed to curve down through her hips, he knew to regret calling her over. She didn’t match her surroundings, or the task of fetching drinks. She looked, truly, like she belonged in a bed, or stretched out by someone’s fire, blinking sleepily. Her hair was pulled back into two messy pigtails, and a silver and turquoise bracelet circled her arm just above the elbow. Bruce willed away the desire that began to snake through his body—desire that felt tainted and foolish because Jeb had claimed it first, because he couldn’t imagine it ever being returned, because he sat in a tuxedo, implicated in the mindless party that jumped all around them.
“That’s okay,” Bruce said, sounding more forceful than he’d meant to. “I changed my mind.”
“He wants a Dewar’s and water for himself and one for me,” Jeb said. “Christ, you’re a work of art.”
The girl ignored him.
“I just work for the caterer,” she said to Bruce. “So you’ll have to go to the bar yourself. Sorry.” She shifted her posture; Bruce perceived a mild bovine cast, a heaviness, in her lower body that only seemed to underscore her … grace. Grace was what it was.
“No problem,” Bruce said. “I’m sorry we bothered you.”
“We’ll pay you,” Jeb said. “I’ll pay you whatever you want.”
“You didn’t really bother me,” she said. “We’re about to set up coffee over there, if you’re interested in that. Maybe your friend could use some.”
“Okay.”
“Hello. Over here. What color underwear are you wearing?” Jeb said.
The girl kept her eyes trained on Bruce, and smiled. She took her time with the smile, letting it spread over her face in degrees. Bruce felt himself smiling back. She knows, he thought. She knows what kind of effect she has. She likes it. Well, good for her.
“Bye,” she said, and walked away. Her walk was heavy but sure. Bruce noticed that her long feet, in their flat, lace-up shoes, toed in a bit.
“That’s all right, baby,” Jeb said. “Your ass is a little too full figure for my taste anyway, now that I’ve seen it up close.”
Bruce sighed. “She can’t hear you.”
Jeb said nothing. He picked up a cloth napkin and wiped at his forehead with it, letting his eyes close.
They watched the dancers for a few minutes. Bruce drummed his fingers on the tablecloth through the whole of “Proud Mary.” As he watched the waitress setting out mugs next to a