as if this were the most fascinating thing he’d ever heard. He held out his hand, introduced himself. Pella told him her name.
“My, what a lovely name. Is that British?”
“Wull I don’t rightly know, luv,” she said in her worst Cockney. “Would ya like it ta be?”
The guy’s brow furrowed, but he recovered. “So. Where are you headed?”
“Home.” What was it with guys in suits? They acted like they ran the world. Pella saw her dad striding through the long concourse, tie dangling. “And there’s my fiancé now,” she said.
The guy looked up at the approaching late-middle-aged man, back at Pella. His brow furrowed again. He’d wind up with wrinkles. “You’re not wearing a ring,” he pointed out.
“You’ve got me there.” Her dad looked wounded, disoriented, lost — he was about to walk right past when Pella leaned out and plucked at his sleeve. “Hey,” she said. Her heart was hammering away.
“Pella.” They faced each other, separated by one final yard of fibrous blue carpeting. Four years. Pella fiddled with her sweatshirt zipper. Her dad’s forearms lifted from his sides in an apologetic, almost helpless gesture of welcome, palms upturned. “Sorry I’m late.”
“That’s okay.” Obviously there was an evolutionary advantage to thinking your own family attractive — it made the members more likely to protect one another against outside threats — but Pella couldn’t imagine anyone failing to find her father handsome. He’d entered his sixties, a decade usually associated with decline — but apart from a weary confusion in his eyes, he looked just as she remembered, his thick gray hair streaked with silver, his skin mahogany-ruddy in that way that lent credence to rumors of Native American ancestry, shoulders as square and upright as a geometry proof.
“The prodigal daughter,” she said as they embraced in a quick, stiff clinch.
“You’ve got that right.”
Pella sniffed his neck as they separated. “Have you been smoking?”
“No, no. Me? I mean, I might have had one in the car. It’s been a long day, I’m afraid . . . Do we need to collect your luggage?”
Pella frowned at her wicker bag. “Actually, this is all I brought.”
“Oh.” Affenlight had been hoping she might stay for a while; the ticket, after all, had been one-way. But a lack of luggage didn’t bode well. He didn’t dare ask; better to enjoy the present. Perhaps if the question of leaving never came up, she’d forget to want to leave. “Well then. Should we hit the road?”
I-43, after passing through the northern Milwaukee suburbs, cut due north through vast stretches of flat, yet-unplanted fields. Clouds obscured the moon and stars, and the southbound traffic was sparse. Off to the right lay Lake Michigan, invisibly guiding the highway’s course. Pella expected an immediate grilling—How long are you staying? Have you broken up with David? Are you going back to school?—but her father seemed anxious and preoccupied. She wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or insulted. They spent most of the ride in silence, and when they spoke, they spoke in monosyllables, more like characters in a Carver story than real live Affenlights.
The president’s quarters, cozily appointed in academia’s dark wood and leather, were located on the uppermost floor of Scull Hall, in the southeast corner of the Small Quad. The Westish presidents of the twentieth century had all lived downtown, in one or another of the elegant white houses that flanked the lake, but Affenlight, the first president of the twenty-first, had decided to revive the quarters’ original purpose and reside among the students. It was just him, after all. This way his office lay just a staircase away from his apartment, and he could sneak down at dawn for a quiet stint of work, dressed in whatever, before Mrs. McCallister arrived and the day’s appointments began.
He poured them each a whiskey, his with water, Pella’s without. “I suppose this is legal now,” he said as he handed her the glass.
“Takes half the fun out of it.” Pella arranged herself in a square leather chair, drew her knees up to her chest. “So how’s business?”
Affenlight shrugged. “Business is business,” he said. “I don’t know why they keep hiring English professors for these jobs. They should get guys from Goldman Sachs or something. If I have ten minutes a day to think about something besides money, I consider myself lucky.”
“How’s your health?”
He drummed on his sternum. “Like a bull,” he said.
“You’re taking your medicine?”
“I take my walk by the lake every day,” Affenlight said. “That’s better than medicine.”
Pella gave him a distressed maternal look.
“I take them,” he said. “I take them and take them. Though you know how I feel about pills.”
“Take them,” Pella said. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“Oh. Well . . .” Seeing, actually, was just the word for it. “Let’s just say there aren’t many enthralling women in this part of the world.”
“If there are any, I’m sure you’ll hunt them down.”
“Thanks,” Affenlight said dryly. “And you? How’s David?”
“David’s fine. Although he’ll be less so when he finds out I’m gone.”
“He doesn’t know you’re here?” This revelation trumped the lack of luggage; Affenlight resisted the urge to stand and pump his fist.
“He’s in Seattle. On business.”
“I see.”
Lately it seemed to Affenlight that the students were growing younger; maybe he was just getting old, or maybe adolescence was stretching out longer and longer, in proportion with the growing life span. Colleges had become high schools; grad schools, colleges. But Pella, as always, seemed intent on shooting ahead of her peers. She looked older than he remembered, of course — her cheeks less round, her features more pronounced — but she also looked older than twenty-three. She looked like she’d been through a lot.
“Are you tired?” he asked, remembering not to say You look tired.
She shrugged. “I haven’t been sleeping much.”
“Well, the bed in the guest room is great.” Mistake: he should have said your room. Or would that have seemed too eager? Anyway, onward: “And the darkness out here is something to behold. Totally different from Boston. Or San Francisco.”
“Great.”
“You can stay as long as you like. Of course.”
“Thanks.” Pella finished her whiskey, peered into the bottom of her glass. “Can I ask one more favor?”
“Shoot.”
“I’d like to start taking classes.”
“You would?” Affenlight stroked his chin
