I stop, mentally thumb through the novel, trying to recall the exact scene, if it’s before Lo’s mother died, or if it’s at the first hotel Lo and Humbert stay at together, at the very beginning of their first road trip. Then my body jumps. I remember Strane taking the pajamas out of a dresser drawer, the feel of the fabric between my fingers, trying them on in his bathroom, the harsh lights and cold tile floor. Like a scene from a movie I watched years ago, something observed from a safe distance.

I blink. From his chair, Henry watches me with gentle eyes, lips softly parted.

“Are you ok?” he asks.

“I might be remembering that one wrong,” I say.

He says that it’s fine and the whole thing sounds great, excellent, far and away the best paper topic he’s heard so far, and he’s heard from almost everyone.

“You know,” he says, “my favorite line in Lolita is about the dandelions.”

I think for a moment, try to place it . . . dandelions, dandelions. I can picture the line on the page, toward the beginning of the novel, when they’re in Ramsdale, Lo’s mother still alive. “Most of the dandelions had changed from suns to moons.”

“The moons,” I say.

Henry nods. “Changed from suns to moons.”

For a second, it’s like our brains are connected, like a wire snaked out of mine and planted itself into his, both of us seeing the same image, seeded and full in our heads. It seems strange that his favorite line in the whole sordid novel is something so chaste. Not any of the descriptions of Lolita’s supple little body or Humbert’s attempts at self-justification, but an unexpectedly lovely image of a front yard weed.

Henry shakes his head and the wire between us snaps, the moment over.

“Well, anyway,” he says. “It’s a good line.”

At my poetry press internship, we prepare for the arrival of a prominent poet who is coming to town for his book release. Jim, the other intern, and I spend two weeks designing press materials, showing the press materials to our boss and the assistant director of the press, then redesigning, and redesigning again. When asked if I want to drive to Portland to pick up the poet from the airport, I grab the chance. I plan out what I’ll wear, make a list of conversation topics for the hour drive back to campus. I even print off copies of my best poems in the dream case scenario that he takes an interest in me, though it feels embarrassingly presumptuous.

On the day before the poet arrives, Eileen, the director of the press, finds me in the kitchen, filling the electric kettle with water.

“Vanessa, hi,” she says, stretching out her vowels so long it sounds as though she’s offering consolation for some tragedy. I didn’t even realize she remembered my name. She hasn’t spoken to me since my interview last spring.

“So Robert will be here tomorrow,” she says, “and I know you said you’d pick him up from the airport, but Robert can be a bit, you know . . .” She looks at me expectantly. When I only stare back at her, she continues in a whisper. “He can be kind of forward. You know—handsy.”

I blink in surprise, still holding the electric kettle. “Oh, ok.”

“There was an incident at the last event we held for him, though ‘incident’ is too strong a word. It was nothing, really. But it might be best for you to steer clear. Just to be safe. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

My face burning, I nod so hard the water sloshes around inside the kettle. Eileen blushes, too. She seems mortified to be telling me this.

“So should I not pick him up from the airport?” I ask, assuming she’ll say no, don’t be silly, of course I should, but instead Eileen grimaces, like she doesn’t want to say yes but has to anyway.

“I think that’s for the best. I thought I’d ask James if he’d be willing.”

I almost ask, James? but realize she means Jim.

“Thank you for being so understanding, Vanessa,” Eileen says. “It really means a lot.”

For the rest of the afternoon, I sort through submissions, reading but retaining nothing, my heart racing and teeth chattering. The way Eileen said “it might be best for you to steer clear” makes my skin crawl. I can’t stop hearing it. The way she said “you,” like I’m a liability.

For the rest of the semester, I let my pot run out, stop drinking so much. It happens by accident, a realization that I’ve been sober for a week and a half without even trying. I do the dishes, clean the bathroom. I even do laundry on a regular basis and don’t let it get to the point where I have to wear bikini bottoms as underwear.

I see Henry Plough on campus all the time. Three times a week, we pass each other in the student center. While I’m reshelving books at my library job, he appears around a corner and nearly collides with the cart. He’s three people ahead of me in line at the coffee shop beneath my apartment, and my stomach flips at him being so close to where I sleep. Sometimes, when we pass each other, I pounce on him, ask stupid questions I already know the answers to about the seminar. One day as I walk by him, I reach over and playfully punch his arm, and he grins in surprise. Other days, when it feels like I’ve been acting too desperate, I ignore him, pretend I don’t know him. If he says hi, I narrow my eyes.

His term paper is my last one, finished Friday afternoon of finals week. With the paper still warm from the printer, I hurry across campus, past the empty parking lots and darkened buildings, to catch him in his office. Inside, the English department hallway is a line of closed doors—including Henry’s, but I know he’s in there. I checked before I came in and saw his lit-up window.

Rather than knock, I slip my essay under the door, hoping he’ll see it, notice my name on the first page, and lunge for the door. I hold my breath and the knob turns, then opens.

“Vanessa.” He says my name in that awestruck way. Plucking my essay off the floor, he asks, “How did this turn out? I’ve been looking forward to reading it.”

I lift my shoulders. “Your expectations shouldn’t be too high.”

He flips through the first couple of pages. “Of course my expectations are high. Everything you turn in is wonderful.”

I linger in the doorway, unsure what to do. Now that my paper is done and the semester finished, I don’t have any excuses to talk to him. He sits turned toward me, leaning slightly forward, the body language of someone who wants you to stay. I need to hear him say it. Our eyes lock.

“You can sit,” he says. It’s an invitation, but still leaves it up to me.

I choose to sit, to stay, and we’re silent for a moment, until I smile and gesture—generously, I think—to the now-overloaded bookshelves above his desk. “Your office is such a mess.”

He relaxes. “It is a mess.”

“I shouldn’t criticize,” I say. “I’m messy, too.”

He looks around at the stack of manila folders that threatens to spill over, the uninstalled printer on the edge of his desk and its mess of cords. “I tell myself I prefer it this way, but that’s probably just self-delusion.”

I bite my bottom lip, remembering all the times I’ve said the same thing to Strane. My eyes dart around the office, fall on the tallest bookshelf where two unopened beers sit among the books. “You’re hiding booze in here.”

He looks to where I’m pointing. “If I’m trying to hide it, I’m doing a pretty bad job.” He stands, turns the bottles so I can see their labels: shakespeare stout.

“Ah,” I say. “Nerd beer.”

He grins. “In my defense, they were a gift.”

“What are you saving them for?”

“I’m not sure I’m saving them for anything.”

It’s obvious what the next thing out of my mouth will be. He seems to hold his breath waiting for me to say the words:

“What about right now?”

I say it so jokingly, it should be easy for him to respond, Vanessa, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Maybe if another student asked him, it would be. But he doesn’t even pretend to deliberate. He just holds up his hands, as though I’ve twisted his arm and he can’t fight anymore.

“Why not?” he says.

Then I’m taking out my keys because I have a bottle opener key chain, and we’re clinking bottles, the fizz from the warm beer going all the way up my nose. Watching him drink is like peering behind a curtain. I see him at a bar, at home, sitting on the couch, lying in bed. I wonder if he grades papers late at night, if he keeps mine at the bottom of the pile, purposely saved for last.

No—he isn’t like that. He’s good, outright boyish, flashing me a sheepish grin before tipping back the bottle. I’m the one with ulterior motives. I’m the corruptor, luring him into a trap. I almost tell him to smarten up, stop being so trusting. Henry, you can’t drink beers in your office with a student. Do you understand how stupid this is, how easily it could get you into trouble?

He asks if I’m taking his gothic seminar next semester and I say I’m not sure, that I haven’t signed up for anything yet.

“You should get on that,” he says. “You’re running out of time.”

“I always leave it until the last minute. I’m a fuckup.” I throw back the bottle and take a long swallow. Fuckup. I like how it feels to describe myself as that to Henry, who has spent so much time praising my brain.

“Sorry for being crass,” I add.

“It’s fine,” he says, and I see a slight change in his expression, a shade of concern.

He asks questions about my other classes, my future plans. Have I thought any more about graduate school? It’s too late to apply for the fall, but I can get a head start on applications for next year.

“I don’t know,” I say. “My parents didn’t even go to college.” I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but Henry nods like he understands.

“Neither did mine,” he says.

If I decide to apply, he says, he’ll help me navigate the process, and my brain catches on his choice of verb—navigate. I see a map spread out across a desk, our heads huddled together. We’ll figure this out, Vanessa. You and me.

“I remember how daunting it was when I first thought about applying,” Henry says. “It felt like embarking on totally unfamiliar territory. You know, before coming here I was at a prep school for a year, and it was strange, teaching those kids. Sometimes it seemed as though entitlement was instilled in them at birth.”

“I went to a school like that,” I say. “For a couple years, anyway.”

He asks which school, and when I say Browick, he seems rattled. He sets his beer bottle on the desk, clasps his hands together. “The Browick School?” he asks. “In Norumbega?”

“You’ve heard of it?”

He nods. “Strange coincidence. I, uh . . .”

I wait for him and beer settles in my mouth, for a moment my throat too tight to swallow. “I have a friend who works there,” he says.

Nausea surges up my throat, and my hands tremble so badly, I knock over my bottle as I try to set it down. It’s nearly empty, but a little spills onto the floor.

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” I say, righting the bottle, knocking it over again, then giving up and tossing it into the garbage can.

“Hey, it’s fine.”

“It spilled.”

“It’s fine.” He laughs like I’m being silly, but when I push my hair back from my face, he sees I’m crying, but it’s not normal crying. This is just tears showing up on my cheeks. I’m not even sure they’re coming from my eyes when I cry like this. It feels more like being wrung out, like a sponge.

“This is so embarrassing,” I say, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “I’m an idiot.”

“Don’t.” He shakes his head, baffled. “Don’t say that. You’re fine.”

“What does your friend do? Is he a teacher?”

“No,” he says. “She’s a—”

“‘She’? It’s a she?”