I caught Luke at the corner of the street, he wearing his red anorak and bowler hat; so silly: the rain was collecting in the rim, dumping on his shoulders at every twist of the head; he looked like a leaking fire hydrant. But he hardly recognized me staring out of the cab. After I finally ventured out into the rain, I yelled at him: "You have a hood on that thing, why don't you use it?" But he said it wasn't big enough for the hat. I didn't ask for an explanation. And since Luke quickly took notice of my hair, I wasted no time asking him if I could shower at his place. When you're alone with Luke, it's best to be brief. As it turned out, he was on his way to a meeting. He wasn't planning on going back to his dormitory until right before Nike's party. I mentioned how fortuitous our meeting was, and he, being very conscious of fate, was obliged to change his plans. Giving up his key, Luke said that he would meet me in his room, and that he would be, at the very most, an hour.

But he was always telling his stories to other people. Some of them I would hear several times, depending on the company we shared, but never, not once, was I personally privileged with a story. His opinions I would hear, sometimes even his principles; he always shared his feelings, which is something I rarely did and only with great difficulty; on the other hand, he rarely gossiped, but he offered countless anecdotes, often involving other people; none of these, however, were stories, which included all these elements and more besides.

I know that I've always been playful, which is something that a modest person does not usually reveal until well acquainted with another. Perhaps it was the misguided intimacy - the forceful breach of inhibition - that tightened and then relaxed our excited bodies. I suppose not everyone enjoys being playful, but I believe that boy was thrilled, and perhaps he, thinking me a student, sincerely hoped for another, less ephemeral encounter. But I knew it would not happen, and he, poor fool, may have dreamt of it last night. I certainly have had dreams on less hopeful prospects. How odd it is, how strangely odd, that the basis for romance and friendship must seem so fantastically random, and the requirements which permit these things to blossom, the structure of tastes and considerations, being so irrationally determined, or else so deliberately particular, how odd indeed that any relationship take strong root and thrive at all.

"Beautiful," I said, "isn't she?" But Macy thought her mouth too small and her belly too large. He did get excited about Bruegel's encyclopedia of children's games.

But I confess: it was very nice to see him. And Luke. And of course, Macy. It's amazing how some people, after so many years, can still make one's flesh jump. Even after one has lost all hope of...the impossible. But like I said, value is so arbitrary. Take wine, for example. I once thought that wine connoisseurs were gods. Possessed of some unearthly power, their discriminating taste born of years of good breeding at expensive restaurants, I thought their abilities beyond the reach of anybody who had not memorized a proper wine list by puberty, or had not spent their adolescence hopping through the French countryside or crawling through the caverns of Eger.