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feel that it must be somewhere nearby. There were
quads
filled with girls out there. Surely some of them had to have depth.
    Arno surveyed the scene. Many small cafeterialike tables were set up around the dance floor, which was reflected in the mirrored ceiling. The guy with BuddyHolly glasses who had served them their beer was currently dancing across the floor—or at least sort of dancing, although the word “hopping” also occurred to Arno. Girls with sparkly eye makeup, frizzed hair, big jewelry, and short-shorts were swaying with guys who had apparently used the sparkly eye makeup, too. It occurred to Arno that a lot of work had gone into Space Disco Night.
    He surveyed the girls and tried to imagine taking one of them out for a walk across the quad and a talk about life. He was having a hard time imagining which one of these girls would actually be down for that, though. There were two leggy creatures wearing identical little gold dresses and dancing cheek to cheek, pretty close to them, and though Arno didn’t think they looked like the greatest conversationalists, he had to admit they were pretty hot.
    â€œDon’t you think Bowie is a genius?” Arno called out to them.
    The girls looked back and appraised him. After a long, weird moment passed, Arno realized that he was being ignored.
    â€œSorry, dude,” Patch said, finally putting the phone down and taking a swig of his PBR. “Damn, these things go down quick, huh?”
    The two gold-covered girls were paying attentionagain. One of them looked at Patch and whispered to the other. Then they both looked at him, and kept dancing, except in a slower, more touching, attention-hungry kind of way.
    â€œI know. Sometimes college kids have no taste,” Arno said, crushing his empty can under his foot. He should have known girls like that would care about superficial things, like who
New York
magazine wanted on its cover. “You want another one?”
    Patch nodded, and they moved through the crowd of dancers to the bar at the end of the room. A line had formed, and as they joined the end of it, Arno noticed that a girl had replaced the Buddy Holly guy. She had long dark hair that twisted around near her waist, and she was wearing jeans and a wife beater.
    â€œThis is pretty cool that they have a campus bar,” Patch said.
    Arno looked back at the dance floor. Everyone looked like they were having a great time, but Arno tried to concentrate and tell himself that it was all frivolity.
Depth
, he silently reminded himself. That’s what he needed.
    When they reached the head of the line he smiled at the girl bartender—she was even prettier than he had thought before. She pointed at him and jutted her chin like a person too busy for niceties.
    â€œTwo beers,” Patch said, laying another bill on the bar.
    She reached into a bucket of ice, put two beers on the counter, and took Patch’s twenty. As she was counting change out for them, Arno said, “I bet you’d rather be hidden in the library somewhere, reading a French novel.”
    â€œHuh?” she said, looking nervously down the line.
    â€œOr studying whatever you study,” Arno said. “What do you study? Maybe we could hang out later and talk about it.”
    She squinted at him. “I don’t,” she said. “I graduated three years ago. But if you want to get together and talk about how hard it is to get a job with a bachelor’s degree from a liberal arts college, I guess I’d be up for that.”
    â€œOh,” Arno said, taking his beer and moving slowly away from the bar, “Yeah, maybe I’ll come back some night when it’s not so busy.”
    â€œI’ll be here,” she barked at him, turning to the next customer.
    Arno caught up with Patch, who was walking around the perimeter of the dance floor and who hadn’t seemed to notice his friend’s botched pickup. “Hey, I wonder what