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privacy we had slowly built together. As the years passed, all I came to know of Sir John was that he was “the son and heir of a mongrel bitch,” to quote my father—and, I suppose, King Lear .
    I glanced down at my phone. No new messages. Earlier this evening, I had finally summoned up the courage to call B. Howard, hoping that she and I might be able to square away everything on the phone and never need to talk again. Her voice had been crisp and surgeon-like as she explained that she was sorry, but an in-person meeting was necessary, and as soon as possible.
    “Your father’s will was exceptionally confusing,” she explained in a way that let me know she had already spent far too much time thinking about it.
    “Haven’t you had five years to go through it?”
    “That’s not quite enough time.”
    I told her that I would have to get back to her regarding a meeting date, as I had a large volume of homework, thanks to my tyrannical professor, who belonged in an evil German fairy tale. Now, however, as I looked down at the Hornbeam , I wished we had set up an appointment and met already. Blanche Howard would have told me what I already suspected—that my father had left me nothing—and then I could have gone to the press and kindly explained what should never have required outside confirmation: I was nobody.
    A small breath of wind hit my shins, the only part of my body not covered by my yellow power-poncho. Thor the Hammer and her new boyfriend were laughing about something as the rain fell quietly around us. Her giggle sounded like a bottle of champagne popping. The line began to move. I envied Thor for such seamless flirting. It was as if she had taken some special class that I had missed in high school, where you learn how to be social. What had I been doing all those years, anyway? I scooted closer to my soggy, chattering classmates, aware of the acute loneliness you feel when surrounded by so many other people. The line moved quickly, and soon I dropped the Hornbeam on the ground, leaving it to crumple into the puddles.

    At dinner, I sat next to a Swedish third-year who looked like an underwear model. Thick neck, small waist, jutting jaw. He had a watered-down face, pale like the inside of someone’s arm. This is how our conversation went:
    “I haven’t seen you before,” he said. The accent was strong.
    I said, “ ‘To be omnipotent but friendless is to reign.’ ”
    “What?”
    “Shelley,” I said.
    He extended a hand sideways. “Hans.”
    “No, Percy Shelley,” I said, taking his hand. “Said that quote. Sorry.”
    “All right, yeah.”
    “I’m English.”
    “You sound American.”
    “I study English.”
    “Ah,” he said. “I’m math.”
    I hated meeting people. Being homeschooled for a decade had not granted me social graces. My father never corrected the expressions I had learned incorrectly, because he thought miscommunication was funny, and as a result, I went to high school thinking that it was trivilous instead of frivolous , exasperate instead of exacerbate . I lived in a world in which people still said “jolly.” I spent high school saying things like “if urged.”
    I glanced around. The Great Dining Hall was four hundred and seventy-two years old, begun by Old College Master John Stuart VIII during his second year in office. The stone was blackened and it looked like the building had been smoking the same cigar for centuries and had dribbled ash all over itself. Tonight, the six long tables inside the hall were bathed in a sickly, yellow light, and students crammed around them like too many animals at a trough. The only empty tables, reserved for faculty, were at the front of the room, facing horizontally.
    On all the walls around us were paintings of English kings and Old College presidents, whose portraits filled up every bit of space like uneven, mismatched graves. The collection looked like a Tetris game that Michelangelo had started as a kid and, frustrated,