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behind and I feel the zipper burst. Before I can shut it, our clothes have spilled out the top. In an instant all of them are gone, trampled in the mud. I look around, hoping Charlie’s behind me to catch what’s left, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
    “Breasts and buttocks, buttocks and breasts,”
a young man somewhere is chanting in a cockney accent, as if he were selling flowers on the set of
My Fair Lady.
Across the way I see a fat junior from my lit seminar sneaking into the crowd of sophomores, belly rocking. He’s wearing nothing but a sandwich board that reads FREE TEST DRIVE on the front and INQUIRE WITHIN on the back. Finally I spot Charlie. He’s already made his way to the other side of the circle, where Will Clay, another member of the EMT squad, is wearing a pith helmet flanked with beer cans. Charlie snags it off the top of his head and the two begin chasing each other through the courtyard until I can’t see them anymore.
    Laughter fades in and out. In the commotion, I feel a hand grab my forearm.
    “Let’s go.”
    Gil yanks me toward the outside of the circle.
    “What now?” Paul says.
    Gil looks around, spotting proctors at every exit.
    “This way,” I tell them.
    We near one of the dorm entrances and duck into Holder Hall. A drunk sophomore opens the door to her room and stands there, confused, as if we’re the ones who are supposed to greet her. She sizes us up, then raises a bottle of Corona in her hand.
    “Cheers.” She belches, then shuts the door just in time for me to see one of her roommates warming up by the fireplace, wearing nothing but a towel.
    “Come on,” I say.
    They follow me up a flight of stairs, where I bang loudly on one of the doors.
    “
What are you doi—
” Gil begins.
    But before he can finish, the door opens and I’m greeted by a pair of great green eyes. The lips below them open faintly at the sight of me. Katie is dressed in a tight Navy T-shirt and a pair of weathered jeans; her auburn hair is pulled back into a short ponytail. Before letting us in, she bursts out laughing.
    “I
knew
you’d be here,” I say, rubbing my hands. When I step in and hug her, the embrace is warm and welcome.
    “A birthday suit for my birthday,” she says, looking me up and down. Her eyes are glowing. “So this is why you didn’t call.”
    As Katie backs into the room I see Paul fixated on the camera in her hand, a Pentax with a telephoto lens almost as long as her forearm.
    “What’s that for?” Gil asks when Katie turns to put the camera on a bookshelf.
    “Taking shots for the
Prince
,” she says. “Maybe they’ll print one this time.”
    This must be why she’s not running. Katie has been trying all year to get a photo on the front page of the
Daily Princetonian,
but the seniority system has worked against her. Now she’s turned the tables. Only freshmen and sophomores have rooms in Holder, and hers overlooks the entire courtyard.
    “Where’s Charlie?” she asks.
    Gil shrugs, staring down through the window. “Out there playing grab-ass with Will Clay.”
    Katie returns to me, still smiling. “How long did it take you to plan this?”
    I falter.
    “Days,” Gil improvises, when I can’t think of a way to explain that this whole performance wasn’t for her. “Maybe a week.”
    “Impressive,” Katie says. “The weathermen didn’t know it would start snowing until this morning.”
    “Hours,” Gil revises. “Maybe a day.”
    Her eyes never leave me. “So let me guess. You need a change of clothes.”
    “We need three.”
    Katie retreats to her closet and says, “Must be pretty chilly out there. Looks like the cold was starting to get to you guys.”
    Paul looks at her as if she can’t possibly mean what he thinks. “Is there a phone I could use?” he asks, gathering his wits.
    Katie points at a cordless on the desk. I move across the room and press up against her, pushing her into the closet. She tries to shake me off, but when I press too hard,