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left in the old place now that Grace lived with John.
    I have a memory of sitting on boxes in the new apartment. The stereo was the first thing they set up. Lee was in charge of song selection, and Steve sang along in harmony with the music she chose. It was strange to watch this giant, awkward man-boy suddenly look confident and unselfconscious. Brian played the photographer and the lush at the same time. For a while Grace sat on John’s lap and wrapped her frame inside his brawny arms. Somehow the beer was already in the refrigerator and cold, and then it was in my hands. Somehow Nicole was never very far from me but never looking directly at me.
    I remember cornering Grace. My eyes were glassy and my words were wet.
    “So, science,” I shouted at her over the stereo.
    “What about it?” She was hanging halfway out the window and smoking a joint.
    “What was wrong with philosophy and…the other subject?”
    She took a deep drag and leaned toward me. “The truth is, I had a vision.”
    I grinned. “Drug-induced religious awakening. I expected more from you.”
    I thought we were having fun but her loose smile was gone and she looked serious, even a little unhinged, as in her bad years.
    “Listen,” she said. “I saw an opportunity to do something big, something I couldn’t do if I kept fucking around in the humanities. And so I changed my field. John was part of it, too, so I convinced him to come with me. We’re in the same lab, now.”
    “Doing what, though?”
    Grace said something but I didn’t hear it because Nicole caught my eye. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap and her smooth legs were crossed. A long white shoe dangled from her toes.
    I turned back to my sister. “What? What do you do?”
    “Play with rats,” John said.
    I laughed. “Sounds like world-changing shit.”
    Lee had chosen a noisy song, a hoarse voice shouting over the clanging guitars, and she was nodding along with the beat.
I’ll find my oblivion in the place where the water meets the trees.
    “I know this one!” I told Lee, and again to Grace. “You put this song on the CD for me.”
    “At least you’ve learned something this year,” she said and smiled.
    —
    The alcohol and tiredness were a muscular mix. I don’t remember when I started holding Nicole’s hand, only that it was discreet at first and then open.
    “Your sister has been a good friend,” she said. She ran her fingers over the contours of my knuckles and it felt incredible. “She really stuck up for me when it counted. We’re not so close anymore but I still worry. Please keep an eye on her, for you and for me.”
    “You don’t mean right now, though.” I slid toward her, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from her body, and failed to hold in my smile. “I mean, I’m a little busy at the moment.”
    Her eyes were stunning, amused but vaguely disinterested, like a cat’s. “And don’t tell her I said this.”
    Lee noticed Nicole and me, laughed, and choked on her beer. “If what Grace told me is true, I’m not sure who I should be worried for.”
    I think Brian was in worse shape than me. I remember his lips and teeth were stained darkly from the wine he drank, and he had a spatter of red drops on his shirt. His smile was ghastly and hilarious.
    I don’t know when people started to leave, or whether I said goodbye to them. I’d been running my thumb along the ridges of Nicole’s slim hands and when I looked up, the room was empty. I offered to walk Nicole home and she didn’t refuse.
    I imagine John gave me another hug and Grace gave me a sisterly warning about her old roommate. I have no memory of either, though.
    The walk home was fragmented: night air that was almost as hot as the day; walking arm in arm with Nicole, a solution to my staggering; pulling her close, inhaling her scent, blurting, “You smell like oranges”; Nicole hushing me, her wet red lips brushing against my ear; the firm skin and sweet taste of her