"Alan, we've got to find you a girl before your mind goes into meltdown from hormone overload," Vinnie said. "You're getting worse every day. You are coming tonight, aren't you?"

"Course I am, this party was my goddamn idea, remember?"

Lawrence could remember Roselyn and Nadia saying the team should all go out together after the game to either celebrate or commiserate. He chose not to mention it at that point "We should ask a few extra girls along," Richard said.

The idea of Richard even knowing a few extra girls was also something Lawrence kept quiet about. Richard had been going steady with Barbara for ages. One extra girl, and she'd kill him.

"Don't you worry about me, mate," Alan said in his most annoyingly cocky voice. "I've got a foolproof system to get laid."

"What?" Nigel snorted. It was supposed to be contemptuous, but a small note of interest had crept in.

The changing room magically quietened down as the other guys in the team just happened to overhear Alan's brag. Not that any of them needed a system, but it never hurt to know.

"Simple," Alan said, delighted by his audience. "My mate, Steve, you remember him, the bright one that went to university last year? Yeah. Well, he swears this works; he does it all the time. You go into the party and look around to find the most beautiful girl there. Then you walk straight up to her and say: will you sleep with me tonight?"

There was a moment of silence as the rugby team absorbed this news.

"Crap."

"You asshole."

"That's such a bunch of shit"

A shoe thrown by a disbeliever hit Alan's leg. He yelped and searched around for the offender. "Hey, look, I'm not kidding around here," he exclaimed. "Steve says it works. He gets laid every weekend. Seriously."

"Oh yeah," John jeered. "And the most beautiful girl in the room takes one look at a toxic midget like you and just says yes."

"Well, maybe," Alan said. "If you get really lucky."

"I think I'll stick to the traditional method of giving her too much to drink," Lawrence muttered.

The noise level rose. People started getting dressed again.

"Hey, listen," Alan protested. "This is statistics. That's solid mathematics. It can't fail."

"But you just said this mythical supermodel was likely to turn you down," Nigel complained.

"So? Doesn't matter. You find the second-most-beautiful girl, and ask her the same thing. If she says no, you just keep moving along down the beauty scale until one of them says yes."

John's expression was pitying. "Alan, none of them are going to say yes. Not to that."

"Yes, they will. They're at the party for exactly the same reason we are. It's just that they're not as honest about it as we are."

"You're lecturing on honesty," Lawrence said. "Oh, my sweet Fate. We're doomed."

"Girls like you being honest," Alan insisted.

"They like politeness and flattery a lot more," Richard said.

"Most of them most of the time, yeah. But this is a party, right? They've been drinking, the evening's moving on and they haven't scored yet. One of them's bound to say yes. It's statistics. I told you."

Vinnie's despair had caused his head to sink into his hands. "Alan," he asked, "do you ever wonder why you haven't got a girlfriend yet?"

"Hey, I've had hundreds of girls, okay."

"When?" Lawrence demanded. "Tell us when this system ever got you a girl."

"Tonight."

"I knew it. You're talking bullshit."

"Durr! No! This is completely for real. Steve's screwed half the babes on campus. It's amazing. You've just got to have the balls to use it."

"Your balls have got to be where your brain is before you'll use it, more like," John grunted dourly.

Alan jabbed his thumb proudly against his chest. "Listen, mate, I'm the one that's going to get laid tonight. It's you sad joes who'll be left propping up the bar and going home all by yourselves. I'm telling you, it works."

The party, like all parties, started out with good intentions. At seven-thirty, the first fifteen team and friends headed over to Hillier's, which was in a dome they could all walk to. It was a big old club buried under a residential tower, with three main oval-shaped sections comprising lounge, dance floor, and brasserie, that joined together at a central circular bar. In its heyday, Hillier's had been the center for younger members of Board families, a place where the jazzy hung out and the pool sharks lay in wait. But time and fashion had moved on.

Now it was the even younger members of second-echelon families who congregated there in the evening. They, of course, thought it was superb, a real nightclub that didn't kick up a fuss and ask for proof of age at the door. Hillier's couldn't afford to get that choosy about its paying customers anymore. And these kids did seem to have access to large amounts of money.

The plan was to start with a meal, then move on to a drinking and dancing session. When Lawrence arrived, the boys were all in the lounge, having a drink before hitting the brasserie for something to eat.

"You're late," Vinnie said. He was already on his second beer.

"I had some news," Lawrence said modestly. He'd thought he was in for another lecture when he got home after the match. His father had called him up into the study, and he was never summoned there for any other reason. But when he arrived, his father was smiling as he held out a sheet of hard copy. "Thought you might want to see this," Doug Newton said blithely.

Lawrence took the sheet from his father with some trepidation and began to read. It was a provisional acceptance from Templeton University, offering him a place to study general science and managerial strategy.

Doug clapped his son on the back. "You did it, my boy. Congratulations. I didn't even have to pull any strings."

Lawrence had just stared at the sheet, elated and frightened by what it meant. Everybody applied to Templeton University: the candidate rejection rate was 80 percent. "Only if I get the qualifying grades in my final exams," he said cautiously.

"Lawrence, Lawrence, what are we going to do with you? You'll get them. We both know that. The way you've turned your schoolwork around these last couple of years, you'll probably get a distinction." He gripped his son's shoulders. "I'm proud of you. Genuinely proud."