“Hey,” Nick said. “My brother just sent me this Pink Floyd CD. You guys want to go to the activities center and listen?”

“Maybe,” Maria said.

“What about you?” Nick looked at Rufina, and I wondered for the first time if he was interested in her. Surely he didn’t want to be her boyfriend-Ault guys almost never went out with minority girls, and if they did, it was some geeky guy and some Asian or Indian girl, never a black or Latina girl from a city and definitely never with one of the bank boys. But maybe Nick thought Rufina was pretty, maybe that explained his presence here. Because it was, in fact, kind of odd that Nick Chafee was hanging out with a group of girls like us. Even if his own parents weren’t visiting, it seemed he ought to be at the Red Barn Inn with the parents of a friend.

“You want to, chica?” Maria said, and she poked Rufina’s upper arm.

“Ouch,” Rufina said. Maria poked Rufina again, and Rufina said, “Quit it or I’m reporting you for roommate abuse.” Then she laughed loudly, with her mouth open. The intensity of the laugh so exceeded the exchange that had prompted it that I realized that Rufina must be happy. I had never thought of her as happy before, and I wasn’t sure when it had happened, whether her mood was temporary or permanent. I wondered, did she like Ault? Her complaints aside, did she feel as if the school belonged to her? I had a sudden memory from our freshman year of sitting next to her on a bus returning from an away game. It was early November, a bleak day of gray skies, and because the score had been close-from the second half on, Ault had been losing by only one goal-the coach had kept us both on the bench for the whole game. At first we had talked a little, and cheered for our teammates, and sometimes stood and walked around or stretched, to stay limber in case we got subbed, but it was so cold that after a while we simply sat there-Maria had been on the bench, too, and a couple other girls-and huddled together wordlessly. When the game ended, I didn’t care that we’d lost. Back on the bus, still in my uniform, I took a seat next to Rufina, and my body seemed to thaw and expand. Riding down the highway, the trees on either side brown and bare, the grass dead, the sky nearly white, I was able to submit to the moment, this interval of time. Back on campus, I’d have to navigate the chaos of the locker room (because I hadn’t played in the game, it would seem unnecessary to shower, but I wouldn’t want to be observed not showering) and then the separate chaos of dinner, and then there would be the empty time to fill in the dorm before bed. That wouldn’t be a lull when I could space out because I was where I was supposed to be, because something, if only our return to campus, was being achieved and all I had to do was wait; in my room, I was responsible for myself, the choices were mine. I leaned my head against the back of the seat and listened to the sounds of the bus, the intermittent crackle of the driver’s CB, the voices of the few girls not either sleeping or reading, the shadow of music that was someone else’s Walkman playing an unrecognizable song. The bus seemed the best place for me to be in this moment-not a great place, I wasn’t enjoying myself, but I’d have had a hard time naming anywhere better. And then beside me, I felt a shaking, and when I turned, I saw that Rufina was crying very quietly. She was looking out the window, and I could see only part of the left side of her face, which was flushed and streaked with makeup; back then, when she’d first arrived at Ault, Rufina had worn a lot of makeup, even during games-mascara, and black or purple eyeliner. Her right fist was clenched and held in front of her mouth, and she was heaving slightly. How long had she been crying? And was I supposed to say something or pretend I didn’t notice?

I craned my neck in the other direction, peering up and down the aisle. No one else had any idea. I heard Rufina sniffle, and before I had made a conscious decision to do so, I’d set my fingertips on her forearm. “Do you want me to get Ms. Barrett?”

She shook her head.

“Do you want a tissue?” It was a napkin, actually, which I pulled from the backpack at my feet; I’d used it while eating a turkey sandwich on the ride to the game, and it was spotted by some mashed crumbs and a splotch of mustard.

She removed her fist from in front of her mouth, swallowed, turned to me, and extended her hand, palm up. When our eyes met, her expression was so plaintive that I wished the napkin were clean. She bent her head, blew her nose, then looked out the window again. We were passing a cluster of evergreens, shadowy in the approaching dusk, when she said, “I just want to know if it’ll always be like this.”

This was not what I’d expected. First, I had not expected that her voice would be as controlled as it was, and I also had expected her to be more specific about what was bothering her: I miss my boyfriend (I’d heard that Rufina went out with someone from back home in San Diego, an older guy who was in the Army) or I can’t believe Ms. Barrett didn’t let us play. What could I say to what she’d said? Either I had no idea what she was talking about or else I understood exactly, and given these two options, I wanted the latter to be true, but if I asked another question, then it wouldn’t be; if I made her explain even a little, it would mean I didn’t understand at all.

I took a breath. “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

I waited to see if either of us would say anything else. She was still looking out the window, and I looked, too, and saw that it had started to snow.

And now two years had passed, Rufina wore hardly any makeup, she wore her hair not slicked back in a long ponytail as she once had but loose, she talked often and unself-consciously, even in front of guys like Nick. I wondered if I also had changed since our freshman year. Certainly not as successfully-I was less naÏve, a little less anxious, but I was fatter, too, I’d gained ten pounds in the last two years, and also my identity felt sealed. Early on, I had imagined I might seem strange and dreamy, as if I spent time alone by choice, but now I was just another ordinary-looking girl who hung out most of the time with her roommate (similarly ordinary looking), who did not date boys, did not excel in either sports or academics, did not participate in forbidden activities like smoking or sneaking out of the dorm at night. Now I was average and Rufina was happy. And she was sexy, too-either she had not always been this curvy and golden-skinned or else I hadn’t noticed. I wondered if she felt like she was wasting her time at Ault, being trapped in Massachusetts during the years she was beautiful.

“You should come listen,” Nick was saying to Rufina, and then he said to Sin-Jun and me, “You guys should, too.”

“You know we have nothing better to do,” Maria said to Rufina.

“I got work,” Rufina said, which was truly remarkable-that Nick seemed to be pursuing Rufina and that she was rebuffing him. Not that he was really pursuing her, I knew.

“I do, too,” I said and stood. Nick was being surprisingly nice, but I couldn’t imagine he truly wanted me to come to the activities center. “Have fun,” I said in what I hoped was a warm way.

Of course, now I wonder where I had gotten the idea that for you to participate in a gathering, the other people had to really, really want you to be there and that anything short of rabid enthusiasm on their part meant you’d be a nuisance. Where had I gotten the idea that being a nuisance was that big a deal? Sometimes now I think of all the opportunities I didn’t take-to get a manicure in town, to watch television in another dorm, to go outside for a snowball fight-and of how refusal became a habit for me, and then I felt it would be conspicuous if I ever did join in. Once when I was a sophomore, I was at a lunch table when Dede was organizing a group of people to go to a restaurant before the spring formal. She went around the table, pointing at each of us and counting, and when she got to me, she said, “Okay, not you because you never go to the dances.” And that was true, but I’d have gone to a restaurant, I’d have put on a dress and ridden the charter bus and sat with my classmates at a big round table in a big room with an oversized red cloth napkin on my lap, I’d have drunk Sprite through a straw, have eaten warm rolls and roast beef and dessert; all of that would have been manageable. But in the moment of Dede bypassing me, how could I have explained this?