Amy was a cheerleader freshman year, but unlike some of our other cheerleaders, she was also exceptionally smart and thoughtful. Her grades were almost as good as mine, and she always treated me with kindness. We were on student council together, and I remember how stunned I felt the first time she walked up to me and asked for a ride home. Soon, it was an afternoon ritual, driving to her house and talking in her room after school, with the door slightly ajar to appease her parents. She had a boyfriend named Russ, the quarterback at another high school, but every afternoon it was me who sat on her bed, talking about our futures and what we wanted to be, or sometimes-though it took all my energy to pretend not to mind-hearing about her sexual experimentations with Russ. There is no single memory more alive to me today than the side of her face, turned away from me, daydreaming out the window of my car, a soft smile on her lips. When I heard the gossip that she and Russ had broken up, I immediately asked her to the spring dance. But, she told me, she had already agreed to go with Bryan Collins, a senior at our school nearly identical to Russ in every way. Bryan went on to take her virginity and then break up with her a week later. I learned about it at lunch, from a bunch of freshmen who snickered as she walked by. I felt no satisfaction then. And I realized now, sitting in this warm room surrounded by bright, fascinating people, that I hated John Anderson. I hated everything about him.

I was awakened from this by a slight pressure on my foot below the table. It was gone as soon as it came. Nigel and Dennis were still arguing.

“Eyes Wide Shut was a piece of crap,” Dennis said, a look of amazement on his face. “You know, just because Kubrick directed something doesn’t make it good.”

“Yes, yes, you keep saying that,” Nigel replied. “But why?”

Again, I felt the pressure on my foot, almost teasing in the way it came and went. It traced itself back and forth along my leg. I looked over at John and Daphne, who were still whispering intensely. Maybe it was the alcohol, but it seemed like either Daphne Goodwin was playing footsy with me, or Nigel had a cat.

“The acting, Nigel. Think about how terrible the acting was!”

Nigel threw up his hands.

“The acting was supposed to be terrible,” he cried.

“What! What! Are you all hearing this? Supposed to be terrible?”

I was beginning to think I had imagined the sensation, when something soft slid down the side of my leg, then back up, slowly moving past my knee, still creeping up toward my inner thigh.

“Think about it,” Nigel explained patiently. “People came to see Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman play a married couple because they wanted to see what the real Tom and Nicole’s marriage was like. But instead of something fake-the movie-revealing something real-the marriage-they got fake leading them to faker-a movie that was less real than most movies! It was a joke, a parody of the audience’s desires. Kubrick was mocking us.”

Daphne suddenly smiled at me, and the pressure on my thigh disappeared. She turned back to John and resumed her whispering.

“Mocking the audience?” Dennis said, shaking his head. “Yes, Nigel, you’ve convinced me, that does sound like a great movie.”

The table was quiet. Nigel sat back in his chair, his eyes half-shut, a sleepy, satisfied look on his face. Dennis poured himself another glass of wine, then thought better of it and pushed it away. Daphne had gone to the bathroom to take out her contacts, and when she came back, she wore thin black frames that matched her dark hair. John sat at the window, staring out at the lights across the valley.

“I’d like to thank you all for coming,” Nigel said softly, leaning forward in his chair. “I think we have a special group here, and I’m enjoying getting to know each of you.” He paused and met eyes with us, one at a time. “I think we are going to have a wonderful three years together.

“I’d like to propose that we do this again, and soon. Perhaps a meal out next time, no?” He smiled, and seemed to savor what he said next. “In fact, I have a surprise. A friend of my father’s has invested in a new restaurant in town. When the review comes out this week, you won’t be able to get a table for six months. And, through no small amount of name-dropping and arm-twisting, I’ve arranged to close down the back room just for us, a private dinner next Friday.”

My first thought was holy shit, this is gonna be awesome. And then I felt a jolt. Next Friday. The night of the V &D cocktail party. I felt Nigel’s eyes on me.

“Sure,” Dennis said. “I guess I can put up with you communists for another night.”

“Excellent,” Nigel said. “Daphne?”

“Oh, Nigel, I’d love to. It sounds wonderful. But… I can’t that night.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Nigel said. “What about you, John?”

“I’d like to, Nigel. I really would. But, I don’t guess they could still change it to another night, could they?”

“I’m afraid not,” Nigel said, looking at me again, curiously.

“Jeremy? Surely you’ll join me?”

To my surprise, my voice came out hoarse and barely audible. “I can’t,” was all I managed to say. Nigel wasn’t smiling anymore. There was a strange look in his eyes, and suddenly it dawned on me: Nigel had no intention of hosting a dinner that night. He had a secret invitation to the V &D, same as I did. He just wanted to find out who else would be there.

John was staring down at his hands. Daphne was watching me, her lips barely suggesting a smile.

Four people. Three spots.

The game had begun, and I hadn’t even realized it. At least now we knew who the players were.

How was I supposed to keep my mind on school? Friday night was coming up! What would it bring? What would they want?

And Bernini! He was heaping more and more assignments on me. I was spending entire nights in the library, running home to shower as the sun came up, then stumbling into class and fighting to keep my eyes open. I came to know every nook and cranny of Edwards Library: the grand façade with columns so high you had to crane your neck to see the capitals; the upper floors with shelves lit by naked bulbs; the shaved-pencil smell of books that hadn’t been touched in years.

Soon, Bernini would write his magnum opus: a colossal work, modestly titled The History of Law. My job was to summarize thousands of pages of text, obscure works that existed only in the dustiest corners of Edwards: first editions; treatises with margin notes by famous readers; memoirs so frail they were housed in argon and handled by permission of the dean only.

I’d be halfway through one assignment when my phone would buzz and that familiar Italian accent would sing, “Jeremy, do you have a minute?”

The answer was always yes.

Wednesday night I was delivering papers to Bernini’s office when he glanced up from his desk.

“Jeremy.”

“Yes, professor?”

“Take this.”

He placed something in my hand. It was a small key.

“I’m going to begin writing soon. I won’t want to be disturbed. Let yourself in when the lights are off to deliver your research. You understand?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

I backed out of the office.

My law school training was already kicking in: I immediately starting thinking of worst-case scenarios. He trusted me with a key to his office. What if I lost the key? What if I had to bother him to replace the thing he’d given me so I wouldn’t bother him? I decided to go directly to a locksmith in the morning to copy the key and put it somewhere safe.

A day later, the duplicate key was hidden on my bookshelf in the middle pages of Crime and Punishment. How could I possibly have known, at that point in time, that this would one day save someone’s life?