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boy was from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and had been brought to the Academy by his aunt whom he now lived with after his parents had been killed in a traffic accident some seven or eight months earlier. He seemed capable of talking freely about the incident, but we could tell that he was still bothered by his loss. And happily, we discovered that Matt had picked up a large deer salami and bag of potato chips in town before his aunt had brought him to the campus that day, plus my new roommate knew where the TV lounge was in Ulster Hall where we could get pop and candy bars from the vending machines which were there. So dinner, I resolved, was no longer a problem.
    “I thought of stopping in town for some provisions,” my dad admitted. “But someone in the back seat was in too big of a hurry to get out here.”
    “Ok, Dad.” I knew he was joking so I pretended to feel insulted.
    “Did you aunt stay here in the area tonight?” my mother asked my new roommate.
    “No.” Matt smiled. “She’s meeting her new stock broker for dinner down in New York tonight. I think they’re dating.”
    “Oh,” my mother continued. “Your aunt isn’t married?”
    “No, but she’d like to be,” Matt answered.
    My mother then smiled. She had spent as much time on campus now as she considered bearable. “Well, perhaps we should be going now so you two boys can become better acquainted.”
    “Yes,” my dad joined in. “We’ve still got a good three-hour drive to New York ourselves, and I’ve made dinner reservations for us tonight at 21. So we need to be leaving here pretty soon, I’m afraid.”
    The time had come for my folks to be on their way, and for me to finally be on my own. My parents said good-bye to Matt, and then I followed them back out to their car. It had been cloudy all afternoon and by the time we had gotten outside again, the clouds overhead had grown dark and were looking now as if they were about to open up on us.
    “I’ve arranged for you to have an allowance of five dollars a week. You can pick up your money every Monday from the bursar’s office in Ulster Hall,” my dad told me as he took his place behind the steering wheel again. Later I found I was able to stretch my allowance out so that I could pay for one three-dollar small pepperoni pizza from one of the three pizzerias in town, and one can of pop per day for six days every week. “But here’s fifty dollars so you can run into town this weekend and get a desk lamp and whatever else you may need for your room.” My dad then smiled as he handed me the cash.
    “Thanks.” I appreciated the thought.
    “Try to get something that will cheer up your room too, dear,” my mother suggested as she took her seat in the car next to my father. “All of that pine-colored paneling against that light gray linoleum looks so dreary.”
    “Ok, Mom, I’ll try,” I answered.
    There was still a little more information my dad wanted me to know as thick drops of rain began to fall on me. “Tomorrow I’m going to be spending some time in our New York office while your mother goes out and does some shopping. So we’ll be spending tonight and tomorrow night at the Pierre. Then the day after tomorrow, our flight for Paris leaves first thing in the morning. So if you need us before we leave, you can reach us at the Pierre. After that, you can go to Mr. Stuart if you have any problems. He does seem a bit odd I suppose, but I think he’s got everything under control around here.”
    “Ok, Dad. I’ll be fine,” I said as the rain began to come down harder now.
    We then said our good-byes and as I stood there by myself in the downpour in front of my dorm and felt the cool drops of rainwater begin to soak down through my hair and come to rest against my scalp, only my mother had a sense, as she and my father drove away toward the front entrance, of the peril in which I had just been placed. Because later that night, after they had both gone to sleep in their hotel