Sight Reading Read Online Free PDF Page B

through Nicholas—of Yoni and Samantha’s closeness, their easy connection. There was something nearly mocking about it, though he wasn’t sure what he meant. He didn’t need a Samantha; he had Hazel.
    And with Hazel, well, theirs wasn’t this lazy sort of affection. There had been pure excitement, the shock of attraction. Tripped over my own feet . . . He still recalled the surprise of it, finding her there in the musty-smelling housing office, where she was negotiating a residence problem and Nicholas was posting an advertisement for a room in the house where he lived—a dilapidated Victorian that his landlady was always threatening to bequeath to him. In Hazel’s case there had been some confusion with the paperwork, and the room she had been allotted was still occupied. The university had put her up in a bed-and-breakfast for two nights, but on that fateful third day of her semester abroad they were hoping to assign her more permanent quarters.
    â€œWell, now, that’s serendipitous,” the housing woman had said, seeing the notice Nicholas asked to tack to the bulletin board.
    Nicholas gave Hazel an apologetic look. “As much as I’d love for someone like you to grace our doorstep, I’m afraid you might find it . . . less than comfortable.” Saying so, he missed the corkboard and stuck the tack into his finger. The notice dropped to the floor.
    Hazel laughed. “Is it worth looking at, though?”
    â€œAbsolutely. It’ll make the next room you see look like the Ritz.” Though he knew that the place would never do for a bright, beaming girl like this, at least he would have the pleasure of accompanying her there.
    On the way, he learned that she was an art history major, spending a term in London before finishing at her college in Virginia next spring. Nicholas told her about his own program, and the piano duet he was composing, and by the time they arrived at the house, had offered to take her to the Tate some afternoon.
    His landlady, Mrs. Pitt, didn’t realize that Hazel was with him. “I just got back myself,” she called from her usual spot by the fireplace (which was never lit, since there was a problem with the flue). “Had my annual checkup, and do you know what the doctor said? Said I’ve the body of a forty-year-old!”
    Then she noticed Hazel, and narrowed her eyes. “See you’ve brought company.”
    â€œShe’s looking for a room, actually.”
    â€œI don’t take female tenants.” It was a policy she had just then thought up.
    â€œI’m afraid I didn’t note that on the advertisement,” Nicholas said to her.
    â€œThat’s all right, dear. Don’t you worry, I’m still leaving the house to you.”
    When he and Hazel were once again outside, and Nicholas was deciding to offer her lunch, Hazel said, “She’s fond of you, isn’t she?”
    â€œMrs. Pitt?” That she could suggest this about his landlady gave him hope for Hazel’s own feelings. “I suppose it’s because I help her out a bit.”
    â€œShe didn’t seem too happy to meet me .”
    â€œI suppose she’s jealous,” Nicholas ventured to say, “because you’re so pretty.”
    Hazel gave a joking shrug. “But she has the body of a forty-year-old!”
    She had been like that then, lighthearted, happy. She didn’t need him, it was clear, just as she didn’t need Mrs. Pitt’s rented room. Instead she took a tiny single in one of the halls of residence, on a floor with twelve other women and only one bathroom. “It’s amazing,” she told Nicholas on their first real date, the following week, as they walked leisurely circles in the park. “I was sure it would be a problem, all of us wanting to shower at the same time. But the others barely shower, ever!”
    She seemed to find everything about life there