planning to call it quits.
Emma and I arranged to meet before rehearsal the following day in the Hart Room of Mahan Hall, which had been, until Nimitz opened in 1972, the main reading room of the Naval Academy library. In the years since then, the Hart Room had been used for everything from wedding receptions to spare office space, but had recently been converted into an elegant student lounge. When the cappuccino bar went in, I rejoiced, and occasionally met Paul there for coffee.
Flags representing each of the fifty states flanked the marble staircases that led from the center of Mahan lobby up to the Hart Room. Because the cappuccino bar was on the south side of the building, I chose the staircase to theleft. As I climbed to the second floor past Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana, I wondered what Emma wanted to talk to me about, and if it had anything to do with why sheâd returned to the Academy, or what Iâd overheard of her conversation with Kevin the night before.
On the phone, sheâd sounded worried, but when I pressed her for details, she put me off, saying it wasnât a good time. Privacy, I knew, was a rare commodity in Bancroft Hall, where everyone had one, sometimes two, roommates, doors were rarely locked, and first classmenââfirstiesââcould walk in on you, unannounced, at any time.
I was early. Emma hadnât arrived, so I bought a Tropicana grapefruit drink from the cashier at the counter and settled into an upholstered chair to wait.
The room was magnificentâlike Cinderellaâs ballroomâwith enormous windows that stretched all the way to the ceiling some thirty feet over my head, highly polished wooden floors, and a Romeo and Julietâstyle balcony that overlooked the terrace below. As long, I swear, as a football field, the room had doorways at each end that linked it to classrooms in Maury and Sampson to the north and south, respectively.
Midshipmen were sprawled, some of them sound asleep, on sofas and chairs that had been arranged in conversational groupings about the room. Several mids were seated at tables, talking in low voices over open textbooks, and if the mid clicking his way from website to website on his laptop at the next table was any indication, computer services had thoughtfully provided wireless computer access to users of the room.
I checked the clock that hung over the doorway leading to Maury. It was two-forty. Emma was late. It wasnât like her. I had just tossed my empty Tropicana bottle into the recycling bin labeled âglassâ when she breezed in, full of apologies and out of breath, her books and uniform cap tucked under one arm.
âWant anything to drink?â I asked. âMy treat.â
Emma shook her head. âNo thanks. I brought my own.â She produced a can of Sprite from under her cap.
âCookies? Chips?â
She grinned and patted her thigh. âUh-uh. Gotta watch out for that Severn River hip disease.â The midshipmen diet was calorie-rich, to support their active regime. It proved particularly hard on the women.
âLike you need to worry,â I teased, envying Emmaâs solid but trim figure. âAny particular place you want to sit?â
Emma glanced around, then gestured with her soda can to a pair of chairs set at precise right angles to one another on the fringed edge of a Bokhara carpet. âHow âbout over there,â she suggested. âMore out of the way, and nobodyâll bother us.â
âI was glad to see you last night,â I told her as we settled comfortably into the plump leather cushions. âWhen we didnât hear from you in September â¦â I shrugged. âWell, after our heart-to-heart last spring, I assumed youâd decided not to come back to the Academy.â
Emma popped the top of her Sprite and took a long swig. Without her stage makeup, without makeup of any kind, in fact, Emma was a beautiful young woman. She was
David Levithan, Rachel Cohn