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flopped onto the sofa next to him. It felt weird to be hanging out together. She wasn’t sure if she should leave. People always assumed that since there were so few of them, the boarders were all best friends and had orgies every night—cooped up with all those empty rooms. But actually they tended to feel kind of awkward around one another. The building was just too spacious and too quiet. There was a “Boarders Bash” in the common room once a semester, but it was always dysfunctional—everyone showed up at different times and missed the others, or else they just refused to relax and ended up pretending to go to the bathroom and never coming back.
    Gottfried stared at the wall while Virginia chewed her thumbnail. I’ll call you later . Had Benny actually said that? He’d never called her before, but he’d said it like it was no big deal, like they talked on the phone all the time. Just don’t, you know. . . . And what had he meant by that? Don’t lose Gottfried? Don’t make out with him? Virginia glanced at him. Maybe Benny saw something she didn’t.Maybe Gottfried was in love with her. Or maybe he was Brittany’s murderer, and what Benny was saying was Don’t get killed . That would be so like him, to send her off with a murderer while he went to synagogue with his grandma. Benny never let her know what was going on.
    â€œHow did you know police tape in Germany is red?” Gottfried asked suddenly.
    Virginia looked at him. “Huh?”
    â€œWhat you told da police officer. Have you been to Deutschland ?”
    â€œOh! Um, no, I just said that. Is it really red?”
    â€œ Ja  . . . ,” he murmured. “ Polizeiabsperrung  . . .”
    People were always commenting on Gottfried’s eyes. They were so blue they were fake-looking. No imperfections or flecks or brown or gray—just a seamless ring of pure pale aquamarine. Virginia made herself look away. She didn’t want to be like everyone else, going gaga for Gottfried’s eyeballs. She liked to think of herself as a person who was unimpressed by superficial things.
    â€œWhat were you doing out there?” she asked, redirecting the conversation. “Were you channeling the mascot or something?”
    â€œHm?” Gottfried’s eyebrow cocked curiously, in a way that Virginia couldn’t quite read.
    â€œYou did the same weird dance as Brittany,” Virginia pressed, “and then you ran to the bridge just like she did.”
    Gottfried shrugged, and then yawned hugely.
    He’s on drugs, Virginia decided. A long, silent moment passed.
    â€œI sink I will take a small siesta now,” Gottfried announced. “I am so tired . . . tired all da time.” He stood up and looked right into Virginia’s eyes again. “You helped me today. It was very kind. Sank you.” Then he bent down in a swift, smooth motion and kissed her cheek. Before she felt it, she smelled the faint rotten odor of his vomitus breath on her face. It made her stomach turn. But then she felt his lips, and her stomach turned again, in a different way.
    â€œYou’re welcome . . . ,” she said lamely.
    Gottfried stood up and left the room. Then she heard him say, “Oh,” as if he’d bumped into someone in the hall. Virginia stiffened. Was someone there? Was someone listening in on them? Virginia scanned their conversation in her mind. Had she said anything weird or incriminating? She got up quickly and poked her head into the hall. Gottfried was gone. A door shut upstairs. And then it was quiet—that familiar sound of no one being there.
    Congregation Mikveh Israel, 10:30 a.m.
    Benny paced back and forth in front of the row of rabbi portraits. He turned his face away from them; some of the portraits were the creepy kind where the eyes follow you, and Benny didn’t feel like dealing with their reprimanding