Ian Caldwell - The Rule of Four

Tom, she says, pointing to someone at a computer in the corner, there's someone I want you to meet. This is Sam Felton.

Sam smiles as if she knows me. She's dressed in field hockey-issue sweatpants and a long-sleeve shirt that says if journalism were easy, newsweek would do it. After reaching for a button on the micro-recorder beside her, she pulls the bud of an earphone out of one ear.

Your date tonight? she says to Katie, just to make sure she heard right.

Katie says yes, but doesn't add what I expect: my boyfriend.

Sam's working on the Bill Stein story, she says instead.

Have fun at the ball, Sam tells me, before reaching for the recorder again.

You're not coming? Katie asks.

I gather they also know each other from Ivy.

I doubt it. Sam motions back at the computer, where rows of words scramble across the screen, an ant farm behind the glass. She already reminds me of Charlie in his lab: inspired by how much remains to be done. There will always be more news to write, more theories to prove, more phenomena to observe. The delicious futility of impossible tasks is the catnip of over achievers.

Katie gives a sympathetic look, and Sam returns to transcribing.

What did you want to talk about? I ask.

But Katie leads me back to the darkroom.

It's little hot in here, she says, opening a door and forcing back a thick set of black curtains. You might want to take off your coat.

I do, and she hangs it from a hidden hook by the door. I've avoided the inside of this room since I met her, terrified of ruining her film.

Katie walks over to a clothesline strung along one wall. Photographs are clipped to it with clothespins. It's not supposed to get above seventy-five in here, she says, or the soup reticulates the negatives.

She might as well be speaking Greek. There's an old rule my sisters taught me: whenever you go on a date with a girl, always meet at a place you know well. French restaurants aren't impressive when you can't read the menu, and highbrow movies backfire when you don't understand the plot. Here, in the darkroom, the possibilities for failure seem spectacular.

Give me a second, she says, shuttling from one side of the room to the other, quick as a hummingbird. I'm almost done.

She opens the cover to a small tank, brings the film inside it to a spigot, then places it under running water. I start to feel crowded. The darkroom is small and cluttered, counters overrun with pans and trays, shelves lined with stop bath and fixer. Katie seems to have almost perfect dexterity here. It reminds me of the way she did her hair at the reception, tying it around pins as if she could see what she was doing.

Should I turn out the lights? I ask, starting to feel useless.

Not unless you want to. The negatives have fixed.

So I stand like a scarecrow in the center of the room.

How's Paul holding up? she asks.

Okay.

A respectful silence ensues, and Katie seems to lose the thread of the conversation, attending to another set of photos.

I stopped by Dod just after 12:30, she begins again. Charlie said you were with Paul.

There's an unexpected sympathy in her voice.

It was good of you to stay with him, she says. This must be terrible for Paul. For everyone.

I want to tell her about Stein's letters, but realize how much explaining it would take. She returns to my side now with a handful of pictures.

What are these?

I developed our film.

From the movie field?

She nods.

The movie field is a place Katie brought me to see, an open plot in Princeton Battlefield Park that seems to extend farther and flatter than any stretch of land east of Kansas. A single oak tree stands in the middle of it like a sentinel who won't leave his post, echoing the last gesture of a general who died beneath the tree's branches during the Revolutionary War. Katie first saw the spot in a Walter Matthau movie, and ever since then the tree has been an enchantment for her. It became one in a small string of places she visited over and over again, a rosary of sights that anchored her life the more she returned to them. Within a week of her first night at Dod, she took me to see it, and it was as if the old Mercer Oak were a relative of hers, all three of us making an important first impression. I brought a blanket, a flashlight, and a picnic basket; Katie brought film and a camera.

The pictures are an artifact I don't expect, a small part of us locked in amber. We work through them together, sharing between our hands.

What do you think? she says.

Seeing them, I remember how warm the winter was. January's fading light is almost the color of honey, and here we are, both dressed in light sweaters, with coats and hats and gloves nowhere to be seen. The grooves of the tree behind us have the texture of age.

They're wonderful, I tell her.

Katie smiles awkwardly, still unsure how to take a compliment. I notice stains on her fingertips, the color of newsprint, left by one of the darkroom agents bottled along the wall. Her fingers are long and thin, but with a workmanlike touch, the residue of too much film dipped in too many chemical baths. This was us, she's saying, a thousand words at a time. Remember?

I'm sorry, I tell her.

My grip on the pictures loosens, but she reaches for my fingers with her other hand.

It's not because of my birthday, she says, worried I've missed the point.

I wait.

Where did you and Paul go after you left Holder last night?

To see Bill Stein.

She pauses over the name, but presses on. About Paul's thesis?

It was urgent.

What about when I stopped by your room just after midnight?

The art museum.

Why?

I'm uncomfortable with the direction she's taking. I'm sorry I didn't come over. Paul thought he could find Colonna's crypt, and he needed to look at some of the older maps.

Katie doesn't seem surprised. A hush gathers behind her next words, and I know this is the conclusion she's been building toward.

I thought you were done with Paul's thesis, she says.

So did I.

You can't expect me to watch you do this all over again, Tom. Last time we didn't talk for weeks. She hesitates, not knowing how else to put it. I deserve better.

A boy's way is to argue, to find a defensible position and hold it, even if it's not heartfelt. I can feel the arguments crowding into my mouth, the little spurs of self-preservation, but Katie stops me.

Don't, she says. I want you to think about this.

She doesn't have to spell it out. Our hands part; she leaves the pictures in mine. The hum of the darkroom returns. Like a dog I've kicked, the silence always seems to take her side.

The choice is made , I want to tell her. I don't need to think this through. It's simple: I love you more than Hove the book.

But to say it now would be the wrong choice. Part of this isn't about answering the question correctly: it's about showing that I'm correctible; that twice broken, I can still be fixed. Twelve hours ago I missed her birthday because of the Hypnerotomachia . My promises would seem empty right now, even to me.

Okay, I say.

Katie brings a hand to her mouth and bites at a nail, then catches herself and stops.

I should work, she says, touching my fingers again. Let's talk more about this tonight.

I stare at the nub of her nail, wishing I could inspire more confidence.

She pushes me toward the black curtains, handing me my coat, and we return to the main office. I need to finish the rest of my rolls before the senior photographers take over the darkroom, she says on the way, more for Sam's benefit than for mine. You're a distraction.

The artifice is wasted. Sam's earphones are still in place; focused on her typing, she doesn't notice me leaving.