But still: How disconcerting that this one piece of information, these rumors about Thalia and someone older, had been what started the police looking at Omar to begin with.
It hit me with the weight of twenty-three years.
The older guy was you.
If Thalia was having trouble with an older guy, the older guy was you.
17
Here’s what I thought about as I climbed uphill through the wind to my guesthouse, skipping lunch:
Opera class, and New York City, and Bethesda Fountain.
There were only six of us in your opera seminar, fall of senior year: three who’d squeeze onto your couch and three who pulled over padded orchestra chairs. It was me, Thalia and her boyfriend Robbie, Beth Docherty, Kwan Li—who went and became an actual opera singer—and Robbie’s friend Kellan TenEyck, the one who drank himself to the bottom of a lake twenty years later. It’s hard to look back and see us as we were, rather than who we would become, hard not to see text bubbles floating above our heads: “Murdered Girl” and “Opera Star!” and “Sad Drunk.”
I wonder if they let you add the class to the elective schedule just so it’d sit, forever, in the list of courses sometimes offered at Granby. “Wow!” the moms of bored eighth graders have said every year since, leafing through the viewbook in the admissions office. “History of opera! That’s like a college course!”
Robbie Serenho was only there because Thalia was, and Kellan was only there because Robbie was. A ski star, Robbie oozed privilege. And he had swagger: the way he wore shorts even in snow, his floppy hair, the way he’d show up late to class, chewing gum, and no teacher called him out. Dating Thalia certainly bolstered his status. I hadn’t had class with Robbie since ninth grade English, and was mildly surprised now to find him insightful. He’d be picking at a hole in his khakis like he wasn’t listening, then pop in with “Beethoven was the Miles Davis of his time. Like, constant reinvention.” Robbie might not have come in an opera fan, but he was at least a casual music geek, knowledgeable about anything he deemed cool enough; he’d go on about laser tag or World Cup soccer in the same way. He’d sit with his arm slung around the back of Thalia’s seat, keeping her anchored to the floor of the classroom.
I’ll forever remember the operas we saw that October at the Met. Three operas in three days, missing our other classes. Le Nozze di Figaro, La Bohème, Tosca. I owe you that: A girl from southern Indiana got to see three operas at the Met. It was exhausting, but it rewired my brain.
Thalia was dating Robbie, and Beth was all over Kellan, and all four were friends—which left me and Kwan the odd ones out. The trip was unstructured; we had nothing to do between waking up and meeting for dinner. Kwan and I were both awkward enough that we weren’t going to suggest exploring the city together—so I set out alone every day, seeing how far I could walk, doing mental math on calories burned per block.
The biggest city I’d seen was Indianapolis. Well, and I’d flown through O’Hare, which didn’t count. I didn’t mention this, not wanting to seem like a rube. I’m sure if you’d known you’d have given me more direction, at least taught me how to hail a cab.
Everything was enormous, and the sidewalks were broad, and I loved it all, even the way the streets started smelling like garbage at five p.m. when the trash came out. I was terrified the whole time of pickpockets, of crime, of wandering into a gang war （ah, the notorious gang wars of Lincoln Square）， but otherwise it was heaven.
I had thirty dollars for the three days, and while Granby covered our Met tickets and dinners, those thirty dollars needed to get me through breakfasts and lunches and transportation. I’d rise early （my body woke at four a.m. for crew, even here in New York）， sneak out of the room without waking Thalia and Beth, and buy a small bagel with jam and an orange juice from the deli across from our hotel. That was $3.75. I’d have $6.25 for the rest of the day. I had sorbet for lunch once, which would have broken my diet if it hadn’t been the only thing I ate. Another time I got a pretzel from a cart.
I sent a postcard to my mother in Arizona—letters spelling NEW YORK, each filled with a photo of the city. She didn’t know I was there, and I wanted to casually surprise her. In retrospect, it wasn’t a kind thing, sending that postcard. The back might as well have read, Look how little you know about me. Or You’ve never been here, have you? It’s possible I was taking the opera class for the same reason. How much farther could I get from Broad Run, Indiana?
Not long after we arrived, I was walking down Columbus Avenue when a man who was clearly mentally unwell swerved at me and made like he was grabbing enormous breasts on himself, shaking them in the air. I sidestepped him, hurried down the sidewalk hating the rush to my limbs, my stomach. He called, “Run, little bunny rabbit! Hoppity-hop!” I felt I’d done something wrong and embarrassing, hadn’t been tough enough.
On the second day, I ran into Kwan as he returned to the hotel with poster tubes under his arms. “I was at the Met!” he said, and I was so confused, because weren’t we going to the Met every night? He said, “You only pay what you want.” Further confusion. But then he popped open one of the tubes to show me Van Gogh’s self-portrait in a straw hat, the words Metropolitan Museum of Art across the bottom.
So on the morning of the third day, our last full day, I set out from Lincoln Square through the park to the museum I’d circled on the free hotel map. I made sure to pass a landmark my map called “Beth. Fountain” because a fountain would be good for photos.
I assume you remember what happened next. I saw you and Thalia sitting way too close—legs toward each other, touching at the ankle—on the lip of what I now know is Bethesda Fountain. If I’d been far enough away I’d have stopped, hidden behind other tourists, watched to see what happened next. It would be something to tell Fran when we were back—how Thalia was throwing herself at you. But by the time I saw you, I was five feet away, and you also saw me. You and Thalia jerked your legs apart. Thalia looked like she was trying not to laugh; your cheeks were forest fires. You said, smoothly, “Bodie! Small city, huh?” You said, “Thalia just talked me into being her convocation advisor. Do you have an advisor yet? You need one?”
Whatever else I’d been thinking was subsumed by my enormous relief at what seemed like, and indeed was, your offer to work with me. They’d just posted the list of the ten or so faculty who’d be advising convocation speeches, and they expected us to simply approach someone. That was easy for most kids—the hockey players went to Mr. Dar, the skiers to Mr. Granson—but the thought of walking into someone’s classroom, even yours, and asking them to advise me felt egregious.
So I said, “I—yeah, I guess I do need one.”
You seemed genuinely overjoyed, and I was starved enough to take it.
You asked where I was going, and I said “the Metropolitan Art Museum” and you gently corrected me, told me to be sure to find ancient Egypt.
That night at Tosca, Kellan TenEyck, a row ahead, turned as we stood for intermission. He stretched his arms overhead, oxford shirt rising to expose a pale stomach. He said to me, out of nowhere, “So you and Fran Hoffnung are dykes together, right?”