“Sounded like you were getting a lot of writing done,” Stevie replied.
“Yeah, I am.”
This confident yeah was both direct and squirrelly, and it attracted Stevie’s interest.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I am. I’m writing. I write.”
“No you don’t,” Stevie said. “I mean, you do, but mostly you don’t. Are you working on the second book? Is it . . . going well?”
“It’s fine,” he said dismissively. “We’re not talking about my book.”
“We kind of are.”
“Stevie,” he said. “You’re turning into that person. The one with the long-distance partner. Do you want to be a girlfriend?”
These were fighting words.
“Work on one of these dumb cases,” he went on. “Why not look into this thing with the dryer and the garden. Do something.”
Stevie had no defense. They mutually decided to stop talking and went to the dining hall in silence, filled their reusable, Ellingham-issued takeout containers with cake and other sustenance, and walked back out under the big yellow moon.
Nate was right. All she needed, really, was a little murder. Not a big one. A little something to take the edge off. And not a neighbor with a dryer and a shovel. A real one. There were so many murders out there. Surely, she could have one.
June 23, 1995
10:30 p.m.
IN THE LILAC ROOM （NO FOUR-POSTER, BUT A PRIVATE BATH WITH A claw-foot tub and climbing roses all around the window）， Angela Gill unpacked her things—and they were actually her things. Unlike the other Nine, Angela was always careful not to take things that were not hers, or if she did, to give them back washed and folded. She set her reading on her bedside stand. Just because she had graduated didn’t mean there was any less to do. She was about to start work at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and she had to become an expert in Tudor textiles and clothing as quickly as possible.
Somewhere down the hall, someone was already blasting music—Blur. That was probably Noel. The response came at once from another room, louder. That was Sooz, replying with Oasis. There was constant debate in their house about which was the better band. The battle had been brought to Merryweather, turning it into a Britpop echo chamber.
Angela opened the window, sticking her face out to smell the fresh country air and the flowers outside. The view wasn’t as grand as that from some of the other rooms—it overlooked a walled kitchen garden—but it was pleasant enough, and the air was sweet. The cloud cover had caught up with them, and the first grumblings of a summer thunderstorm shook the sky.
This was it. This was really, really it. The last week together. Her friends. How would she live without them? The rest of the world was going to be so lonely.
Cambridge University is made up of a collection of colleges under the umbrella of a university, and the Nine came from different ones and varied fields of study. They would not have met at all if not for a shared love of theater and a series of auditions in their first weeks. They had varied levels of success at these auditions, but they recognized something in each other immediately. Group friendships are products of the right time—the chemistry of season, activity, emotion, and random occurrence. They coalesced over a series of long nights at the pub, in rehearsal spaces, cafés, and bedrooms. It was Yash who first proposed that they form a sketch comedy group; Theo kept the topic going and made it all come together. By the end of the first term, the decision was made and the lineup solidified.
They had gone through a series of names in those first weeks: DangerGran, Basket of Rats, the Toastkillers, No Fun Before Bedtime . . . Those kinds of names were popular for student comedy groups—some kind of weird phrase. Right before their first show, it was time to come to a decision, which meant a trip to the pub, many bags of crisps, and hours of discussion. Over the last round, Rosie was sober enough to count and find that there were nine of them.
“We should be the Nine . . . ,” she said, clearly having had enough of the meandering debate.
“The Nine what?” Yash had asked.
“Just . . .” Rosie considered her empty pint glass. “The Nine. That’s it. It’s different from all these other names. It’s simple. Monolithic. Like Blur or Pulp or Suede.”
It was late, they were all a bit drunk, and they needed something for the flyer by morning. The Nine it was.
From that point on, you never saw one of the Nine without at least one of the others. In the summer before their final year, Angela found the perfect house—a student rental with nine minuscule bedrooms, three bathrooms with questionable plumbing, a kitchen with only two working burners on the stove, and signs of recent fire damage in the lounge. It was farther out from town, so getting to lectures required long bike rides, bus trips, or perhaps a ride in one of the two cars owned by members of the group.
But it fit nine people—even if that fit was snug, and there seemed a small but not impossible chance of the whole structure going up in flames. Best of all, it had a muddy walled garden out the back that led down to the river. This became the featured spot at their house parties, and the saggy and half-rotted picnic table served as a dining surface when the sun was out （and often when it wasn’t）。 Sooz strung some outdoor fairy lights and garlands of fabric flowers for some party and never took them down—ditto for the two floppy camping tents that Peter bought for a festival. This was the kingdom of the Nine—and it was all coming to an end. When this week was over, everything was over, so the party had to rage on as intensely and as long as possible.
There was a knock at the door and Peter appeared, with his sleepy-eyed smile.
“Lost my lighter in the car,” he said. “Can I use yours?”
All of the Nine were smokers except for Theo and Yash. Angela planned to give it up after this week.
“It’s in my bag, the blue one, on the bed.”
Peter went over to the bag and fished out the lighter. He put the cigarette between his lips and joined her at the large window.
“Any chance you want to help us run some scenes this week?” Peter asked, striking a light.
“We’re supposed to be relaxing,” Angela reminded him. “This is a party, remember?”
“Sure, but there’ll be time.”
Peter always had his eye on the future. Only he and Yash planned on making an actual career out of comedy, which was not known for being the most stable of livelihoods. She never doubted they would make it, though. They were fantastic writers and they never stopped working. She was a writer as well, but she never felt like she could keep up with the two of them. Well, she was a historian really. A researcher. That was her calling.
Or maybe she had failed. She just didn’t have their commitment. If you wanted to be funny, you needed to be deadly serious about it.
She sat on the windowsill and leaned out a bit farther to let the cool air brush her face.
“Careful,” Peter said. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be falling out the windows this early in the week.”
“Remember that time,” Angela said, “that Yash fell out that second-story window while trying to make a girl laugh?”
“The Spider-Man impression.”