Summer Sons(15)

Eddie hadn’t mentioned any of that, either.

“We’re getting something to eat, then?” West asked, smile pleasant but chilly.

“If you’d rather, Sam’s putting something together later.” The lift of Riley’s chin made an aggressive invitation. Andrew wasn’t sure which of them it was directed to, or what the invitation implied. “He’s grilling out at his place.”

“Nah, I’m all right,” Andrew said to his roommate as he ducked his head under his bag strap.

“Sure thing,” Riley said. He clasped West’s unwilling hand, the pair of them mismatched in stature but not disdain. Seeing his roommate standing with a colleague and wearing his teaching clothes—a black button-up and tan trousers that ended above a neat pair of grey suede Nikes—made his age jump from young punk to some indeterminate number in the mid-twenties. Riley was just releasing West’s hand from a bruising grasp when he said, “Catch you at home later, then.”

West waited for him to leave before he said, “So you’re living with him.”

“I inherited him along with the house.”

“I see.”

West didn’t have to say it for Andrew to grasp the implication: you could fix that.

“Do you have some sort of mentor-intro speech for me?”

West grimaced and swung his own backpack over his shoulders. “Less a speech, more a conversation.”

Andrew’s messenger bag thumped the outside of his thigh with each step across campus, fast to keep pace with West’s longer stride up the student-crowded sidewalk of 23rd Avenue. At the next corner, West gestured to a glass-fronted modern sushi bar. Andrew nodded his agreement and followed the other man in. The restaurant was expansive and loud. One end of the bartop seating had two chairs, so they took them, bunched more closely than could comfortably accommodate broad shoulders and spread knees.

“All right, so,” West said, once he’d shifted his chair to put his back to the man eating next to them. Andrew leaned against the tight corner his chair fit into, one arm on the bartop. “It feels a little weird to start with the usual get-to-know-each-other spiel, since Eddie talked so much about you in our one-on-ones, but I guess we still should. Most people call me West, I’m doing research on occult fiction and the Southern gothic incorporating critical race theory, and my master’s degree was in English. Born and raised in Massachusetts. I’ve been at Vandy for six years, hope to defend … any time, really, would be good.”

Andrew opened his mouth to respond to the rote list of facts, but the waitress arrived to take their drink orders. West made a gesture toward covering them on one check and ordered two pints of Asahi; Andrew scrambled to organize his thoughts. Eddie probably had a hell of a “name, research, interests” elevator pitch for himself, but he had nothing.

“I did my undergraduate thesis on murder ballads,” he offered.

“Awesome,” West said. He leaned forward in his seat, gazing over the rim of his frames. Andrew noted the glasses were either non-prescription or so weak they might as well not have been. Andrew caught the sympathetic expression softening his smile, and braced himself for its inevitable follow-up. Lo and behold, West continued: “I’m sorry to bring this up, but are you certain you’re good to start this semester? There’s a precedent for deferred entry, like to spring if you need it. Ed was a mid-term start himself. My whole gig is to prepare you for success, and I’m sort of worried. I guess I already feel like I know you.”

What else should I be doing, he wanted to respond, but instead he said with clipped courtesy, “I’ll be all right. It’s better to be occupied.”

“If you’re sure,” West said with a winsome grin that fell flat on Andrew’s dry affect. “The most important person to introduce you to is Jane Troth, his advisor. She used to be the graduate director of the department and she does research in our area, plus her husband is visiting faculty in folklore studies. She’s my chair.”

Andrew recognized the name: Dr. Troth, whom Eddie had spoken of with a mixture of respect and irritation. He didn’t adapt well to being monitored or checked up on, which a faculty advisor was bound to do.

“Had she worked with him much?” Andrew asked.

“I guess they met as often as he and I did,” West said, flexing his hands and popping his wrists. “I hope you don’t mind my saying how weird I feel right now. You’re different from how he made you sound.”

“Different how?”

“Less energetic, maybe, but that’s fair. I’m plenty depressed, and he and I only met once a week for a few months,” he said. “I can’t imagine your loss.”

Eddie’s goading enthusiasm had always provoked Andrew into a sort of rolling sociability that he couldn’t put his heart into now. He’d only agreed to dinner because Eddie had spent time with West, another person who might be able to fill in a handful of the blanks he held in his head. A working dinner, in another sense than West suspected. It was all he could think to do for the time being.

“He had a way of bringing that out in people,” Andrew said once the pause dragged on too long.

West traced a thumb around the mouth of his water glass, brows furrowed.

“I wouldn’t know. He didn’t spend much time on campus, or with me, or with his other classmates except—you know, Sowell,” he said.