"I'll be okay," Vix told her. But she wasn't so sure. She felt so down, so depressed.

Bru said, "Maybe you need vitamins."

"Maybe I just need more sleep."

"So what's the point of driving all the way down island every night?" he asked. "What's the point of sleeping in Caitlin's father's house when you could be sleeping here with me?"

She couldn't answer his question. She didn't really understand it herself. She only knew she needed Abby and Lamb. She needed to feel connected. She felt safe with them. But every time she tried to explain that to Bru he'd get defensive.

"You feel safe with them but not with me?"

"It's not a compet.i.tion. It's not you against them."

"Sometimes I feel like it is. And there's no way I can win."

"You've got it backwards," she told him.

On her last night on the island they made love until dawn. "Think that'll hold you till we see each other again?" Bru asked.

"Don't worry," she said. "How about you?"

"I'll just think about tonight. And if that doesn't do it, there's always the phone." But when the time came, when she tried to get out of bed, he reached for her and whispered, "Stay with me, Victoria. I need you here, in my arms a please don't go."

And at that moment she felt that nothing a nothing would ever matter but this.

PART THREE.

We Are the World.

1983a"1987.

26.

AT HARVARD she called herself Victoria.

Maia, her freshman roommate, an elfin princess from New Jersey, with colorless braces on her teetha"Don't even ask! It's my second round of orthodontia. My parents are thinking of suinga"took one look at Bru's picture and said, "G.o.d a what a great-looking guy. I love those rugged, outdoorsy types. Where's he go to school?"

"He's out of school."

"Really. What's he do?"

"He's in construction."

"Construction?"

"He works for his uncles. They build houses a on the Vineyard."

"Oh, wow a the Vineyard. I hear that's a great place. So where'd he go to school?"

"On the island."

"Really? There's, like, a college on the island?" She hated Maia already and they'd just met.

The freshman cla.s.s was filled with high school valedictorians, people who'd scored in the high fifteen hun dreds on their Boards. They were talented, brilliant, intense, and compet.i.tive, used to being number one in everything they tried. Graduating second in her cla.s.s from Mountain Day meant nothing at Harvard. It was a joke. She couldn't imagine why they'd admitted her. She was out of her league, to use Tawny's expression.

Even her roommate had bagged straight A's. At least that's what she claimed. She drove Vix up the wall with her running commentary and questions. Not that she answered any of them with more than a yes, no, or maybe, not since that first day. And the way Maia bit her fingernails as she studied, like a hungry gerbil. Vix had fantasies of tying her hands behind her back, or painting her nails with some vile-tasting substance that would send Maia racing across the hall to the bathroom. She couldn't wait until Maia crashed at night so she could have some peace and quiet in their room.

Maia SHE CAN'T BELIEVE she's stuck with this creature for a whole year! Disappointed doesn't begin to describe her feelings. They have absolutely nothing in common. She a.s.sumes the creature is at least smart. Otherwise, she wouldn't be here. But try to have a conversation and all you get is yes, no, maybe, like when she asks about the photos, not just the hunky boyfriend but the kid in a wheelchair. My brother. That's it, that's all she says. There must be a story there but the creature's lips are sealed. And then there's the beautiful girl looking right into the camera. There's something about that face that keeps drawing her back. And the tantalizing signaturea"NBO, Your Summer Sister. When she asks what it means, the creature says, Nothing, really.

When she complains about the creature to her mother she tells her to keep trying. She could be shy, Maia. No, that's not it, Mom. It's something else. Sn.o.bby, maybe. Aloof. Paisley, their suitemate, thinks Victoria is deep, even mysterious, that she's had experiences she isn't able to share. Look into her eyes, Paisley says, and you'll see what I mean. But when she looks all she sees is disapproval.

THERE WAS A TIME when Vix thought she'd choose a career in social work or physical therapy, maybe teaching, something, anything, to give back to Nathan. At UNM she might have gone that route. But now that she was at Harvard, now that she saw all her options a She thought at first she'd choose English for her concentration, because students at Harvard didn't have majors the way they did at other schools. They had concentrations. But should it be just plain Literature or English in American Literature, or History in Literature? Or maybe she should go with Sociology or Social Anthropology or Visual and Environmental Studies, whatever that was. She was Charlie in the Chocolate Factory with too many choices, feeling she had to gobble up as much as she could as fast as she could, before someone wised up and kicked her out.

At night in their rooms at Weld South ideas were batted around like badminton birdies. Vix listened and absorbed but rarely spoke as the others discussed the equality of the s.e.xes, genes versus environment, and the biggiea"The Meaning of Life. Never mind that the Countess had told her there was no meaning. She was in Robert Coles's Gen Ed 105, The Literature of Social Reflection. He understood life. She wanted to.

On the first Tuesday in October, Vix's father called at dawn to tell her Lanie had given birth. Vix was an aunt to a baby girl named Amber.

Maia rolled over in her bed. "What?" she asked, half-asleep, as Vix hung up the phone, dazed.

"My sister had a baby. I'm an aunt."

"I didn't know you had an older sister."

"I don't. Lanie's just turning seventeen."

Maia sat up. "You mean she's like a a teenaged mother? A statistic?"

"Exactly. She's a statistic."

No teenage sister of Maia's would ever get pregnant and if she did, she'd have an abortion. Vix knew that Maia thought of New Mexico as a third-world country and Vix's family as something right out of Tobacco Road. But to Vix, Maia represented the worst of privileged suburbia. She found her naive and judgmental.

Vix's father sent a picture, one of those newborn shots taken at the hospital. The baby was a preemie, just four pounds but otherwise okay. Tawny would have no part of Lanie's life. She made her bed, now let her lie in it. Vix sent Lanie a copy of Dr. Spock, plus a snuggly for Amber.

The next time the phone rang at an unG.o.dly hour it was Caitlin. "Where are you?" Vix asked.

"Rome. It's fantastic. I'm studying Italian a and art a and history where it really happened."

"When are you coming back?"

"I don't know."

"For the holidays?"

"They don't celebrate Thanksgiving here."

"Christmas?"

"Phoebe's coming for Christmas."

"Then when?"

"Maybe never."

"Don't say that."

Caitlin's voice turned low, seductive. "Do you miss me?"

"You know I do."

"I miss you, too. Is Harvard all it's supposed to be?"

"It's tough, if that's what you mean. I'm just trying to keep up."

"What about Bru?"

"What about him?"

"Do you get to see each other?"

"We talk on the phone."

"Is that enough?"

"What do you think?"

Every time she heard Caitlin's voice she felt an ache, a longing for something, she didn't know what. Even though it was almost a relief to be on her own with no one looking over her shoulder, no one questioning her every move, she missed her. To Vix she was still Caitlin Somers, the Most Influential Person in My Life.

"Does she have to call in the middle of the night?" Maia asked. "I need my sleep. I can't function with less than seven hours. Could you please tell her she's not just waking you, she's waking me, too."

But the next time Caitlin called and Vix asked if she could call before eleven P.M. Caitlin said, "Overnight rates are less expensive. I'm on a budget, you know. I'm learning to manage my money."

"You're serious?" Vix asked.

"Of course I'm serious."

"Okay a I'll try to explain that to my roommate."

"What's she like?" Caitlin asked.

"Nothing like you!"

"Good."

It was Maia who explained to Vix that Caitlin wasn't getting lower rates by waking her in the middle of the night. It was daytime in Rome when she placed those calls.

Forget commuting to the Vineyard. Forget once a week, forget once a month. Her course load was so much more than she'd bargained for she had to give up her second job working weekends at Filene's, and just stick with three nights a week at the Coop.

Bru came up for Columbus Day weekend. He took a room in a Motel 6 outside of town. She had a sore throat and a fever. All she wanted was to climb into bed and sleep.

He scolded her for getting sick. "You don't know how to take care of yourself."

"Now you sound like Abby."

"Maybe Abby knows what she's talking about."

Abby had called before the weekend urging Vix to set up an appointment with her doctor.

"I'm not that sick," Vix had told her. "It's just a little cough."

"Little coughs can turn into pneumonia if you don't take care of them."

"I'm taking care a really." She could hear Abby sigh.

And now Bru was lecturing. "I keep telling you, you need vitamins. There's a new health food store in Vineyard Haven. The owner really knows her stuff. I'm going to talk to her about you. See what she says. There must be a reason you're always so run down."

Although he was concerned about her health he was turned on by her fever. Her body felt so hot, he said, inside and out. He couldn't get enough of her. No, he wasn't scared of catching her germs. And if he did it would be worth it. They had to make up for all that time apart. All those nights they'd fallen asleep dreaming of one another.

"You know what I've discovered about myself?" she asked him late Sunday afternoon, when her fever finally broke and she was soaking in the Motel 6 bathtub.

"That you're crazy in love with me?" he said, sitting on the edge of the tub, soaping her back.

"I've always known that."

"Then what?" He kissed her neck. "What have you discovered?"

"That basically I'm uneducated. I never knew until I came here how much there is to learn. How many ideas there are."

He backed away from her.

"I didn't mean a" d.a.m.n! He'd taken it personally. "Bru a this has nothing to do with you. It's just that sometimes, when I start thinking about all there is that I don't know a I get scared. That's all I meant."

"Why don't you start thinking of all you do know. I'll bet you know more about life than any of your new friends."

"That's probably true."

"Don't you ever wonder what you're doing here?"

"All the time."