Social Science

A s acid can melt fingerprints, last night's dose of Marybeth has erased that part of Henry's brain that controls forgetting. All Saturday morning she has been unforgiving. She haunts the house, going through her old routines but dressed as she had been the night before. He sees her in the tub, infiated pillow under her neck, her stockinged legs crossed, her feet covered with the same frumpish ankle boots. In the kitchen she licks the lid of an opened can of soup. In the bedmom she lifts her weights in front of the mirror, her eyes, fierce and anthracitic, concentrating on the slip-slide of the dozens of bracelets on her arms. How easily those same eyes found Dave Brinkley's last night and softened. Instant friends they were, linked by a common annoyance. "Dave," she said, loud enough for Henry to hear, "E know a quiet place where we won't be disturbed."

Mrs. Steiner phones. She reminds Henry to stay near the house tomorrow when Mr. Brinkley comes for the envelope. "Maybe you can put on a suit and look nice for him. I bet you haven 't done ihat since your wedding day. "

Henry climbs the stairs, his legs heavy, as if chimpanzees were clinging to them. In his study he shuffies a stack of essays, and miraculously Agnes's rises like cream to the top. Divine Providence! He picks up the phone and dials the campus switchboard. The operator rings Agnes's extension number in the dorm. Without any pretext he'11 ask her to lunch. They'11 go to a place where people in ankle boots aren't served. But after too many unanswered rings his enthusiasm for the adventure dies, and for a fleeting instant he thinks Dave Brinkley has way-laid Agnes too.

Upstairs he reads her essay, a paean to a boy named Buzz. No camouflaged emotions here. Not a single cryptic trope. Just unadulterated, unfiltered, irrational goo from the heart. No matter what methodology he employs in his reading of the text, one sentiment prevails: "Buzz is best." Henry puts down his pencil and takes up the red ballpoint reserved for his other students. Soon her essay resembles the latticework of arteries and veins on an anatomical chart. He populates the margins and the tight spaces between lines with convoluted bloodworms. He maims every sentence, bad or good. Finally, Henry awards a grade: D+. Then he reconsiders and whites-out the vertical component of the plus sign. He has seen it happen so many times before -- as love grows, writing skills decline.