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o’clock. I’ll tell Samir I am expecting you.”
    They entered the market and walked silently for a few minutes.
    â€œCan you get a flight schedule for Paris?” Miriam asked.
    â€œOf course. If you have any problem, call me tonight. I’ll do the same.”
    Miriam took a deep breath. She was going on the run.

chapter 7
    s eth found the dance squad in Hearst Field, next to the gym. Some called them cheerleaders, but these girls were hardly the kind Seth had seen in high school. They were the kind who competed on ESPN2 at the national-championship level and eventually went on to dance on cruise ships or, in some cases, Broadway.
    The squad leader was a blonde named Marisa, a bright physics undergraduate who’d approached Seth for help on several papers. He never quite figured out what she needed help with, but he spent an hour in the park with her once, discussing the distinctions between nuclear physics and high-energy physics.
    Marisa was a walking oxymoron—an intelligent student who seemed determined to hide behind a Hollywood persona. She’d smiled and asked him why he didn’t have a girlfriend. And when he blushed, she drew her finger down his arm and suggested they get to know each other.
    Two evenings later, Seth found himself on his first date in three years. Everything progressed well at first. She, the perfect twenty-one-year- old babe with enough beauty to boil the blood of most men, and he, the wonder boy with enough brains to send most women into the deep freeze.
    They went to the Crab Shack for dinner, and with each crab leg, her flaws increasingly annoyed him. Her blind acceptance of a news anchor’s point of view, as if being housed in a television made one a god; her wisecracks about Dr. Harland. By the time they got to the main dish, even her white teeth looked plastic to him. How could such a bright student be so easily swept along with this pap?
    He became so distracted, in fact, that he took a sip of the hot butter, mistaking it for his iced tea. She laughed, of course, a high-pitched young laugh. Now her youth glared at him. She was a mere pup, flashing her plastic teeth and raving on about a world she saw through naive lenses.
    To Seth’s amazement, she asked him out the next day. He politely declined. It was the last time they’d talked.
    Seth headed toward the squad. He didn’t recognize Marisa until she noticed him. He nodded and smiled. She must have mistaken the gesture as encouragement, because she whispered something to the others and then broke into a punchy cheer that made as much use of her hips as it did her mouth.
    Seth covered his embarrassment by clapping and saying, “All right, way to go,” or something similar. He wasn’t positive, because the better part of his mind was shouting him down with objections.
    All six faced him, wearing slight grins. He wondered what Marisa had told them.
    â€œHello, girls.”
    â€œHi, Seth.”
    He stopped and shoved his hands into his pockets. “What are you guys doing?”
    Practicing their dance, you idiot. He grabbed the Super Ball.
    â€œWorking on our backflips,” Marisa said.
    â€œCool.”
    Silence.
    â€œI heard about your run-in with Professor Baaron yesterday,” Marisa said.
    â€œYou did? Yeah, that was pretty bad.”
    â€œFor him maybe. I heard you came out pretty good.”
    â€œThat depends on how you look at it.”
    â€œI think the student body understands exactly what happened.”
    Seth wasn’t sure what she meant. “The irony is that Baaron’s holding a reception in my honor tomorrow night at the Faculty Club.”
    A redhead with hands on hips blew a round pink bubble and then popped it loudly. “What kind of reception?” she asked.
    Seth felt inordinately awkward. “Well, there’s this award called the Dannie Heinemann Prize. Mathematical physics. It’s a pretty big deal to the