“Excuse me,” I said.

I went back inside at the closest thing to a walk that I could manage but then ran up the stairs, locked myself in the bathroom, and vomited into the toilet.

I had retreated to my room and, like the first night I had spent in this place, burrowed under the covers, prepared to sleep out the long evening till breakfast time, but I was still awake when the knock came at the door.

For a moment I lay still, saying nothing, but when it came again, I flung the covers aside and went to it. I was still dressed, but I only opened the door a crack, ready with speeches about how I wasn’t hungry and just wanted to rest.

It was Marcus. He looked abashed.

“Hey,” he said.

“What is it, Marcus?” I said, not opening the door any wider. “I’m really tired and—”

“I just came to check on you,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“Yes?” I said, defiant.

“Yes,” he answered. “Look, I’m sorry about that. It was a shitty thing to do. I was angry and—”

“It was a shitty thing to do,” I said. “It was a dick move. Totally unworthy of you.”

“I know,” he said. “I just said that. And . . . can I come in?”

“No,” I said.

“Jan . . .”

“You made me look like an idiot,” I said. “And it was cruel.”

“You didn’t look like an idiot. No one knew it was . . . that the story had anything to do with you till you marched out.”

“It was still cruel.”

“Well, yes,” he said. “It was, but as I said, I was angry and—”

“Did you come to apologize or to explain?” I said, laying the question out so he knew that he had to pick one and one only, that the wrong one, or any attempt to pick some kind of middle ground, would result in me closing the door. He seemed to consider this.

“To apologize,” he said. “Now can I come in?”

I didn’t say anything but walked back inside, leaving the door slightly ajar so he had to push it open to follow me. I sat on the bed. He looked like he was going to begin some long, wheedling apology or—in spite of what he had just said—another classroom explanation, and suddenly I couldn’t handle either.

“You think I don’t know?” I said.

“What?” he replied, genuinely confused.

“What you think of me?” I said. “That was clear five years ago. Well, four. But maybe you felt it the year before too, and I managed not to see it. Or rather I hid it from myself. I am, as you know, good at that.”

“Jan, I didn’t mean—”

“You did,” I said. “You meant what you said, and I don’t blame you. Actually, I’ve always . . . respected you for it,” I said, finding the word at the last moment, “for your honesty. Ironic, isn’t it? But it’s true.”

“I know.”

He was still standing up, looking lost and sheepish and very, very young.

“Oh, sit down, for God’s sake, Marcus,” I said, shoving along the bed so he could take a seat beside me.

I looked at the wall, feeling his presence, his eyes on the floor.

“Do they know?” I asked, still not looking at him.

“I told them I was just checking on you,” he said. “The food is ready and—”

“I mean, do they know about . . . all of it? Why we broke up? My . . .” I was going to say fibbing but couldn’t. “Do they know I’m a pathological liar?”

He shifted uneasily at that and shook his head vigorously.

“You’re not—” he began.

“Don’t,” I said. “I don’t think this room can hold more than one liar. You’re the American here.”

“The . . . ?” He looked at me, puzzled. “American?”

“I’m the Cretan,” I said.

He flushed.

“Fuck, Jan, I’m sorry,” he said, ashamed of himself. “I shouldn’t have said that either. I was just taken aback and—”

“You weren’t wrong,” I said, turning to face him. “And I learned something new. The Epimenides paradox. Never knew that before. So there’s that.”

He blew out a sigh and squeezed his eyes closed.

“That’s me,” he said. “Always teaching.”

He gave me a sad smile.

“Do they know?” I asked again.

He shook his head, frowning.

“I think from time to time, there have been questions about . . . inconsistencies in things you’ve said,” he answered carefully. “But I’ve never heard any real suggestions that . . . you know.”

“Yes,” I said. “I guess that’s something. But . . . they’ve probably figured it out. Hell, I lied to Simon within minutes of seeing him. In the car coming from the airport.”

“What did you say?”

He was hearing me out. He didn’t really want to know, but he thought I wanted to get it all out into the open, so he was helping, like he was rinsing out a wound.

“I told him I saw the Colosseum,” I said. “From the plane.”

He gave me that look I’d seen on his face a hundred times: kind but puzzled to the point of incredulity.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, there’s the million-dollar question,” I said. “I don’t know. Because . . . because, unlike Simon, who probably goes there for lunch, I have never been to Rome. I’ve never seen the Colosseum, and I really wanted to, and I thought that if I looked really carefully out the window as we came in to land, I’d spot it, and that would be, you know, something. But I looked, and I looked, and I had to lean across this guy who had taken his shoes off and they stank, and he kept looking at me like I was going to steal his wallet if he fell asleep or something, and I couldn’t see it. I don’t think we came in over the city at all. Or if we did, I was on the wrong side of the plane and . . . anyway. I didn’t see it, and I was disappointed, so I started imagining what it would look like from above and—”

“You liked that version better than what had actually happened,” he said.

There was a weariness in his voice, but he still sounded compassionate, like he was indulging a child, and when he smiled it was a real smile that made me want to throw my arms around him and hold him forever . . .

“It just slipped out,” I said. “I was talking to Simon, and somehow the made-up version of my flight sounded better, more real somehow, though I know that sounds stupid. Is stupid. And before I knew it, I’d told him I’d seen the Colosseum from the air. Then I told him I had recently been to Vegas and he asked me about the hotel . . .”

“You’ve never been to—”

“I know. I think he knew I was lying. If I got away with it, it was because he would have asked himself why anyone would lie about anything so ridiculously unnecessary and obviously untrue and, therefore, wouldn’t have reached the logical conclusion: because Jan is a pathological liar.”

“You’re not,” Marcus cut in.

“I am, Marcus. You know it more than anyone.”

“I shouldn’t have said—”

“I’m not looking for an apology,” I said. “You were right. Especially about Wilmington. That was unforgiveable.”

“Nothing is unforgiveable. I started the course the following summer.”

“No thanks to me.”

“You were upset.”

“That’s no excuse for anything and you know it.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Marcus, don’t let me dodge what I did. I have to face it.”

“Four years later?”

“If that’s what’s needed, yes.”

“I could have made the point more constructively,” he said. “Less publicly.”

I shrugged and breathed out a voiceless laugh.

“Yeah,” I said, “but I had it coming.”

Neither of us spoke for a moment and then I, gazing around the room and out through the great picture window, said, “Jesus, Marcus. How did we get here?”

He shook his head.

“Damned if I know,” he said.

“And you’re the professor,” I said mockingly.

“Don’t you start,” he remarked with a wan smile, like we were old allies against the world. “I wish they would . . . I mean, is it intended to make me feel small and irrelevant, to remind me that I’m just a teacher, not some big-shot academic and certainly not anything interesting like a fucking hedge fund manager or whatever the hell it is that Simon does? Jesus.”

“Maybe it’s a kind of jealousy.”

Marcus laughed, a short and single bark without a lot of amusement in it.

“Seriously,” I said. “They have money, but I don’t really know what they do with their time when they aren’t working. They don’t seem to have interests, hobbies, do they? Work, gym, clubbing, mixing with the fashionable . . .”

“With celebrities . . .”

“Going to parties . . .”

“Buying fancy cars . . .”

“Made of gold . . .”

“With platinum tires.”

“What was my point again?” I said.

He laughed again, for real this time.

“You were saying how shit their lives were and why they’d be jealous of a high school history teacher.”

“Right,” I said. “Got a bit off track.”

He put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a little squeeze.

“For real though,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” I answered. “Me too.” I hesitated, then asked the question that had been on my mind since I arrived. “What do you make of Gretchen?”

“Well,” he replied, seriously, “she’s down with OPP.”

“Oh my God, that was excruciating.”