I sat facing his desk, in a chair that had blue-and-red-striped brocade fabric and wooden arms. Another chair just like mine was a few feet away, and behind me-I surveyed the room while Mr. Byden wrote-were a couch and a low cherry table and several more armchairs. There was also a fireplace, with a white marble mantel, and above it a portrait of Jonas Ault, circa 1860. I had never been in Mr. Byden’s office before, but I recognized the portrait from the school catalog. Jonas Ault, as we heard in chapel every year on Founder’s Day, had been the captain of a whale-hunting ship, the rebellious youngest son of a wealthy Boston family. One night before he departed for a sea voyage, his young daughter Elsa pleaded with him to stay at home, and Ault refused. While at sea, the men encountered a storm so severe that Ault swore, as the ship rocked and waves crashed over the gunwales, that if he made it back to shore alive he would give up the whaling trade. He and all his men survived, but when they returned to port, he learned that three days prior Elsa had died of scarlet fever. In her memory he founded Ault School. (Not Ault Academy-that’s what my parents sometimes called it, but the correct name was Ault School.) Though the story possessed a certain romantic doom that appealed to me, what I always wondered was, why did Ault found a school for boys in memory of his daughter? Even if she’d lived, she would have had to wait until she was 104 years old before she was allowed to attend.

“Allrighty,” Mr. Byden said. “I appreciate your prompt response. If you’ll bear with me, I’ve got a few questions for you, and then I’ll more fully explain why I called you in. Does that sound acceptable?”

“Yes,” I said. Then I added, “sir.” I meant it to be respectful, but coming out of my mouth, the word sounded almost sarcastic. The Southern students I knew pulled off sir and ma’am effortlessly.

“You came here as a freshman, correct?”

It wasn’t the question I’d expected. I nodded.

“And how would you characterize your Ault experience? Just in the broadest terms, and keep in mind that there’s no right answer.”

This, I knew, was never true.

“I like it here,” I said. Meaning, Don’t kick me out. Preferably, don’t even bust me.

“Tell me about the highlights.”

Maybe I wasn’t in his office because of Cross. Because surely this couldn’t be the way most busts began. And, as I considered it, it occurred to me that if I were going to be busted, it would probably be not by Mr. Byden but by Mrs. Elwyn, or possibly Dean Fletcher.

“Just tell me what comes to mind first,” he said.

I glanced out the window and saw several seniors, including Martha and Sin-Jun, lying on the circle. Since spring break, even before it had become truly warm, there’d almost always been seniors sitting or lying in a group on the circle; it was like a massive volunteer effort they were completing in shifts. I hadn’t once hung out there because I knew it would make me feel conspicuous and like I was wasting time. It had never bothered me to sit in the dorm, listening to music, staring into space, but wasting time alone felt less like wasting time than like keeping my despair in check.

I looked back at Mr. Byden. The highlight of my Ault experience, as I saw it at that moment, was Cross. “The highlight of my Ault experience has been my friends,” I said.

“There’s something about living in the dorms, isn’t there?” Mr. Byden said. “A real closeness that develops.”

“And Martha and I have roomed together for three years, which is nice.”

“Believe me, I know all about you and Martha. I hear great things about the two of you.”

From whom? I thought.

“How about academics?” Mr. Byden said. “There was a bit of a problem with precalculus, was there not?”

I felt a new flare of panic-maybe this was what our meeting was about, I thought, maybe after all these months, they’d figured out I’d cheated-but Mr. Byden was smiling. His expression seemed to say, Math-isn’t it pesky?

“Things have been better this year,” I said. “I’ve been able to stay on top of it.”

“And you’re off to the University of Michigan if I’m not mistaken.”

I nodded.

“A fine institution,” he said. “One of the really outstanding state schools.”

I smiled at him without saying anything. With people outside of Ault, you pretended that you were lucky to go to the University of Michigan and maybe, depending upon whom you were comparing yourself to, you really were; but Mr. Byden and I both knew that within Ault, it wasn’t lucky at all.

“Do you feel prepared for college?” Mr. Byden asked.

“Yes, definitely. I’ve gotten an excellent education.” This, in fact, was true.

“Any favorite classes?”

“Eleventh-grade history with Dean Fletcher was great. And tenth-grade history, with Mr. Corning. I liked environmental science pretty much, too. I had Mrs. McNally for that. Really, all my teachers here have been good. It’s just that I haven’t always been so good at the subjects.”

Mr. Byden laughed. “Nobody’s perfect, right? But I know you’ve contributed a lot to this place, Lee, in your own way.”

What on earth did he want from me, I wondered, and at that moment, he said, “I’ll get to the point. The New York Times is planning a feature on the school.”

“Wow.”

“Well, it’s certainly an opportunity, but media attention is always a double-edged sword. It’s smart to approach any situation like this with a degree of caution, especially in this day and age, when the general public isn’t all that enamored with the idea of prep school. The Times is a first-rate paper, of course, but sometimes the media tends to simply reinforce existing stereotypes instead of taking the time to tell the real story. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“I think so.”

“All of us at Ault are awfully proud of the school, and when the Times comes here to do the interviews, we want them talking to kids who can convey that pride. I’m not saying, if you’ll pardon the expression, that we want to feed them a line. What we’re looking for are students who can provide a view of the school that’s balanced as well as truthful. My question for you is, can I persuade you to be one of those students?”

“Oh,” I said. “Sure.”

“Terrific. Now, the angle of the story as it’s been described to me is the changing face of American boarding schools, with Ault functioning as a stand-in for Overfield, Hartwell Academy, St. Francis, et cetera. What they’re saying is, these places are no longer enclaves for the sons of the wealthy. We have girls, we have blacks, we have Hispanics. Despite their reputation, boarding schools are mirrors of American society.”

“So I would be speaking as a girl?”

“As a girl, or on behalf of any of your affiliations.”

I wondered if he thought there was more to me than met the eye-that I was Appalachian maybe. “Are there specific things I should tell them?”

Mr. Byden grinned. I still think of that grin sometimes. “Just the truth,” he said.

Cross had visited only once since spring break, about two weeks before my conversation with Mr. Byden. Upon returning to school, I’d expected him the very first night, because that was what I wanted; I forgot, over and over, that the fact of my wanting something wasn’t enough to make it happen. As the days passed, I expected him less while thinking about him just as much or more-the first thing that occurred to me when I awakened in the morning was that another night had passed without a visit. During the day, as much as possible, I kept an eye out for him. He was off crutches and at breakfast, or at chapel if he skipped breakfast, or at roll call if he’d skipped chapel-he was guaranteed to be at roll call, since he and Martha ran it-I’d register what he was wearing, and then for the rest of the day I’d always be scanning for the red-and-white-striped button-down, or the black fleece vest; it was like his clothes gave the day a personality. I didn’t talk to him at all, but it reassured me to see him; if he was at a lunch table two away from mine, then at least he wasn’t down by the boathouse having outdoor sex with Aspeth.