“The Stanford shirt causes problems wherever I go.”
“That’s why you wear it?”
“Yep. When a Harvard grad tries to talk smack about how Harvard is better, I admit that my doctoral studies at Harvard were hard, but Stanford was still harder.”
“If those people calling you the ‘Hot Prof’ could hear you picking nerd fights, you’d get a downgrade.”
It takes about ten more minutes to free her hair, but I can finally say, “A couple more and you’re free.”
She doesn’t respond, and she’s been so quiet that I wonder if she’s fallen asleep.
“Phoebe.”
“Yeah, sorry. I’ve been surviving this by pretending I’m somewhere else.”
Ouch. I untangle the last few strands. “You’re done.” I smooth my hand over the top of her head so she can feel that none of it is connected to the bike chain. I like the way it feels against my palm.
She pushes herself to a sitting position, offering me a smile. “Thank you.”
I notice for the first time what she’s wearing with her cutoffs: a boxy, sleeveless white shirt, cropped, with sunflowers printed on it. She looks like a slice of Americana, and somehow, even in the antiseptic basement light, her amber eyes lose none of their richness.
“Glad I could help.”
“Now I owe you.”
“You can repay me by telling me how that happened.” I jerk my head toward the bike. “I’m dying to know.”
“I’m not sure.” She reaches up to run her fingers through her hair, like she’s trying to resettle it to the way it usually falls. “I talked to the building manager when I got home andasked him about the building. It turns out he applied for the job when it changed ownership this spring because he’s super into this place. He knew a lot about it and talked my ear off for about ten minutes straight. It used to be a women’s dorm for Spring Brook College.”
“That makes sense,” I say. “Community kitchen. Parlor. Ballroom.”
“I asked about old rental records, and he said there were some in the basement he has to organize but I could look if I wanted to.”
“So you came down here to see if you could figure out who was in 3E in 1965?”
“Obviously.”
“I would have too.”
“The boxes aren’t labeled, so I have to open each one. Most of them are from the early nineties, although I found a couple from the eighties. I was setting that one down”—she nods to the open box—“when my key fell out of my pocket and bounced under the bike.”
That doesn’t seem possible. She’d have to be pretty much upside down for her key to fall out, but then to end up over by the bike? Physics doesn’t work like that.
“I bent down to get it, and my hair got caught. The more I tried to untangle it, the worse it was.”
“Then, in your worst nightmare, you had to ask me for help.”
“That part was terrible.”
“I bet. Want me to help you go through the rest of the files? Dusty papers are my happy place.”
She smiles at me. “Historians are weird.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“I’m done with those boxes tonight. I’m not coming back until I have my hair in braids on my head like a German house frau.” She glares at the bike.
“In that case, let’s get out of here.” I stand and hold out a hand to pull her to her feet.
