Mallory smiled; she knew it was Jake. Every time she called Coop, she halfway hoped (okay, all the way hoped) that Jake would answer again. Now he had. Mallory heard laughter and music in the background. A party? It was Saturday night.

“It’s Mallory,” she said. “Cooper’s sister. Is he…around?”

“Mallory!” Jake said. “It’s Jake!” His voice was so loud, it was like he was calling out to her across a canyon.

“Hey!” She thought, Be witty! Should she tell him she was babysitting her popcorn? Definitely not. She was such a nerd! “Is Coop around, Jake?”

“Nah,” Jake said. “I mean, yeah, he’s here somewhere, but it’s our Christmas cocktail party so he and Stacey are probably making out on the dance floor in the basement.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” Mallory said. “I’m studying for finals and I just needed a break.”

“Oh yeah?” Jake said. “What final?”

“Am lit,” Mallory said.

“That’s me right now,” Jake said. “I. Am. Lit.” He laughed. “That was bad, sorry. American literature?”

“Yeah,” Mallory said. “I don’t want to keep you from the party. I’ll call Coop tomorrow.”

“You’re not keeping me from anything,” Jake said. “My date drank a bottle of wine by herself while she was getting ready and she started puking at the pre-party and didn’t make it over here. Good news is I got to take off this damn tartan bow tie.”

This damn tartan bow tie. He was talking as though she could see him lying back on Cooper’s bed with the top of his tuxedo shirt unbuttoned and a red and green MacGregor bow tie hanging around his neck. Jake must be cute, she thought. He sounded cute.

“Who are you reading in Am lit?” Jake asked.

“Um…” Mallory said. She couldn’t believe he wanted to know. She was just a freshman and hadn’t been invited to any Christmas cocktail parties, though if she were at one, even without a date, the last thing she’d want to talk about would be school—even worse, someone else’s school. “The usual? Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Crane, Twain, and automobiles…”

Jake laughed. “You’re funny!”

“Maybe just because you’re lit?” she said.

He laughed again and then she heard him take a gulp of something. “You know, I’ve had to take all these pre-med bio and chem classes, and it’s only this year that I’ve been able to take something for fun. So I’m in this English class called Art of the Novella, and it’s so great! We’re reading Jim Harrison and Tolstoy and Ethan Canin and Andre Dubus and Philip Roth…”

“Wow,” Mallory said. She didn’t admit that the only two writers she’d heard of were Tolstoy and Roth and she hadn’t read anything by either one.

“You know what I’m going to do the second I graduate? I’m going to start reading. I want to become a bookish person. I should have majored in English but my parents insisted on biology so I could get in all the pre-med requirements. My father’s a burn specialist and my mother’s a surgeon.”

“Are you going to med school, then?”

“Not next year, maybe not ever. It’s just…my parents were always working when I was growing up and I want a job where I can come home at night and spend time with my kids.”

He was thinking so far ahead that he seemed like a different category of person from Mallory. She was just trying to read the basic English literature canon (all white males, as her roommate, Bisma, had pointed out, a fact Mallory hadn’t even noticed, which was completely pathetic); she wasn’t in a position to think about a career, much less kids. “So what will you do?”

“Probably work for a lobbyist in Washington—one of the good guys, though. I’m one of the good guys, Mallory.”

“I can tell,” Mallory said, then she worried her tone was too earnest. Time to wrap it up, she thought. The microwave was beeping its reminder. “Well, have fun tonight. I’ll call Cooper back tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell him,” Jake said. “And hey, good talking to you. You saved my night.”

The third conversation was months later, at the tail end of the spring semester. Mallory had just hung up with her mother, who’d told her that Cooper had gotten an internship in DC and that he’d be renting a room in a house in Chevy Chase that summer. Mallory was calling to beg him to come home instead. Mallory couldn’t bear the thought of spending an entire summer alone with their parents and being the sole recipient of her mother’s irritating attention.

Jake picked up on the first ring. “Blessing residence.”

Mallory grinned. “Jake?” she said. It was now the end of freshman year and she had acquired some moxie. “It’s Mal.”

“Mal means ‘bad’ in French,” Jake said. “But you must be the good kind of bad.”

Mallory couldn’t believe that talking to someone she’d never met could feel so seductive. “How are you?” she said. “Are you…getting ready to graduate?”

“Yes, thank you for asking,” Jake said. “But I have zilch in the way of job offers, so I’m sitting on the end of your brother’s bed teaching myself Cat Stevens songs on the guitar so I can support myself as a subway performer.”

“I love Cat Stevens,” Mallory said.

“All the best people do,” Jake said.

“I have every album. My favorite is Tea for the Tillerman.” Mallory tried to tamp down her enthusiasm. She hadn’t thought her crush on Jake McCloud could get any worse, but now that she knew he liked Cat Stevens, she was a complete goner. “Put the phone down next to you and let me listen while you play.”

“Tell me if I’m any good,” Jake said. “And if the answer is no, please lie to spare my ego. Okay, something from Tea for the Tillerman, here we go.” He set the phone down and then she heard him strumming the first chords of “Hard Headed Woman.” He started to sing: “I’m looking for a hard headed woman, one who will take me for myself…”

His voice was great. It had strength and it was on key and controlled. It was sexy. He sang to the bridge and then he picked up the phone.

“What do you think?” he said. “Should I quit and apply at Long John Silver’s?”

“Woo-hoo!” Mallory cried. “You sounded terrific! You’re going to be a very rich and successful subway performer.”

“Aw,” Jake said. “Thank you, that’s sweet.” He cleared his throat. “Hey, did you call to talk to Coop?”

“Coop?” she said.

Mallory doesn’t know if Jake remembers the content of their repartee or even that they had a repartee—it was so long ago, over five years. As she leads the boys to the car, she thinks it might have been better if Jake had turned out to be not her type because then she could just be her normal self instead of being sick with infatuation.

The boys love the car! Cooper whistles and calls shotgun; Fray and Jake climb in the back, and Mallory cranks up the radio.