Page 27 of Love and Other Paradoxes

She looked at him in confusion. “Where are you going?”

“To my computer. How else are we going to look at a website?”

She looked down at her phone with comic despair. “Right. How else?” Before she followed, she doubled back to pick up the beer mat star from the table.

He led her up the staircase into the living room, where Rob was writingTEN TONNE WEIGHTon the side of a cardboard box.

“This is Rob. He’s my roommate.” His brain went on,This is Esi. She’s a time traveller.He decided to forgo that side of the introductions. “Rob has this thing where he pretends to kill people,” he added, by way of explanation.

“Assassins. Yeah, I used to play it with my cousins,” said Esi, like it was a completely normal thing to admit to. She offered Rob her beer mat creation. “Want this? You could use it as a throwing star.”

Rob looked up at her with delight. “Legend. Thanks.”

They went through to Joe’s bedroom. Self-consciously, he removedMeant to Befrom the bed and straightened the covers. “Sorry. I’ve only got the one chair.”

“That’s fine,” she murmured, sitting down on the bed.

He closed the door and pulled up his desk chair. He started typing “Cambridge University student societies,” then paused. “Hang on. I’m overthinking this. What’s her name?”

“Efua Eshun. And you’re underthinking this. I’ve already searched her name. Trust me, nothing comes up.”

“Not even her MySpace? Or a GeoCities page she made when she was thirteen?” He registered her expression. “I sound like a wizard muttering spells right now, don’t I? What I mean is, it’s weird. Is she a spy?”

She shrugged. “Dad always said she was just a really private person.”

“Exactly what a spy would tell people.” He opened another website. “I can try the facebook?”

“The...?” She appeared to be fighting a laugh. “The facebook?”

“It’s like—a book of faces. They opened it up to Oxford andCambridge last year.” He searched. A few Efuas popped up, none with the right surname.

Esi leaned over his shoulder, her breath warm on his cheek. “No. No, no, no.”

“Okay. Guess we’re back to societies.” He brought up the list and turned the laptop towards her.

She peered comically at the buttons under the trackpad. It took her a while to figure out how to scroll. “Some of these academic ones, maybe. Chess Club. Student Community Action—is that volunteering?” He nodded. “The African Caribbean Society. The Christian Union.” She scrolled back up, then down again. “Honestly, the rest of them seem—not serious enough.”

“Well, make a list of the ones you think are worth checking out. I’ll find out when their next meetings are so you can crash them.”

“Crash them? How?”

“They usually happen in colleges. You can just walk in. No one’s going to stop you.”

She smiled a too-bright smile. “You sure about that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I already tried walking into a random college to look for her. The porters stopped me. When I couldn’t show university ID, they told me to leave or they’d call the police.”

He couldn’t believe it. “Why would they stop you? You look like a student.”

She shook her head, gesturing at him. “You.You’rewhat a student looks like, according to this time and place.”

He felt like he had in the ADC bar: conscious of his sameness, guilty that it had taken him so long to notice. He had always been so focused on the ways he didn’t fit in that he hadn’t thought about all the ways he did. “Okay. Then I’ll come with you.”

She laughed. “What, act as my white male shield?”

“Sure. Then we can lurk around asking about awards until someone kicks us out.” He shrugged. “It’s the least I can do. You helped me with Diana.”

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