“And you don’t care what happens to it, either.”
“Is that reproach I detect in your voice?” he replied, but he sounded pleased.
“No.”
“You know, Thomas Murphy liked ghost stories.”
“Oh?” Minerva said, looking at him with interest.
“Yeah. It’s the only thing I know he liked. He mentioned it onetime, you know, that he believed in ghosts. Or he was compiling ghost stories. I don’t know, he was the studious type, he probably slept by the stacks.”
“Not really the person you’d hang out with.”
“Nope.” He shook his head and smiled.
Thomas Murphy had been like her, she thought. A quiet, studious fellow more comfortable roaming the library than nightclubs. Gone missing, Thomas Murphy. Unnoticed, unobtrusive Tom. Minerva rested her chin on the back of her hand and looked at Noah thoughtfully.
“Why did you sign up for Religion in Puritan New England?” she asked.
“I needed an elective, and it wasn’t early in the morning. Plus, my adviser recommended it. I got stuck with Thomas as my tutor after I did horribly on the first exam. Carolyn is determined to have me pass the courses, so I guess I’ll keep having to stumble my way through this degree.”
Despite a dash of frivolity, Noah was amusing. His cynicism served to buff the edges that she might normally have found exasperating. She smiled at him.
They finished their coffee and Minerva went next door to pick up the film she’d dropped off. Noah gave her a ride back to campus.
“Want to stop by tomorrow and look at more of that archival stuff?”
“Sure,” she said. “Is noon okay?”
“Should be fine.”
She was about to step out of the car when he spoke again.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Did you always know you wanted to be a scholar?”
“Yeah, I think so. Even if I don’t feel like much of one these days. Sometimes it seems pointless. Why write papers that six people are ever going to read about a person who is long dead? How does that benefit the world in any way? I could be doing something more practical, more tangible.”
“Then why keep on with it?”
She thought about giving him a canned answer and glanced down, looking at her lap. Instead, she spoke earnestly.
“The romance of it. It’s as if you’re conducting a secret, passionate love affair. You know every detail about someone, their every word and thought. When you look at their writing, you swoon over a sentence fragment or a turn of phrase. It’s as if, through the mists of time, someone reaches out and touches your hand.”
She looked up at him, wondering if he’d find her words strange or just plain perplexing. But he seemed intrigued, not daunted.
“If someone had explained college to me like that, maybe I would have made more of an effort,” he said.
“It makes it harder to notice people in the real world. Difficult to make friends, all that stuff.”
She glanced at Ledge House, which faithfully guarded the books and papers that constituted her entire existence.
“Music,” she said.
“Sorry?”
