**********

Jed stared at his ceiling, the heavy book he was supposed to be reading resting, completely neglected, in his lap. He had been restless lately, his mind wandering from his studies, from his prayers, from the simplest conversations with friends. There was something in the air lately that said autumn would be a long time coming, and that before it did the heat might make madmen of them all. There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” he called, and Sandy stuck his head around the door.

“Jed?”

“Sandy. ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.’”

“Um...OK. Your mother’s on the phone.”

Jed sighed. He didn’t need signs and wonders to figure out that this could be a distinctly unpleasant conversation. “Thanks, Sandy.” He tossed Saint Augustine’s Confessions on the bed and wandered out to the hall phone. “Mother? ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.’”

“Hello, Josiah! Are you keeping warm all right?”

A bit confused, he answered, “Well, Mother, it's August.”

“Oh,” she said, deflated. “It was only 45 here last night.”

“That’s what happens in New Hampshire — God plays tricks. Here in Indiana, on the other hand, the seasons stay where they belong.” It’s just that sometimes they don’t end.

“So it’s not cold there?”

“It’s 89 degrees.”

“Oh.” She paused, uncharacteristically hesitant. “You had a visitor yesterday.”

“I did? At the house?”

“Yes. Your friend Leo came by.”

“Leo McGarry? Good God, I haven’t seen him in 2 years.” An ocean of memories flooded around that name, but Jed forced himself to concentrate on his phone call. “What was he doing in New Hampshire?”

“I wasn’t entirely sure, but he came by to see you. Seemed extremely disappointed when I said you’d stayed at school for the summer.” She paused again, and Jed wondered what on earth could be bothering his normally forthright mother. “His girlfriend was with him.”

Ah. That’ll do it. “Jenny?”

“She’s a very nice girl.”

“She has to be, to put up with Leo.”

Sarah chuckled. There was a moment when Jed could hear the whirring clicks of the telephone line before his mother said, “Well, I should free up the phone, let you get back to your homework...” She said this hopefully.

“Yes, Mother, I was doing homework. The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Dense, boring stuff.”

“Don’t let your father hear you say that, Josiah.”

He laughed ruefully. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He sighed. “Thanks for telling me about Leo...and Jenny.” He could almost hear her smile on the other end of the line. Yes, Mother; I understood what you were getting at. Too bad it won’t make a damned bit of difference.

“I’ll talk to you this weekend, Jed.”

“’Bye, Mom.” He hung up and walked slowly back to his dorm room. Poor Mom, cursed to be forever getting what she wants.

It was the prayer of every good Catholic mother that her children become priests and nuns. Sarah Bartlet had not been immune. Funny, it seemed like she would be less adamant, with a devoutly Protestant and often anti-Catholic husband, but she pushed both of her sons towards a religious life as long as Jed could remember. For John, it had never been more than a running joke: “there goes Mom trying to make me a priest again,” but Jed held it in the back of his mind like a lucky penny, and at some point — he honestly could no longer remember when — he had decided it was what he had to do. His mother wept when he told her. Then his father threw a raging fit and everything else went on the back burner. By the time Jed and Sarah sat down again, she had reconciled herself. There were two things she wanted, and she couldn’t have them both: either her sons could become priests, or her sons could provide her with grandchildren. “Well,” she whispered to Jed, “don’t tell Father Cavenaugh I said this, but from now on I’m going to pray John doesn’t become a priest.”

“Oh, Mother,” he said as they laughed, “I don’t think you need to pray much about that, do you?”

And now, seeing Leo McGarry with his long-term, long-suffering girlfriend, had brought the conflict back to Sarah. Jed returned to his book with a new determination to pay attention to his studies and really stick it. If he was going to deny his mother grandchildren, the least he could do for her was not be a half-assed priest.

*******************************

“Abbey-Gail! Abbey-Gail!”

God, how she hated that nickname. Abbey turned a page in the book she wasn’t really reading and tried to ignore the screams of her drunken friends. All she wanted tonight was to be left alone.

“Abbey-Dabbey Doo!”

Abbey swore. That voice belonged to Carolyn, the only person she couldn’t hide from. Carolyn had a key.

“Come on, roommate baby! Let’s go celebrate!” she called as she burst into their dorm room.

Abbey hoped her expression came off as wryindifference. “What is there to celebrate?”

Carolyn waved around a glass Coke bottle Abbey was sure wasn’t filled with Coke. “Life. Everything. Come on, Abbey! It’s Friday night. Fall term starts in two weeks! We’ve wasted our entire summer on studying and...moral uprightness. Yuck. Let’s go out and live a little.”

Abbey eyed the Coke bottle. “Looks like you’ve already lived a lot. I’ll pass, thanks.” She was grateful their intoxicated friends had remained milling in the hallway.

Carolyn sank onto the bed beside Abbey and gave her a look of drunken sympathy. “What’s wrong, Abbey-Dabbey-Doo? Why so glum?”

Something about her inebriated roommate saying “glum” made Abbey giggle. Then she sighed. “Really, Carolyn, it’s nothing.”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“I’d really rather just stay in tonight, have some time alone.”

“You sure?”

“Really sure.”

“No way I can change your mind?”

“No.”

“OK, then. Your loss.” Carolyn hoisted her spiked Coke bottle over her head like a pirate’s flag and charged into the hall, crying, “Onward, mateys! The night is young and the bars are open!”

Abbey laughed, tried to go back to her book, gave up. Had Carolyn discovered what was bothering her, she’d never have heard the end of it, and she was beating herself up about it sufficiently. Here she sat, a die-hard feminist who spent her childhood reading histories of famous women, who knew from the age of 6 that she would be a doctor, who was in her second year as a pre-med major, and what she was doing would properly be characterized as “pining.” And not pining for a person, but an institution, and that institution was purely romantic.

If she and Ron hadn’t broken up, today would be their one-year anniversary.

Not that she wanted him back. She broke up with him. No matter what her mother said about nice girls not doing things like that, no matter what rumor Ron’s pea-brained best friend Scottie spread about Ron throwing Abbey over for a rich grad student, Abbey had done the dumping. If Ron Ehrlich walked back through that door, she’d tell him where he could shove that door. Still...this had been her first relationship that looked like it might last as long as a one-year anniversary, and now here was the date, stubbornly refusing to absent itself from the calendar, and Abbey had nothing to commemorate.

“This is ridiculous, Abigail,” she castigated herself. “It’s Friday night; you have 2 weeks until the school years starts for real; you have friends and family who love you — quit moping over Ron freakin’ Ehrlich.” That made her feel better. And what went better with a new sense of liberation than chocolate ice cream? Abbey jumped up, grabbed her sweater (lately the days were obscenely hot and the nights bitterly cold; something strange was in the air that she didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about), and headed for the door.

As she grabbed her purse and keys off the desk, she caught a glimpse of her alarm clock. It wasn’t even 10:30. She felt far less buoyant. “It’s going to be a long night, isn’t it?” she asked no one in particular, then locked the door and headed out in search of comfort food.

*****

“If you’re ever captured in war,” Uncle Bill had impressed upon her, “don’t tell them anything but your name, rank, and serial number. Never give anything else away.” She hadn’t paid much attention; Uncle Bill came back from Europe a shell of the man he’d once been. Then she got to Notre Dame, and she gained a tiny inkling of what he meant.

Every week, it seemed, she was thrown into some group setting where she was forced to “get to know” her fellow students, as though a 10-second go ‘round could tell you anything about another person. She began to think, in these situations, a little like crazy Uncle Bill: “If you’re ever captured in college, don’t tell them anything but your name, year, and major.” The feeling became especially strong at moments like this, forced to sit in a circle in the cafeteria at 10:00 on a Saturday morning and cozy up to a group of students she would likely never see again.

“So you know what this is, right?” Their “leader” was a pimply junior with large, ugly glasses and a continual nervous twitch in his shoulders. “You all attended Dean Schaffner’s speech about the situation in Vietnam and had said you’d be willing to give us some feedback on the speech?” No one answered, which the leader took as assent. “So why don’t we go around the circle and introduce ourselves, say a little bit about ourselves?” He turned to a flaky-looking blond on his left. “You want to start?”

Abbey would gladly have eaten her own foot at this point if she thought it would get her out of this nightmare. The flaky girl gave her hair a flip she must’ve thought was cute. “Hi.” She’d be dead already, Abbey thought. “My name is Starla (or maybe she said Darla), and I...” Whatever deeply personal insight was shared by Starla/Darla and whoever else came after her, Abbey didn’t hear. She was busy killing them off in her mind. Every time they launched into “I’m a junior English lit major from Fresno,” or “My brother and I argued over Dean Schaffner’s speech all weekend,” a cannon in her head went off. When the introductions came around to her (incidentally, she had not volunteered to take part in this discussion; Carolyn had, but Carolyn staggered into the room at 3 in the morning and groaned, “Abbey, if I go to that thing in the morning I will puke all over Peter Radimer. You went to Schaffner’s speech; go tell them what a hopeless gas-bag he is,” and that is what she was doing there at all), she stated crisply, “Abbey, sophomore, pre-med.” Starla/Darla, the loserly mediator, and the allegedly Adonis-like Peter Radimer (who didn’t impress her), stared at her, waiting for something more, but she folded her hands on the table and stared back, silent and unblinking.

When the other students, including the leeringly self-confident Peter Radimer, had introduced themselves, the moderator tapped his agitated fingers on the tabletop and said, “Uh...we should, uh...there’s supposed to be one more...”

“My housemate,” Peter said. “He’s always late.”

The moderator flipped through a stack of papers. “Yeah. I had...I have his name here... it’s...”

There was a loud thud as a short, slightly nerdy man with sprawling dark hair and frantic blue eyes stumbled on the carpet and dropped an armload of thick books on the table. “Jed Bartlet. Junior. Theology.”

Abbey sat up. She stared at the young man, who was smiling apologetically and trying to get his books back into a pile. He said—I mean, he just... she shook her head and forced herself to concentrate, but she kept sneaking glances at Jed Bartlet, Junior, theology. It was hard not to. He turned out to be witty and often insightful, unlike almost everyone else at the table (including herself; she hadn’t given Schaffner’s speech another thought since she walked out of it four days ago). His eyes lit up when he spoke, his hands tracing the outlines of his ideas until they were almost visible to her. She grew furious with Peter Radimer, who got to live with that every day and didn’t appreciate it — in fact, Peter seemed more annoyed every time Jed opened his mouth.

The two-hour discussion would have been interminable without Jed. Even with him it was only moderately bearable. When the moderator thanked them and said that was all, Abbey was on her feet headed toward the door in two seconds flat. Jed Bartlet or no, she was getting out.

“Hang on a minute, please!” someone called after her. She slowed and glanced over her shoulder. It was Jed. She might have blushed as she slowed further to wait for him and his enormous load of books.

“Couldn’t you put those in a backpack?”

“I have a backpack. I was just...”

“Running late.”

“Well, yeah.” He held something out to her. “You dropped your hat.”

She felt disappointed. “Oh. Thanks.” She took it and put it on.

“That’s a nice hat. Though it’s a little out of place with the rest of your outfit.”

Abbey looked down at her outfit. Extremely pissed about having to attend this discussion, she’d for with the “I’m a serious student and I find this exercise contemptuous” look. The hat, on the other hand, was black and wide brimmed, the kind usually reserved for weddings and funerals. She shrugged. “I guess it is. But it’s the only one I have.”

“So why not do without?” Jed hadn’t paid much attention to this woman during the discussion (though she did seem to be among the more coherent students at the table), but something about the hat intrigued him.

She looked at him as though he’d lost all semblance of lucidity as they stepped out of the dining hall. “It’s August; it’s noon; it’s gotta be at least 85 out here. If I have to be out in this, you better believe I’m wearing a hat. Only mad dogs and Englishmen...never mind.”

Jed remembered, dimly, that breathing was a thing people usually did. He also seemed to recall that the earth usually rotated. Right now, he didn’t think either of those things was going on. This was too...it was a cliché: the quote that had been driving his acquaintances insane all week was coming back to him, thrown by a young woman who, now that he was really looking at her, he realized was quite beautiful.

He didn’t realize he was staring until she asked, concerned, “What’s wrong? The quote — I’m sorry; it’s—“

“Coward,” he finished, unsure if he meant the author or himself.

“Yeah.” They stood on the sidewalk for a moment, staring anywhere but at each other. Abbey cleared her throat. “Well, I should—“

“Me too. I’ve got all this...work to do, and...”

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“I hope so.” He froze. Maybe that was the wrong thing to say.

But she smiled. “Me, too.” She took a step away, then stopped. “By the way, I’m Abbey.” He stared. “You came in after the introductions, and I figured—“

“Right. Abbey. Well then, Abbey, it was very nice meeting you.”

“You too, Jed.” She walked away without looking back.

When Jed turned his feet toward home, Peter Radimer was waiting for him at the edge of the quad.

“So. Abbey, huh?”

Jed eyed his housemate suspiciously. “What about her?”

Peter shrugged. “Nothing. She’s a really good-looking girl. Used to go with Ron Ehrlich.”

Jed’s spirits flagged. Ron Ehrlich was a casual friend of Peter’s; they ran in the adored jock circle. A woman who dated Ron Ehrlich was not the kind of woman who would date a man like Jed Bartlet. He sighed. Maybe it had been the heat that had made him almost ask her out. “Mad dogs and Englishmen indeed,” he muttered.

“What?”

He waved it off. “Nothing. Just — it was Coward.” This time there was no question who he was referring to.

Peter had long ago given up trying to figure out what Jed was talking about. “OK,” he said affably as they headed toward the house. “Did you tell her you’re going to be a priest?”

Damn. He had not, because in fact while they’d talked, he’d forgotten. “No,” he admitted.

“When were you planning to do that?”

Jed found Peter’s line of questioning increasingly intrusive, so all the answer his housemate received was a shrug. But he had given himself a completely different answer. “Right after it stops mattering...one way or the other.”

***********

In the two months that followed, Jed and Abbey did everything they could think of to run into each other, but there was surprisingly little opportunity for a junior theology major to cross paths with a sophomore in pre-med. They hadn’t seen each other once since the morning in the dining hall. Abbey knew where Jed lived, but fear — whether of Jed or of Peter Radimer — kept her from knocking on his door. Jed, meanwhile, was in a better mood than he had been in months, but his studies continued to falter, and he dreaded fallout from the mid-term report card that would arrive at his parents’ house.

Abbey sat in a study room outside the chem lab one Thursday afternoon, attempting to make sense of her jumbled notes. She would never understand how chemists could spend their lives studying this crap.

“Abbey!” She looked up and immediately wished she hadn’t. Headed toward her were the great Ron Ehrlich, his best friend Scottie Aarndt, and the allegedly Adonis-like Peter Radimer.

She gave them what she hoped was a personable smile. “Hey, guys.”

“How’s it going, Abbey?” Ron put a territorial hand on the table.

She gestured at her notes, scattered across the tabletop, which Ron was now leaning over. “Ah, you know how it goes. Mid-terms are coming; I’m up to my neck in chemical formulas I don’t understand...the usual.”

“Yeah.” Scottie laughed. “I hear ya.” Oh, I bet you do, you slack-brained pot-head, Abbey thought.

“So, Abbey,” Ron drawled, leaning back, “some of the guys and me are putting together a little party on the eighth, and I was wondering if you’d be interested in joining us.”

Abbey searched her brain for the few phrases of Ehrlich-speak she’d learned while they were dating. “A little party” meant there would only be two kegs. She couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do less — even studying for her chem exam seemed more appealing. “Gee, guys, I don’t know—”

“Aw, come on, Abbey. You always had a great time at my parties.”

Hmm. Yes, I suppose if passing out on my boyfriend’s bed while his best friend and possibly several of his other buddies feel me up is a good time, I had a blast at your parties. “Thanks for the offer, Ron, but I have my Advanced Chem mid-term on the eleventh, and I barely understand the stuff. I’ll be studying all weekend.”

Ron shrugged. “Well, if you change your mind...”

Peter gave her a lopsided grin. “It’s gonna be at my house.”

Oh. That did change things. Not that Abbey could let Peter see that. “I doubt I’ll be able to make it, but thanks for telling me.” The three men wandered away, and Abbey made a show of returning to her studying.

The instant she got back to her room, Abbey ran to her calendar and drew a big red circle around November 8th.

*********************

Peter Radimer wasn’t the highest card in the deck, but he was no moron. He said nothing of the party until the day it happened, when he started lugging ice and potato chips into the house as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Jed had no idea anything was amiss until he came in from taking Merle Richter apart on the basketball court. Whatever elation he felt at his victory evaporated the instant he came through the door.

“Hey, I live here, too,” Peter was saying, “and if I want to have some of my friends over, I have every right to do that.”

“Some of your friends, yes,” Sandy countered. “Twenty of your friends, and Ron Ehrlich’s friends, and God only knows who else—”

“What about Ron Ehrlich’s friends?” Jed asked, cringing at the sound of that name. His housemates turned to him.

“Peter’s having a party.”

Jed looked around the circle of glowering faces. What was the big deal? “Okay.”

“Tonight.”

“Shit, Peter!”

“Oh, don’t you start, too.”

“You had no right—”

“Forget it, Jed,” Howie told him. “We tried that already. Peter doesn’t think any of the rest of us have rights.”

“Christ, you guys are a bunch of stiffs.” And as though that solved something, Peter walked out of the kitchen. Sandy, Alvin, and Howie looked at Jed. He knew they thought of him as some kind of house leader, but he had no power over Peter Radimer. He shrugged and went to his room.

Later that evening, when he wandered back to the kitchen for a glass of water, Peter was there, as well, loading beer into the refrigerator. “Peter,” Jed said curtly.

“Hello, Jed.” Jed filled his glass silently, while Peter continued transferring beer. “Ron did the dumbest thing last week.” Jed didn’t respond. “We were coming out of Lessenger’s econ class, and Ron’s ex-girlfriend was sitting outside the chem lab, and he invited her to the party.”

Jed turned. “Abbey Barrington?”

“Yeah. How much would that suck; Ron’s ex following him around all night? I mean, the way she still throws herself at him is almost embarrassing.”

Jed seriously doubted Abbey was throwing herself anywhere near Ron Ehrlich, but that was hardly the issue. Abbey had been invited to Peter’s party. There was a chance she would be here. In his house. Tonight. His shaking hand sloshed half the water out of his glass.

“I doubt she’ll show,” Peter went on, as though he were no longer talking to Jed. “Said she’s got some big test Monday.” Jed refilled his glass very carefully and walked slowly from the kitchen. As he passed, Peter remarked casually, “I’ve heard a couple girls say you look really good in that blue shirt of yours.”

Jed didn’t comment as he left the kitchen and went back to his room. But as soon as the door closed behind him, Peter heard the frantic scraping of hangers on the closet rod as Jed scrambled to find that blue shirt.

*****

He’d had a beer. Maybe two. Or...more. He was having trouble keeping count.

He hadn’t intended to. But every time he turned around, someone handed him a beer, and it seemed more convenient to drink the damned things than to have them sloshing around in his hand. His head was cottony, and his hands didn’t feel like they were attached to his arms anymore. He didn’t care.

Abbey wasn’t here.

The party started two hours ago. She wasn’t coming. He should sleep, or start his reading for Monday. But every time the door opened he ran halfway across the room to see if it was Abbey.

She wasn’t coming.

The doorbell rang, and Peter leaned over to open it. A knot of girls Jed didn’t recognize came through; the dark-haired one in front hugged Peter longer than she should’ve. “Peter! You look great!”

“Hey, Carolyn.” Carolyn. Carolyn. That name should mean something to Jed. Maybe it would, if he weren’t feeling so fuzzy. The sea of giddy girls parted.

Abbey was at the back.

Now he remembered. Carolyn was Abbey’s roommate, one of the multitude of otherwise intelligent women who had somehow become infatuated with Peter Radimer.

Jed raced back to the kitchen. “Fill me up,” he begged, thrusting his empty cup at Scottie Aarndt. Scottie laughed at the sight of Peter’s nerdy housemate, who was studying to be a priest, growing more inebriated as the night wore on. He refilled the cup, then watched in awe as Jed drained it in two swallows. “Fill it again?” Jed asked hopefully.

“Sure thing, buddy!” Scottie liked Jed more every minute. “Plenty of beer for everybody.”

Jed grabbed a second cup from the counter. “Actually, give me two.”

“All right, Bartlet!” A guy named Roy, who Jed knew only in passing, slapped him on the back. “Two-fisted drinking!”

Jed took his two beers and weaved back into the living room. There she stood, leaning against the dining room table, looking worried and a little scared. He stumbled his way over to her, summoning all his will to look sober. “Abbey.”

She turned quickly, and her face lit up at the sight of him. “Jed. I thought you maybe weren’t going to be here tonight.”

His eyes widened. “You were looking for me?”

“Well, yeah.” She dropped her head, embarrassed. Jed had never seen anything so beautiful.

“Oh, here.” He held out the second cup, startled as he did so to discover that his own was somehow half empty again. “I brought you a beer. Unless—” he pulled back, appalled. “You don’t...not drink, do you?”

She laughed. “Give me the beer, Jed.” He obeyed silently, and they sipped side by side for a moment.

“Hey, Jed,” Vicki Altman simpered past in her teeny-tiny mini-skirt and four-inch heels.

Jed dropped his eyes to the ground. “Um...hey, Vicki.”

Peter smirked from the other side of the dining room. Girls really did go for Jed in that shirt; they’d hovered around him all night. He, of course, thought only of Abbey, and now that she was here, interlopers would not be welcomed. This was what Peter had been after when he told Jed about the shirt; tonight was going to be high theater.

The music was too loud, the bodies too close together. Jed offered his hand to Abbey. “You wanna dance?”

She stared into the sea of writhing flesh. “Not particularly.”

He dropped his arm. “You’re right.”

She smiled and touched his elbow. “Why don’t we go sit somewhere and talk?”

Jed’s eyes brightened. “Yeah, sure.” He looked around for a place they’d be able to hear each other. “There’s really no...”

“Well, you live here, don’t you?” He looked at her blankly. He *did* live here, but he couldn’t imagine what that had to do with anything. She laughed. “We could talk in your room, couldn’t we?”

“Oh, yeah!” As he led her through the crowd, a voice in Jed’s mind told him there was something not quite right about a drunken priest-to-be leading a girl he barely knew into his dark bedroom, but he told that voice to go away and kept walking. He opened the door — and froze in the threshold at the sight of three or four couples loudly groping each other on his furniture.

Behind him, Abbey started giggling. “Oh, Jed,” she managed, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

He grabbed her hand again and headed for the stairway. “It’s all right. I know a better place. Bring your jacket.” They wove around the people on the stairs and went all the way up to the third floor. He led her through Alvin and Howie’s bedroom and popped the screen off their open window. Then he stood aside and gestured grandly. “Well, milady?”

She peered out the window and couldn’t see anything. “Where are we going?”

He frowned. Maybe he hadn’t been clear. “The roof.”

She looked out again. “Jed, are you crazy? We’re on the third story. If we fall—”

“We won’t fall. We sit out here all the time. It’s one of the greatest views in all South Bend.”

She looked at him. He was acting rather strangely tonight. Or maybe this was how he was, and he had acted strangely at the discussion. “Greatest view in South Bend, huh? Well, who can pass that up?” She started to climb out, then pulled back and looked at him again. “And you won’t let me fall?”

He put up two fingers, then two others, then four others, in an attempt at the Boy Scout salute. “Scout’s Honor.”

“Jed, are you drunk?”

“No! Of course not. Well, maybe.”

“Then maybe I should be promising not to let you fall.” She climbed out anyway, and he scrambled after her. He didn’t remember it having been so difficult before. “All right, you win,” she told him as he sat next to her. “This is an impressive view.” The house was on a small hill, just high enough to see the rest of campus. The trees were bare, but the leaves were still on the ground, carpeting the world with the harsh, vibrant hues of autumn. Abbey shuddered and drew her jacket around her.

“Oh, Abbey — jeez, I didn’t think — are you cold?”

She smiled. “I’m fine. Thanks.” For a moment they stared at the trees and stars, then the wind gusted, blowing a chill across them both. Almost involuntarily, they scooted towards each other for warmth. They laughed self-consciously, then fell into a silence awkward with possibilities. Abbey turned abruptly to face him. “Jed Bartlet, am I going to have to sit here all night, or are you going to kiss me?”

Jed nearly fell off the roof. For a long moment he stared at her. She didn’t mean it, did she? But the way she was looking at him — his internal organs were in rebellion. His brain had just about completed total shut-down. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted anything as badly as he wanted to kiss this woman. His lips parted; she leaned forward and closed her eyes. “Josiah,” he said.

Abbey’s eyes flew open. “What?”

“Josiah,” he repeated. “That’s what Jed is short for. That’s my name. I thought you might want know that.” He smiled, then leaned forward and kissed her. At first the kiss was sweet, full of the innocence of all the best first kisses. Then their lips parted; her tongue sought his; his hand snaked through her hair; her breath grew ragged. The voice in the back of his head reminded him he needed to tell her something, but he couldn’t remember what, and couldn’t have cared less. Eventually she drew back for breath, looking at him with gleaming eyes. He ran his tongue over his lips, still tasting her there.

“Jed—” she whispered.

“I’m going to be a priest,” he blurted. His eyes flew open. Oh, God. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I never meant to tell her like this. “Abbey—”

“You what?”

“Oh, Abbey, I am so sorry. I was going to—”

“Go to hell, Josiah Bartlet!” She may have slapped him before she scrambled up the roof and through the window, or he may only have thought she should have. He buried his face in his hands and cursed himself a thousand times over.

*********

There followed two months of avoidance. Finals came and went; Christmas vacation, a cheerless event with her boisterous extended family, passed in a haze. Abbey wanted Jed. She missed him every morning when she woke up and every night when she went to bed. She laughed at passages in magazine articles that only he would find funny; she repeated arguments he made at the Vietnam discussion to her appalled parents. But she would not seek him out.

A priest! What the hell kind of priest gets a girl drunk and drags her to the rooftop to make out? It was no use reminding herself she hadn’t been drunk and that she had instigated the kiss; in her mind she kept blaming "Father" Josiah. What the hell kind of name was that, anyway? Bastard. She would keep herself from having anything to do with him.

But she couldn’t keep herself from missing him.

When the term called spring semester began, they were still deep in winter. Abbey threw herself into her studies, but nothing seemed to stick. She heard through the grapevine that Jed Bartlet was having a hellish time in his classes. He was in danger of dropping out; he fought with his professors and the campus priests at least once a week; he was surly with his friends and brutal with his enemies. This brought her a small measure of joy.

Carolyn and her new boyfriend Roy showed up in the room one Tuesday night on their way to hear a locally renowned folk singer who was playing on campus. “Come on, Abbey,” Carolyn coaxed, practically hauling her out of her chair. “You’ve been moping in this room since mid-terms last semester. It’s time you got out of here.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I’m sorry. That’s not one of your options. Get your coat; we’re going.”

The concert was in the smallest recital hall. People squeezed in wherever they could find a seat; Abbey quickly became separated from Carolyn and Roy. Knowing she had to grab a chair while any remained, she sat, vowing revenge on her roommate before the night was over. Slowly, she came to the realization that the person on her left was holding very still. She turned to see who it was. Of course it would have to be Jed Bartlet. “Hello there,” she said, a deadly cheer in her voice.

“Um...hello, Abbey.”

“Well, the first time around you kissed me and said you were going to be a priest. I can’t wait to see what you pull out for the second date.”

“Abbey, I—” She turned away coldly and glued her eyes to the stage. “The show’s starting, Jed.” Abbey barely heard a note that was played. She was too busy trying to make sense of the maelstrom of conflicting emotions churning inside her. She was thrilled in the most literal sense by his nearness. On the other hand, few things in this life would’ve given her more pleasure than reaching over and throttling him.

At the end of the first set, the locally famous guitar-playing folk singer left the stage, and the audience began to stir. Abbey tried to stand, intending to get out of here, go home, regardless of whether she could find Carolyn or Roy to say she was leaving. Jed’s hand on her arm kept her in her seat. “Please let go of my arm, Jed,” she said crisply.

“Abbey, marry me.”

Her eyes must have been falling out of their sockets. She stared at him, wondering what she’d come in contact with that would trigger auditory hallucinations. “I’m sorry. I thought I heard you say—”

“I’m serious, Abbey. Marry me.”

“Why in God’s name would I marry you? I don’t even like you”

“Don’t you see, Abbey? It’s the only way. If I say I’m giving up the priesthood, it has to be—”

“It has to be for the woman you’re going to marry, not for some girl you kind of like and made out with once at a party.”

“Exactly.”

She sighed. She hadn’t tried seeing this from Jed’s point of view. Not that anyone expected her to, but his words put the situation in a new light. “Jed, I’m sorry. I’ve been awful to you.”

“Are you kidding? Abbey, I’m the one who’s been awful.”

“Well, that’s certainly true, but it’s no excuse for the way I’ve been acting.”

“You haven’t acted any differently than I would have. I’m sorry about the way I told you.”

“Yeah, that was shitty. I’m sorry I forced you to kiss me.”

“Believe me, I didn’t need a lot of arm-twisting.” They laughed, and a chunk of ice fell away between them.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked. “I mean, obviously I’m not going to agree to marry you. But I don’t — I have to tell you, the thought of you as a priest makes me very unhappy. And not just because of the way you told me.”

He took her hands in his. “Abbey, are you at all willing to get to know each other better, to pursue this relationship to...wherever it leads?”

She smiled. “Absolutely.”

“Then as of this moment I am no longer in training for the priesthood.”

“What? Jed!”

“This is the way it has to be, Abbey. I would be totally unfair to you if I held onto the clergy as a safety net in case things with you don’t work out. That’s begging to fail. I have to go into this acting as though I expect it to end at the altar.”

She absolutely did not want to hurt him. “Even if you know it may not?”

“Especially then.” He impatiently brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen into his eyes, and Abbey found herself wishing she’d been the one to do that. “You’re in charge here, Abbey. We’ll go as slow as you want; we’ll call it off whenever you want. Hell, I don’t know if I want it to end in a wedding.” He touched her cheek lightly. “All I know is I want you in my life somehow.”

Dear God, have I really caused this man to alter his entire life? I don’t know if I can handle that. But the alternative was losing Jed altogether, and she knew as surely as she knew her own name that that would be unbearable. She fought back completely unexpected tears. “I want you in mine, too.”

His entire body flooded with relief and hope. He hugged her tight. “Thank you, Abbey.”

Wiping hastily at tears she couldn’t hold back, she asked, “What will you do instead?”

He shrugged. “My minor is economics. I’ll probably make that my major. It’ll make my parents happier anyway.”

“Oh, great,” she groaned. “Econ. Just like Ron Ehrlich and Scottie Aarndt.”

He laughed. “Hey, if they can do it, I’m sure I can figure it out.”

They were standing in the lobby afterward while Abbey waited for Carolyn to get the singer’s autograph, when Jed smacked his forehead. “Shit! I was supposed to be home half an hour ago. I promised Al I’d help him with his damned calculus homework. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Man, Jed; you only left the clergy an hour ago, and you’re already swearing like a sailor.” He blushed. “Of course I don’t mind. You made a promise; go keep it.” She wiggled her eyebrows playfully. “Just don’t forget the one you made me.”

His eyes were actually glowing. “Thank you, Abbey. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He unhesitatingly placed a kiss on her cheek, then rushed out the door. Long after he’d gone, she stood watching the place where he had been, absently rubbing her cheek.

Midnight was a distant memory by the time Abbey and Carolyn saw Roy off and got ready for bed. As Abbey slipped under the covers, she noticed her roommate staring at her from across the room. “Whatever you want to say, Carolyn, you can go ahead and say.”

“It was nothing, really.” Carolyn tried to act noncommittal. “I noticed you seem to have made up with Father Jed.”

Abbey giggled. “He’s not Father Jed anymore; he’s Doctor Jed, world-renowned economist. And I did more than make up with him. I think I agreed to marry him someday.”

“Oh, Lord.” This seemed like the most important conversation she and Abbey would ever have, but Carolyn was fairly certain her roommate had suffered a blow to the head, so maybe now wasn’t the best time to discuss it. “Go to sleep, Abbey.”

Abbey pulled the covers up to her chin, but she knew she wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. She suspected that, on the other side of campus, a newly-minted economist was having the same trouble. She smiled. Someday, she would have to stop deriving so much pleasure from Jed’s suffering, but for now it comforted her to know that whatever hell they had to go through in this insane relationship, they would go through it together.