A Sense of the Infinite Read Online Free Page B

said helpfully.
    “That can mean anything,” said Noe. “Bacon bits. Tuna. Chicken.”
    “Hmm,” I said. “Maybe we can get a mini-fridge in our room.”
    “Oh, here we go,” said Noe. “Smoothie machine.”
    I breathed an inward sigh of relief. Noe had said yes to Northern as a first choice back in June, but she could be fickleat the best of times, and I knew that our college roommates plan could be thrown off by an errant bacon bit just as easily as by something important like academics.
    “Ladies,” called Mrs. Fessendorf. “Are we discussing The Waste Land and identifying three instances of allusion?”
    “Yes, Mrs. Fessendorf,” sang Noe.
    “Good.”
    She moved the booklet to her lap and we continued to browse it.
    “Student-run coffee shop,” Noe read. “We could get jobs there. I’ve always wanted to be a barista.”
    “Ladies!”
    Noe smiled at her.
    “Just planning our future, ma’am,” she said.

10
    THE NUTRITIONIST WAS A PLUMP, pale, sad-looking thirtysomething who seemed uncomfortable in the tiny phys-ed-office-slash-storage-room, crammed behind Ms. Bomtrauer’s desk with the basketballs and the kettlebells. When I showed up for my appointment, he had an audiobook playing on the beat-up CD player, a narrator with a plodding nasal voice reading a fantasy novel. “Nay,” said the serving wench, “I’ll not wed thee.” “I think ye shall,” said Prince Everstall, drawing his blade. The nutritionist startled and smacked the CD player’s stop button just as Prince Everstall was about to nick the laces on the serving wench’s bodice. He blushed and brushed at the desk, sweeping a box of Cheez-Its into the trash.
    “You must be Annabeth,” he said, extending a clammy hand for me to shake.
    “The one and only,” I said.
    He was wearing a tweed jacket that was much too warm for the weather. It looked like he’d gotten lost on his way to Harvard and wandered into E. O. James by mistake.
    “I’m Bob,” he said. “Please, have a seat.” He gestured at a cracked plastic chair wedged between a box of rugby cleats and a pile of soccer jerseys. When I sat down, it made a sound of protest and collapsed underneath me.
    “Oh dear,” said Bob. “Are you okay?”
    I picked myself and the chair up from the floor and sat down again gingerly. My knee was throbbing where it had banged the desk.
    “They’re supposed to put in a better one,” said Bob apologetically.
    “Really?” I said. “I thought it was a test. If you break the chair, grapefruit diet. If you don’t break the chair, weight-gain pellets.”
    Bob smiled. “That would be quite the system. There’s a beautiful sort of Procrustean logic to that.”
    “Indeed,” I said.
    He looked like an academic type, I thought again. The hair, the voice, the tweed jacket. I wondered what he was doing in a basketball storage closet at E. O. James.
    I braced myself in the chair. It was threatening to buckle again. “Can we get down to business?” I said. “This is kind of uncomfortable.”
    “Sure, sure,” he said. “Let’s start with a simple questionnaire.”
    He fumbled under his desk and took out a textbook. Applied Nutrition.
    “What’s that for?” I said.
    “I’m still finishing my master’s degree,” he said. “This is my practicum.” He flipped around inside the textbook for a few seconds, checked the table of contents, and finally arrived, sweaty-fingered, at the right page.
    “Am I your first subject?” I said.
    He looked up. Another one of those shy, apologetic smiles flitted across his face. “Actually, yes.”
    Aha , I thought. A discount nutritionist . Good thing the nurse hadn’t sent Noe to see Bob. She would have eaten him alive.
    He cleared his throat. “Just so you know,” he said, “everything you say here will be taken in complete confidence. Please be honest with your answers. Are you ready?”
    I nodded, trying not to laugh.
    Bob the Nutritionist read from the textbook, his eyes never leaving