After the clearinghouse, we all went our separate ways, but still bumped into one another occasionally on campus.  For some reason, though, I didn’t see much of Kath after that.

Then one day I ran into her coming into the library just as I was leaving.  We stopped to catch up on our experiences, and found that neither of us was as whole-heartedly giddy about our new school as everyone else in the clearinghouse seemed to be.
 
Among other things, I had found myself unable to muster much enthusiasm for the oft-proclaimed “beauty” of our main quadrangle, which contained very little foliage, and most of whose ground area was covered in a disintegrating rubble of asphalt chunks and gravel.  How could I rhapsodize about something like this after I’d grown accustomed to the broad emerald-green lawn at the center of UVA’s grounds, flanked by stately trees and white-columned red-brick buildings, with colonnaded walkways leading up graceful terraces to the circular, bronze-domed crown jewel of the architecture, Mr. Jefferson’s Rotunda?

Kath and I stayed in more regular contact after that.  Then one day in late fall, she invited me to join her and her family skiing during the Thanksgiving break at Lake Tahoe, where they had a condominium.  I thanked her and accepted.

Later, with some sort of big party weekend coming up on campus, I realized I couldn’t very well accept her generous offer without asking her to be my date.  With only minimal awkwardness, we found ourselves transitioning from what people of my daughter’s generation now call “friend-zoning” to, well, actually dating.
  
When I arrived at her family’s home in the nearby hills to begin the drive up to the mountains, I found there had been a last-minute change in plans.  Kath’s father (who I had met earlier, and seemed to be in good health at the time), had suddenly become ill to such a degree that he didn’t feel he could participate in the trip.  Kath’s mother would stay behind and take care of him. 

Only Kath and I and her little brother, about ten years old, would be going to the mountains.

I was surprised that a mother in those days would send her daughter off on an overnight jaunt with a guy, but I soon realized she knew what she was doing.  There are few chaperones as insurmountably diligent as a ten-your-old boy.  But despite his KGB-grade continuous surveillance and our massive collective ignorance of how to cook a turkey, we all managed to have a fine time.