A junior named Aldo is studying Latin at a Midwestern College. He dislikes his roommates. He doesn't believe in a God but often feels a state of grace and is struck by the beauty of the world and full of love. Aldo falls in love with a girl named Miranda Lowe, who has a fiancé named Elmer Grand from home (New Mexico) who is currently studying to be a doctor at Harvard. She thinks his name is silly. She friend-zones Aldo, but Aldo continues to pine over her as the two become best friends. One day, on a car ride home from a bar, she kisses him. Then she stops talking to him. Aldo's professor, a former alcoholic teaching him Herodotus, becomes upset with Aldo for arguing with him that belief in the afterlife is a delusion. One day Miranda calls him after weeks of silence and tells him she has a surprise. They meet at the movies. She tells him she and Elmer got married in March. He's upset. She says she almost said no. At the movies, they hold hands and kiss. She wants to feel "bad" and for him to be "bad." They go back to his apartment and have sex. She says it's a one time thing. She asks if he wants to tie her up or be tied up. He says he doesn't. She asks what he wants. He persuades her to give him head even though she doesn't want to, then makes her swallow. She's angry. He feels ashamed. They never speak again. Years later, he's working as a Latin teacher at a private high school in Portland. He falls ill and goes to a doctor. He sees the doctor graduated from Harvard Medical School and asks about Elmer. The doctor says he knew him and Miranda. He says Elmer slept around constantly. Aldo gets better and only occasionally thinks of Miranda. He can no longer access what he previously called a "state of grace," the feeling of being struck by love for the beauty of the world, but sometimes he feels its echo.