“I’ve noticed something. You keep using the word ‘fuck.’ That’s not a ‘you’ word. Plus, you make it sound like you’re trying to club something with it. ‘Who’d remember just another fuck—’ Why are you talking like that?”

“Because that’s what this was—fucking. Fuck—hard, fast, get to the point and then get off. Men like to fuck. Fuck and come. That’s what I wanted to do with Mark—fuck him like he’d never had it before, and then disappear in a puff of smoke. A dream come true and gone a moment later before any of its glitter fell. Let him remember me that way. This one night in the back seat of his new car behind the school when he finally got to fuck Lily Vincent and she was a firecracker deluxe.”

“Were you a firecracker?”

“More! As soon as we got there, I straddled him and took my clothes off as sexily as I knew how. When he reached out to touch me, I wouldn’t let him, because I wanted him like corn in hot oil. Know how it sizzles and dances around in the pan right before it explodes into popcorn? I wanted him scrinching around in the seat and going crazy with sex for me. I wanted someone to want me! And he did.”

“Were you wonderful?”

“I was.”

“Were you turned on?”

“A little toward the end. But no, not much. It was too much like gymnastics. I was working too hard to make him hot and think he was driving me crazy.”

“I’m jealous.”

I heard her turn. Her voice was high and excited when she spoke. “Really? Why? It was so long ago and I was faking the whole thing.”

“Because jealousy is greed. I want it all and don’t want to share any of it ever. Sometimes when I think about it, I’m jealous of the men in your past and what they did with you. I’d like to go back and take all of the kisses and fucks away from them and keep them for myself.”

“That’s nice, Max. I never thought of it that way.”

“I do. Go on, firecracker.”

“Well, we did it a couple of times and I think I was satisfying. You asked before if it was good and I said a little, but that’s untrue. It was good because I threw myself into it totally. I licked him and kissed him and hugged and groaned. At first, I was thinking: What else will make him hot, what else’ll make him howl at the moon? But you get caught up in it, even when it’s a performance. I liked it and it was good.

“When we were totally exhausted and done, we got dressed and sat there not speaking. After counting slowly to a hundred, I said I wanted him to go now and leave me here. I wanted to walk back through town alone to my car. He was flabbergasted. Go away? How could I say such a thing after what had happened? I started growing impatient, wanting to be out of his car and alone again. He said he loved me, and besides, how could I have done it so wonderfully if I didn’t feel anything for him? I didn’t answer, but began to resent him although the whole spiel had been my doing. He got desperate and asked, was it a time thing? It had happened so quickly and spontaneously, was it just that I needed some time alone to sort out what’d happened? Luckily he supplied that excuse to escape, because I was in no mood or shape to cook one up. Yes, you’re right, Mark, I am confused and want to be alone to think. That calmed him. Ever since then I’ve wondered what would have happened if he had said no. Just been strong and absolutely insisted I stay with him the rest of the night. But old sweetie Mark Elson didn’t do it. Instead, he got out of the car and raced around to open my door. We kissed goodbye. He pulled me close and out in the middle of that big empty parking lot whispered, ‘What’s going on, Lily?’ Which was a bull’s-eye question, because I hadn’t the slightest idea, and had come today hoping to find a way home. Or else I did know what was going on: me breaking apart, faster than the speed of light. I pushed him away and started running in the opposite direction. He called me, but when I didn’t stop, he yelled out, ‘I’ll be at the store tomorrow, if you need me!’ I needed him, all right. I needed everyone in the whole world holding one of those giant firemen’s nets people fall into when they jump from a burning building. But it was too late.”

“Why? Why was it too late?”

“Because by then I was so far gone, I was jumping from every corner of the building, not just one. They wouldn’t have had enough nets to catch me.

“Running felt good. As I moved, for half an instant I considered going home and asking Dad to let me spend the night. What a laugh! Home, Sweet, Dark Home.

“I could feel Mark’s warm sperm begin to run down the inside of my leg. I thought of babies. All those Mark-babies that would never be. No babies would ever come out of me. The sickness and the scars had put an end to that. Another possibility down, how many more to go? It had been so long since I’d thought of children. This was the town where I’d been a child, but I was running from it now, running from my life, running out of life, and knowing there was nothing to run to. I would never be able to create life. It hit me so hard then.

“I ran and ran. It was about three miles from school back to the bar but I got there fast. Gasping, I hopped into the car and started it up. It bucked backward into a retaining wall because I’d forgotten to take it out of gear when I turned it off. That lurch scared me into clearness a little. I put my hands on my face and rubbed up and down till it got hot. Then I started the motor again and drove slowly out of the lot.

“It was still dark when I left, but morning birds were singing. I started crying as I passed by different places in town. I said goodbye to them. Bye, library, Beaver College, Marilyn Zodda’s house. Some were important, others only part of my life’s map. They were all about to disappear forever. I knew I’d never go back there, so this was it. Bye-bye, Howard Johnson’s. I actually rolled down the window and waved at that stupid restaurant! Bye, fried clams and cigarettes after school there with Marilyn and Lynda Jones in our favorite booth. Bones Jones. Goodbye goodbye goodbye. Boom—end of Glenside days. I rolled out on that highway and drove.

“Until the car died an hour later. Smoke began pouring out from under the hood and, poof, it stopped. I was calm, rolled it onto the shoulder and turned it off. It was a beautiful morning. I got out and stood beside the car while the sun came up over those hazy blue fields. Not many cars drove by but that was okay because I didn’t feel like flagging one down yet. I assumed the Opel was a goner, which meant I’d have to start out again some other way. The idea left me blank.

“A truck driver pulled over and took me to the next town. I got a mechanic at a gas station to come back and look. Amazingly, it was only a broken fan belt, a nine-dollar repair. Plus, the man had the part with him in his van. I should’ve been ecstatic, but when he told me, I had nothing to say. He must have thought I was a zombie. A zombie who was suddenly hungry. While he worked on the car, I asked if there was a good place to get breakfast in town. He recommended the Garamond Grill.”

“Garamond? Garamond, Pennsylvania?” This was it: Brendan Wade Meier was kidnapped there.

“Do you know the town?”

“No, but I know what you did there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Garamond. I mean Anwen and Gregory Meier and their son Brendan, age about nine and a half now. Last seen in a baby carriage outside a store at the Garamond Shopping Plaza. I know what you did, Lily, I know you kidnapped him.” I turned on the light next to the bed and lay back down. Closing my eyes, I told her how I’d gone through the house after her bizarre and suspicious behavior when Lincoln was in the hospital. How I’d found her newspaper clippings about the Meiers and hired the detective to investigate. Then about my trip East, meeting the desolate couple, being shot at on the New Jersey Turnpike.