“Oh, Lee,” Dede said. “Oh, honey.” Sin-Jun leaned forward and patted my shoulder, and Dede said, “I’ll be done in two seconds.” She took the damp cotton ball away from my ear, and I realized that they thought I was crying because it hurt.

3. Assassin

I met Conchita Maxwell in the spring, on the first day of lacrosse practice. When Ms. Barrett told us to split into pairs and toss a ball, I watched as the girls around me turned to each other, murmuring and nodding. It had become a ritual in sports and in class-the time when everybody divided, and I had no one to divide with. Then the coach or teacher would say, “Is anyone not paired up?” and I and one or two other students would meekly raise our hands.

“Hey,” said a voice behind me. I turned and saw Conchita. “Want to be partners?”

I hesitated.

“Take ten minutes,” Ms. Barrett called out. “Just get the feel of throwing and catching.”

“Let’s go over there.” Conchita pointed to a corner of the field a few feet from where the woods began. Though I hadn’t yet responded to her offer, it was clear to both of us I wasn’t going to receive another one. “By the way,” she said, “I’m Conchita.”

“I’m Lee.”

“I’ve never played lacrosse before,” she said cheerfully. I’d never played, either-in fact, I had purchased my stick less than an hour before, in the school store, and it smelled like leather and new metal-but I said nothing.

Though Conchita and I had never spoken, I already knew who she was. In fact, I’m sure everyone at Ault knew who she was, mostly because of how she dressed. She was a skinny girl with a large pile of short black puffy hair and dark skin, and I’d first noticed her in the dining hall several months back, in purple clogs, a pair of tights with horizontal purple and red stripes, purple culottes (they might have been knickers-I wasn’t certain), and a red blouse with a huge ruffly collar. The final accessory was a purple beret, which she’d set at a jaunty angle. I had thought at the time that she resembled a member of a theater troupe specializing in elementary school visits. For lacrosse practice, Conchita looked slightly more conservative-she was wearing a chartreuse tank top, white shorts, and chartreuse knee socks, which she’d actually pulled up to her knees. Apparently a hat enthusiast, she sported an Ault baseball cap with a still-stiff brim; the cap made me wonder if, after all, she was trying to fit in rather than to stand out.

As we walked, Conchita sneezed three times in a row. I considered saying Bless you to her, then didn’t.

She pulled a tissue from the pocket of her shorts and blew her nose loudly. “Allergies,” she said. It was early April then, just after spring break, a perfect afternoon of cobalt sky and bright sun. “You name it, I’m allergic to it.”

I didn’t try to name anything.

“Grass,” Conchita said. “Pollen, chlorine, mushrooms.”

“Mushrooms?”

“If I eat one, I break out in hives for up to a week.”

“That sucks,” I said, and I could hear in my own voice not a meanness, exactly, but a lack of deference.

We positioned ourselves ten yards apart. Conchita set the ball, a rubbery white globe like the egg of some exotic creature, in the webbing of her stick and thrust the stick forward. The ball landed in the grass several feet to my left. “Don’t say you weren’t warned,” she said.

I scooped up the ball and propelled it back; it landed even farther from her than her shot had from me.

“I take it you’re a Dylan fan,” Conchita said.

“Huh?”

“Your shirt.”

I looked down. I was wearing an old T-shirt of my father’s, pale blue with the words The Times They Are A-Changin’ across the front in white letters. I had no idea where he’d gotten it, but he’d worn it to jog in, and when I’d left for Ault I’d taken it with me; it was very soft and, for a few weeks, it had smelled like home.

“You realize that’s one of his most famous songs, right?” Conchita said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Right.” At Ault, there was so much I didn’t know. Most of it had to do with money (what a debutante was, how you pronounced Greenwich, Connecticut) or with sex (that a pearl necklace wasn’t always a piece of jewelry), but sometimes it had to do with more general information about clothing, or food, or geography. Once at breakfast when people were discussing a hotel I’d never heard of, someone said, “It’s on the corner of Forty-seventh and Lex,” and not only did the names of the streets mean nothing to me, but I wasn’t even certain for several minutes what city they were talking about. What I had learned since September was how to downplay my lack of knowledge. If I seemed ignorant, I hoped that I also seemed disinterested.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the song,” Conchita said, and she began to sing. “Come gather round people wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown and… I can’t remember the next part… something something something… if your time to you is worth saving.” To my surprise, she had a pretty voice, high and clear and unself-conscious.

“That does sound kind of familiar,” I said. It didn’t sound familiar at all.

“It’s sad to see what’s happened to Dylan, because he had such a powerful message back in the sixties,” Conchita said. “It wasn’t just music to make out to.”

Why, I wondered, would music to make out to be a bad thing?

“I have most of his stuff,” Conchita said. “If you want to, you can come by my room and listen.”

“Oh,” I said. Then, because I didn’t want to either accept or decline the invitation, I said, “Here,” as I flung the ball. It went far beyond her, and I added, “Sorry.”

She scurried after the ball, then sent it back. “We probably won’t have to go to the away games. I’ve heard that when it’s a big team, sometimes Ms. Barrett lets the people who aren’t that good stay on campus. No offense, of course.”

“I haven’t heard that,” I said.

“Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. But I could really use the time.”

To do what? I thought. I knew Conchita didn’t have a boyfriend-only about twelve people in our class of seventy-five ever dated, and they always went out with each other-and I didn’t think Conchita had many friends, either. The only person I could remember seeing her with was Martha Porter, a red-haired girl from my Latin class on whose last test the teacher had written across the top-I’d seen this because Martha and I sat side by side-Saluto, Martha! Another marvelous performance! On the same test, I had received a C minus and a note that read Lee, I am concerned. Please talk to me after class.

“Lacrosse was originally played by the Huron Indians,” Conchita said. “Did you know that?”

“Yes.”

“Really? You knew that already?”

The fib had slipped out spontaneously; when pressed, I found it difficult to lie on purpose. “Actually,” I said, “no.”

“It dates back to the 1400s. Makes you wonder how it became the favorite game of East Coast prep schools. You’re from Indiana, aren’t you?”

I wasn’t sure how she knew where I was from. In fact, I knew that she was from Texas, but I knew this only because, in addition to reading old yearbooks, I regularly perused the current school catalog, where everyone’s full names and hometowns were printed in the back: Aspeth Meriweather Montgomery, Greenwich, Connecticut. Cross Algeron Sugarman, New York, New York. Conchita Rosalinda Maxwell, Fort Worth, Texas. Or, for me, Lee Fiora, South Bend, Indiana. I did not have, among other things, a middle name.

“I bet people don’t play lacrosse in Indiana,” Conchita said. “But some of these girls”-she nodded toward our teammates-“have been playing since first grade.”