“False advertising,” I said. “There are no lighthouses in Seaside Park. That’s Barnegat Head Lighthouse, in Island Beach. Every painter in the free world has tried to reproduce it.”

She shrugged. “So?”

“Well. You would think artists would have a little more creativity, right? Isn’t that the whole point of being an artist?”

“No. The whole point of being an artist is that you can take something everyone has seen before and make them see it in an entirely new light.”

What was this? The girl was getting a backbone. Really, what had Sphincter done to her? “You’re angry,” I remarked.

“Maybe,” she said, turning and walking away.

I stopped her. “At me?”

She sighed. “You’re the one who can tell the future, right? Figure it out.” Then her face softened. “You know it’s not about you. It’s about … I don’t want to—”

“Evan? Trouble in paradise?” It just kind of slipped out. I couldn’t help myself.

A second later, I wished I could have. Her eyes narrowed. “It’s not like that. We’re not … anything.”

I doubted that. If they weren’t “anything,” why was she looking angrier than I’d ever seen her? “Uh-huh,” I said.

“It’s true. I can tell you don’t believe me, but it’s true. He was driving by when I dropped Beauty off at the gas station on Eighth for an oil change, and asked me if I wanted a ride. I told him I was going to your house to see you, to make sure you were okay, so no thanks. But he was kind of insistent. He said he’d wait in the car while I talked to you. If you didn’t notice, it’s really hot today, and I really didn’t feel like walking the three miles back home. Really. You don’t have to be jealous.”

I snorted. “Me? Jealous? Why would I be? You and I aren’t together.”

“Yet,” she said, her voice low. She had me there. If I could grieve for children I never had, miss a woman I never even met, then of course she knew I could have jealousy for a relationship that hadn’t even started yet.

“Whatever,” I said, trying to play it cool. “Okay, so you and Sphincter aren’t anything.”

She started to speak, but then stopped short and burst out laughing. “Sphincter?”

“It’s a term of endearment.” I looked over her shoulder, to where Staring Lady was watching us like someone would watch one of those caught-on-tape shows. This time she was standing up, as if readying to throw herself over the cash register in case we tried to start any, as people her age called it, “funny business.” “Can we … go?” I whispered, motioning to the woman.

Taryn turned and saw her, then said, a little amused, “Oh, so now you’re okay with being seen with me?”

“Until I get a better offer, I guess,” I answered, and she followed me out the door. Five minutes later, we sat outside on Central Avenue, watching the first of the beachgoers making the trek back home as we shared an iced tea from the Park Bakery. I liked sharing it with her because I knew her lip gloss tasted like strawberries. It reminded me of how it would be when I, or if I, got a chance to kiss her. Maybe I let my lips linger on the mouth of the bottle too long, maybe it was obvious how much it excited me, because she allowed me to drink most of it.

“I don’t even like sunbathing,” she said, watching a family of beachgoers trudging down the block. She winced and pulled a pair of dark sunglasses over her eyes. “I can never get comfortable. I try to read and I get sand in my book. The sun hurts my eyes. Parts of my body always fall asleep. I end up burning in places and being completely white in others. I never tan. Of course, you know this already.”

I looked at her legs. They were perfect. White, yeah, but sunbathing couldn’t improve them. One of my most prominent memories of Sue was her lounging in a beach chair, wearing big sunglasses, her red hair tossing in the wind. I’d never had a memory like that of Taryn. Most often when I thought of her, I thought of her indoors. “Whatever happened to it? The Mouse.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“The Mouse. Your sailboat. You told me that was what you used your red bikini for. You made it into a flag for your sailboat, since you never went to the beach.”

“I never told you that,” she said. At first I thought she was so weirded out she was going to run away, but then she said, “It got smashed in a nor’easter. When I was nine or ten. But by then I didn’t really want it anymore. I was kind of done with it, just like I was done with sunbathing.”

“And the whole sunbathing confession is because …?”

“Sphincter, like you call him. That’s all he does. He lives to tan. His life is so pathetic and empty. I can’t believe you would think I’d … Please.”

I laughed. “I bet every other girl in school would please him.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”

“Well, he totally wants you.”

She didn’t seem impressed, just played with her bracelet. “Duh, they all do.”

“Conceited much?”

“It’s not conceit. I told you. I told you that people like him are drawn to me.” She seemed really annoyed. I must have stared at her too long, confused, because she finally spelled it out for me in a whisper. “He’s Touched.”

I nearly choked on my own tongue. “Hell he is.”

“He is.”

“I’ve known Sphincter for years. We used to be best friends, back in the day.”

“He wasn’t Touched then. My grandmother did it for him last spring.” She stared at me. “If you don’t believe me, I can show you his signature in the book.”

“No, hey, I do,” I said. After all, it made total sense why he changed seemingly overnight. “What Touch did he get?”

“Physical perfection,” she answered, seeming bored. “Well, outwardly, he’s perfect. But as you know, a lot of those Touches have a catch. His has a really bad one.”

Suddenly the wind picked up, just as a thought caught in my brain. “Let me guess. He’s rotting from the inside.”

She nodded and smiled at me, but it was an empty smile. “It’s just sad. I want to warn him, but what do I say? ‘Hi, my grandmother made you perfect on the outside, but you’re also filled with a hundred tumors and won’t live to see Christmas.’ ”

“If I was him, I’d want to know. You have to tell him.”

She nodded and rubbed her temple with her free hand. “I know. I keep trying to. But it’s so terrible. Grandma tells me to stay away from the Touched, but I feel bad for him.”

Another group of tourists wandered by, and one, a girl of about thirteen or fourteen, looked at me and giggled. I realized my mouth was hanging open wide enough to probably spot my tonsils and clamped it shut. Wow. Evan Spitzer, my former-best friend. Dying. Hadn’t seen that one coming. Maybe if we still traveled in the same circles, I would have. Maybe I would have noticed something about him, something that would have hinted at the havoc being wreaked inside his flawless body. I thought of him racing down the boardwalk the other day, pumping his arms and legs, the picture of physical health. Of perfection.

Suddenly it seemed like we had a lot in common. We could have started our own Dead Before Next Year club. Except … “It was his choice,” I said.

“No. He chose something else. Not this.”

“So, you were trying to explain it to him?”

“Yeah, that and … well, you know how when I touch you, you said you feel normal? Well, I thought maybe I could touch him and heal his tumors.”

“Oh, sure you were,” I said. “So did it work?”

She shrugged. “I have no idea. I touched his cheek, like, pretending to wipe something off it, but I couldn’t feel anything. Anyway, he thought I was coming on to him. He was all over me. We didn’t even make it two blocks. I wanted to help him, not be his newest conquest. So I told him to pull over and let me out.”

“So, you do feel guilty. For things your grandmother did.”

“I guess I do. A little. Otherwise, why would I be hanging out with you?” She grinned.