It was some lazy time in the afternoon, Mom napping on the short couch, me stretched out on the long couch, studying a smoky eye tutorial, when the doorbell rang.

Mom sprung up and looked at me accusingly, like I’d made the noise that woke her. We stared at each other silently until the doorbell rang again.

Mom ran her fingers through her hair, fluffing it at the dark roots, and patted her fingers under her eyes, clearing out the mascara smudges. “Damnit.” She shook her foot as she stood, trying to knock the sleep out of it. It didn’t work. She hobbled all the way to the front door.

I heard the low murmur of voices. Mom saying, “Why, of course.” When she returned to the living room, there were two frowning men in suits, that basement-couch kind of brown, by her side.

“TifAni.” Mom was using her hostess voice. “This is Detective . . .” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “I’m so sorry, Detectives. I’ve already forgotten your names.” Her voice dropped its pleasant tenor and she looked like she was going to cry again. “It’s just been such a time.”

“Of course it has,” the younger, skinnier one said. “I’m Detective Dixon.” He nodded at his partner. “This is Detective Vencino.” Detective Vencino had that same complexion so many of my relatives sport for most of the calendar year. Without a summer tan, we take on a sickly shade of green.

Mom addressed me. “TifAni, can you stand please?”

I folded the page to my smoky eye tutorial and did as I was told. “Did someone else die?”

Detective Dixon’s blond-white eyebrows clustered together. If they didn’t bristle off his face haphazardly, it would be easy to mistake them for not being there at all. “No one has died.”

“Oh.” I examined my nails. The article I’d been reading prior to the smoky eye how-to had said that white spots on the nails were signs of iron deficiency, and iron is what gives you thick, shiny hair, so you didn’t want to be iron deficient. No white spots. “My parents won’t let me watch the news so I have no idea what’s going on.” I shot the detectives a look like, Can you believe it?

“That’s probably for the best,” Detective Dixon said, and Mom gave me this smug little smile that made me want to throw the magazine at her head.

“Is there someplace where we can all sit and talk?” Detective Dixon asked.

“Is everything okay?” Mom brought her hand to her mouth, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I meant has something else happened?”

“Nothing else, Mrs. FaNelli.” Detective Vencino cleared his throat, and the loose green skin on his neck wobbled. “We just want to ask TifAni a few questions.”

“I already talked to the police at the hospital,” I said. “And that psychiatrist.”

“Psychologist,” Detective Dixon corrected. “And we know. We just want to clear up a few things. We were hoping you could help.” He arched his spiky eyebrows pleadingly. So many people who needed my help.

I looked at Mom, who nodded. “Okay.”

Mom asked the detectives if they wanted anything—coffee, tea, a snack? Detective Dixon asked for coffee, but Detective Vencino shook his head. “No, thank you, Mrs. FaNelli.”

“You can call me Dina,” Mom said, and Detective Vencino didn’t smile at her, the way most men do.

The three of us sat at the table while Mom poured coffee beans into the top of the coffee machine. We all had to raise our voices above the whirring grind.

“So, TifAni,” Detective Dixon began. “We know about your relationship with Arthur. That you two were in a fight. At the time of the . . . incident.”

I bobbed my head up and down: yup, yup, yup. “He was mad at me. I took this picture from his room. I still have it if you—”

Detective Dixon held up his hand. “We are actually not here to talk about Arthur.”

I blinked, dumbly. “What are you here to talk about then?”

“Dean.” Detective Dixon watched for any effect the name might have on me. “Were you and Dean friends?”

I traced my naked toe on the kitchen’s hardwood floor. I used to slide across these floors in my socks, arms flung out, pretending to surf. Then one day a three-inch-long splinter punctured the fabric of my socks, lodged itself neatly into the arch of my foot, and that was the end of that game. “Not exactly.”

“But you were,” Detective Vencino jumped in. It was the first time he’d spoken to me, and up close I noticed his crooked nose, skewed left, like a lump of wet clay someone had pushed to the side before it dried. “At one point?”

“I guess you could say that,” I allowed.

Detective Dixon glanced at Detective Vencino. “Were you upset with Dean recently?”

I glanced at Mom, straining to hear my answer above the blade’s whine. “A little, yeah. I guess.”

“Can you tell us why?”

I examined my hands, my healthy nails. Olivia would never have to worry about being iron deficient again. I suddenly remembered that she’d been wearing green nail polish when I’d seen her last, in Chem, hunched over her desk, furiously scribbling notes. Hilary had been wearing it too, must have convinced Olivia to try it, because Olivia wasn’t the type to experiment with makeup. Or maybe it was to show their support for the soccer team. I dazed off, wondering, if you die with green nails, if you’re not going through life bumping into things and washing your hair—all those everyday things that chisel away at the veneer—will the Sally Hansen persevere? The way your teeth and bones remain when the rest of you decays? Here is Olivia, her green fingernails all that’s left. Detective Dixon repeated his question.

“TifAni,” Mom called. The machine’s motor shut off with a click, and the next thing she said came out loudly, with accidental emphasis. “Answer the detectives, please.”

Like one of those bath toys that swells to four times its size in a warm tub, I fattened up with tears. I wasn’t going to be able to hide what happened that night. Why did I think I could? I jammed a fist into an eye and rubbed. “There were a lot of reasons,” I sighed.

“Maybe you’d be more comfortable talking about them if Mom weren’t here?” Detective Dixon asked, kindly.

“I’m sorry.” Mom placed Detective Dixon’s coffee cup by his elbow. “Be more comfortable talking about what? What is going on?”

The windows at the Ardmore police station were opaque inky squares by the time the lawyer arrived, introduced himself as Dan under the sallow hallway lights. Detective Dixon insisted we didn’t need a lawyer, and he was so nice Mom almost believed him, but she changed her tune after she called Dad at the office. The lawyer came recommended by Dad’s co-worker whose daughter had been arrested for a DUI over the summer. Neither Mom nor I was impressed. He was a schlubby guy in a suit with pant hems that collected in bunches around his ankles like the bulky neck of a bulldog.

Dan (“No competent lawyer can be named Dan,” Mom hissed) wanted to hear the entire story from me first, before the detectives joined us in the frigid interrogation room. They really do lower the temperature, try to make you feel as uncomfortable as possible so you would confess sooner, the detectives home in time for dinner.

“No detail is unimportant.” Dan rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, a royal blue eyesore that seemed the product of a buy two, get one free sale at Jos. A. Bank. He’d taken off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair, not noticing when the left shoulder slipped, the right shoulder clinging on with all its might. “Everything from the beginning of the school year. Every connection you had to everyone involved in this. Everything.”

Even I couldn’t believe how well it had all started out for me, that I was ever sought after by the likes of Dean or Olivia, how badly and how swiftly my good fortune had spoiled. I rushed through the details of the night at Dean’s, burning bright as I recounted how I’d come to with Peyton, doing, you know, to me. “Performing oral sex?” Dan asked, and under the unrelenting fluorescent lights I must have looked sunburned. “Yes,” I mumbled. I went through the list, the way I’d drifted through the night, coming to at various points with Peyton first, the others who followed. I told him what happened afterward, the night at Olivia’s, the cut on my face that wasn’t from her dog. I was wary of involving Mr. Larson in the whole thing, but Dan said no detail was unimportant.