The Friendly’s waitress seated us in a booth that looked out onto the parking lot, the only place in the mall I knew of where you could see the outside world. Beatrice sat beside me, and Ellen opposite, and we ordered our ice creams. I started to ask Ellen what the plan was for the bike, but she was looking at something behind me, over toward the bathrooms, her face frozen. She shrank in the booth, head down.

“He’s here,” she whispered. I knew without turning.

I stayed very still, expecting to be struck from behind. I didn’t turn my head but waited for the blow as a shape passed me, then stopped and turned. I didn’t move. I could smell him, a smell like patchouli. Marie had used it once or twice in her Grateful Dead phase but had stopped because it was overwhelming us all in the car to school every morning. He slid into the booth behind Ellen, where another man was already seated. He was facing me, but I was too terrified to look up. Ellen lowered herself farther in the booth, leaning over the table.

“The booth behind you,” I whispered. “He didn’t see you.”

“What?” asked Beatrice.

“Nothing,” I said, and right then the waitress arrived with our ice creams, which came in tall glass sundae dishes with long spoons. Beatrice started on hers straightaway. Ellen and I just stared at ours. Ellen picked up the spoon, but her hand was trembling and she put it back down. I didn’t know what to do. Beatrice was oblivious. Ellen and I were looking at each other. Tears welled and fell from the bottom of her eyelids in plops on the Formica.

The waitress was passing. “Everything okay, hon? You don’t like your sundaes?”

“Oh no, it’s good,” I said. Ellen and I immediately started to spoon into the ice cream.

I felt like I couldn’t swallow, as if my throat had started to close. I kept my hand at my forehead, elbow on table, and tried to steal a look at him. He was exactly as Ellen had described: hair almost white-blond, with a sheen, as if he had ironed it flat and then added something to make it shine. He was wearing a blue bandanna from the top of his head down over his forehead, hiding his hairline. I felt a sickening thud in my stomach. He was covering up where Wilson had scalped him. There was bruising along his cheekbone, and one eye was black and blue, with streaks of pooled red blood. His eyelashes and eyebrows must be so blond that he looked like he had none. They were nearly done their food. I tried not to stare.

“What’s wrong?” Beatrice asked, looking at us both.

“Shut up,” Ellen said under her breath.

Beatrice looked at me and put her spoon down on the table. “What? What did I do?”