The house was empty. Ellen and Beatrice went upstairs to start working on the Fourth of July outfit. They spent the rest of the afternoon on the floor, tearing the new fabric into long sections. Ellen stuffed Beatrice’s white stockings with newspaper and started the tedious task of sewing on the blue and red strips. The newspaper was to prevent sewing the stockings shut. I sat with them on the floor and sewed one blue strip. My stitching was all over the place, and I kept unthreading my needle. Ellen worked quietly, but her fingers were deft and fast, her stitches neat. Both Beatrice and I gave up, but Ellen kept sewing. I knew she was trying not to think about what had happened earlier. Beatrice chatted away, suggesting ideas and looped a red strip and a blue strip through the tops of her sneakers to make large bows.

“That looks good,” Ellen told her. Beatrice glowed.

By the time I left to babysit, Ellen and I still hadn’t talked about seeing Barbie Man in the mall, and what Wilson had done to him.

At the Bouchers’, Bruce and I waltzed through the kitchen, his feet on mine, while Mrs. Boucher gathered her things for her night out. I sang “I Could Have Danced All Night,” and he could barely stand, it made him laugh so hard. “What kind of dancing partner is this, who keeps his two feet on mine the whole time?” Peter kept pulling on Bruce, saying, “My turn, my turn.” Later I sat on the sofa and watched TV. I tried calling Sage to talk to her about what had happened at the mall, but Charlotte said she had gone out.

At a quarter to one, headlights lit the huge glass windows and then cut. I waited a few minutes and went into Mrs. Boucher’s bathroom without flicking on the light. I put my face against the window and looked out, but I couldn’t even see the outline of the car. I went back to the living room and watched TV with the sound off. I didn’t hear the car door this time, but the headlights turned on at one thirty, and the car rolled down the long driveway toward me.

Mrs. Boucher came in the kitchen, filled a glass of water, and leaned back against the sink and drank it. She had on a red wraparound dress that plunged at the front, but tastefully. She wore a long chain made from wide interconnected circles of hammered silver. Her high heels had straps that fastened round her ankles. Her hair fell down her back, sleek and dark. She was beautiful. I thought she was probably the prettiest adult I knew.

“How was everything tonight?” she asked.