I turned without answering and walked up the trail, back toward the towers. Only a few hundred yards up, I could hear the party and see the beating lights. I found another empty cup and filled it from the keg, not even bothering to rinse it this time. Our fire was still going. Tony De Martino had his arm around Sage, who was letting him, and Wilson was sitting back, legs crossed, looking way too at home. I sat down, trying to make eye contact with Sage, but she was letting Tony feed her a marshmallow from his stick. It was as if reality had been rewritten while I spent a few minutes in the woods.

“You missed marshmallows,” said Abbey.

“Here,” said Wilson. He leaned forward and handed me the stick Tony had given me earlier. There was a white marshmallow at the end. “I saved you one. These stoned savages devoured them all.” I held my marshmallow over the fire, watching the sugar skin tinge and bubble.

I tried to chew the marshmallow, but my mouth had gone dry, and it was like trying to eat sticky putty. I threw the whole stick into the fire.

“That’s ungrateful,” said Wilson.

“Too sweet,” I said. I looked over at Sage again, willing her to look back, but she was still being stupid with Tony De Martino. I could hear them talking about the Stones concert in Philly in September. He was going, too.

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” Wilson was looking at me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Did Wilson think I was learning some lesson here? Was I learning my place?

“Aristotle said it. In military school, our classics teacher was always saying it.” Another trickle of information about Wilson. So that’s where he’d disappeared to those years.

“What’s my bitter education?” I stared hard at him.

“That’s what you have to find out.”

I wanted to go home, but I was afraid to go by myself. I felt like there was nothing to look forward to.

“You guys marching in the parade Saturday?” Abbey was talking to me.

“No. Beatrice is going to camp. Ellen made a costume and a sign for her, but she’s going to let Mrs. Boucher’s little boy wear it and do up his Big Wheel.”

“So cute,” said Abbey. “Little patriots on their bikes.” She and Wilson had obviously been smoking while I was gone. Wilson was grinning at the fire, and Abbey’s eyes were nearly shut, she looked so stoned.

“D’ya still babysit them?” Abbey asked.

“My sisters?”

“No, the spawn of the lovely Mrs. Boucher.” I remembered what she had said that night at the start of the summer about Mrs. Boucher, how someone thought she was beautiful. What had that meant?