By late afternoon, more teenagers had arrived. Ellen wanted to walk around with Meredith. I scanned the crowd. We were surrounded by neighbors and families. There was no one remotely like Barbie Man around. I told her not to leave the Sun Bowl. Thomas disappeared with a kid he knew from swimming. I could smell the hot dogs and hamburgers cooking and saw kids coming down the embankment. The field was getting dark, the sandstone hill lit by the sun dropping behind it. I went up and got two hot dogs, squirting mustard and ketchup across both. Coming down, I met Abbey. I wondered how she’d known about Mrs. Boucher and if other people had known it, too.

“You’re getting just downright social, Libby Gallagher.”

“I know,” I said with my mouth full of hot dog. “I’m like the mountain’s social butterfly.”

“Careful what you wish for,” she said.

I waited while she got her hot dog, and we sat up on the hill by the swim club, our backs against the fence, waiting for the sun to fall. On this side of the fence, facing the Sun Bowl, honeysuckle climbed through the shrubbery and wound itself around the links, reaching in some parts all the way to the barbed wire at the top. The air was heavy with its scent. I picked one and inhaled it in my palm. In Ireland, honeysuckle growing around doorways and houses kept away bad spirits. I pinched the bottom of the flower and pulled out the stamen with the nectar. I’d never thought of my father as superstitious, but so much of what he’d taught me was how things in nature carried messages between worlds.

Next to me, Abbey started to roll a joint, completely unfazed that there was a field of parents below us. She didn’t even try to conceal it, lighting it and holding it between her forefinger and thumb and squinting as she inhaled. She held the smoke in her lungs, clamping her mouth shut, and then offered the joint to me. I shook my head. She held the smoke for a few more seconds, then exhaled and raised the joint high up in the air, gesturing toward someone.

“There’s our golden girl.”

Sage was coming across the court, looking up at us. I wanted to get to her before she got to us.

“Abbey, I need to talk to Sage for a few minutes. It’s really important. We’ll come back.” I ran down the hill.

“Hey,” said Sage. She had on her 1976 Rolling Stones T-shirt with the flag tongue.

“Very patriotic of you,” I said.

“Charlotte begged me not to wear it today.”