“A good fact about trees is that they breathe in pollution and breathe out oxygen.”

“Like us.”

“No. We inhale oxygen and exhale pollution. Trees draw in toxins and light through a thousand little mouths in the leaves and then breathe out oxygen.”

“Stomata.”

“What?”

“Stomata, from the Greek for mouth.”

“I almost forgot what a geek you are,” I said.

I thought he might kiss me again, but instead he stood up. “We should get out of here.” I nodded and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

We scaled the fence on the woods side and fumbled around in the dark for a moment, looking for our trees.

Jack laughed. “I think it’s your clothes they got. Mine are here.”

“Oh shit.” At the base of my tree there was one sneaker, the one with a hole in the toe. Everything else was gone.

“Here,” said Jack, handing me his T-shirt. It only came down to the top of my thighs.

As we followed the path down into the Sun Bowl, Sage came running toward us.

“Libby? Where’ve you been?”

“They took my clothes.”

“Who?”

“The police.”

“Whose shirt?”

I looked down at the black T-shirt and my bare legs and pointed to Jack shirtless beside me. Why was she asking?

“Ah, Jack—always a gentleman.” There was a pause. Then she said, “Looking after his friend’s little sister.”

We all went quiet, and Sage stood there, hands on her hips, looking at us. I didn’t know why she’d mentioned Thomas.

“I’ve got to go. See you,” Jack said.

We watched him walk off into the dark.

“Libby, what the hell’s going on?”

“Sage, oh my God. We were in the pool when the police came. We had to hide behind the ladder in the deep end and go under the water when they searched there. And we kissed. And when we did, everything seemed to spin.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“No. I’m serious. The whole world was spinning.”

“It doesn’t mean anything. Trust me.”

“Sage. I felt like I was falling.”

Sage held my shoulders. “Shut your eyes right now.”

I did.

“Is everything spinning?”

I had the same sensation as earlier, as if the ground were pitching. I opened my eyes. Sage was looking at me.

“Well?”

“It actually is,” I said.

“See, sweetheart, you’re drunk. You just shut your eyes when you kissed him.”

I was suddenly cold. A car crawled up Horseshoe Trail Road toward the Sun Bowl, and everything I’d managed to put away from earlier in the night rushed in: Wilson, Pottstown, Barbie Man, Ellen. Both Sage and I instinctively stepped backward into shadow.

9

Sage’s J. C. Penney’s waitressing uniform was a checked peach cotton dress with a ruffled white collar and a white apron with a frilled edge. She wore white nylons with her Converse high-tops, carrying her white waitressing shoes in her hands.