“It’s between Roni and Sarah,” he explained to his best friend, Andy. “But Sarah’s the backup. I’ve been working on Roni for a few weeks now. She thinks we’re going out.”

They were out behind Temple Beth Emanuel, smoking a pack of Camels. Jett’s secret was that he never inhaled all the way. He couldn’t help but recall the overweight man who gave a lecture at their school the year before: the picture of the hole in his dead wife’s throat, how Mr. Patton, the stoic history teacher, quietly gasped in the seat beside Jett. Jett never could tell if Andy actually inhaled the smoke; he hoped not.

It was Saturday morning and they were supposed to be at the post-service luncheon, but both boys had grown to hate the cold chopped liver and tuna sandwiches that were a staple of these events. Jett often wondered if there was a secret Jewish Food Emporium where all the old ladies shopped, the aisles stocked to the ceiling with stale thumb-print cookies and cheese sliced to the size of business cards.

“Roni, Roni, Roni,” Andy said, and licked his lips. “My boy Jett’s gonna eat him some Roni. Mac-a-Roni. Rice-a-Roni. A San Francisco treat, am I right?”

Jett stubbed out his cigarette. “We’ll see,” he said. “I’m going to her house tonight so I can help her with her English paper. She’s a terrible writer.”

“To be fair, the girl can barely speak English.”

Roni was Israeli, which added to her sex appeal. She had dark skin. Dark hair. Dark eyes. There was a rumor that she routinely had phone sex with a paratrooper in the IDF.

Andy let a spiral of smoke out through his lips. “How are you gonna ask her?”

“You don’t ask a girl to have sex. You just make the moves and it happens. It’s about timing. And finesse.”

“I don’t know,” Andy said. “I think you’re supposed to ask. Have them sign a waiver or something.”

“What do you know? You wouldn’t know a vagina if one fell into your lap.”

“At least I’ve been to second base. And where are you, Mr. Suave?” Andy made a visor with his hand, as if looking off into the distance. “Is that you out there, all the way on first? I think it is! And what are you up to out there? Is that your hand down your pants? It is!”

Jett was ready to knock the cigarette from Andy’s mouth when Mrs. Kaczynski, their former Sunday school teacher, did it for him. “Cigarettes!” she said, standing before them, her bell-shaped frame erasing the sun. “And in the house of God!”

“Technically we’re outside the house of God,” Jett said. Where had she even come from? Perhaps God had dropped her from the sky.

Mrs. Kaczynski frowned. “I’m telling your mothers,” she said, and then allowed, for the briefest moment, an apologetic smile. “Your father,” she corrected herself. “I’m sorry, Jett, but I’ll have to tell your father.”