“He want to make it so I go away, then he take down the building and make condos or something.”

She was probably right, so I didn’t do anything but commiserate. I finally managed to steer the conversation to Mrs. Aguilar’s third-favorite topic, Celine’s education. I asked if she had a current yearbook for Vina Fields. Mrs. Aguilar came around in front of the counter and pulled it out from the drawer underneath the cash register.

“Field hockey, I don’t understand this game, but at this school it is important, and Celine is the best.” Celine squirmed and moved with her equations to one of the high tables. When another handful of customers came in I took the yearbook with me to my table, asking for a refill on the soup.

“Don’t get no food on that, Victoria,” Mrs. Aguilar admonished me, as she ducked underneath the countertop and returned to her skillets.

I started going through the class pictures, seniors first. So many freshfaced, self-confident girls, so many with long dark hair and arrogant poise. I stopped at each such face, trying to match it to last night’s phantom. I didn’t think it had been Alex Dewhurst, favorite sport, showing horses, favorite singers, ‘NSYNC, or Rebecca Caudwell, who loved figure skating and wanted to become an attorney, although both were possible.

“What are you looking for?”

I’d been so absorbed I didn’t notice Celine shutting down the till and coming to stand next to me. Senora Aguilar was scrubbing down her counters. Time to pack up.

“I ran into one of your classmates when I was on a job last night. She dropped something valuable, but I don’t know her name.”

“What does she look like?”

“Long dark braid, kind of narrow face.”

Celine offered to take the found item with her to school and post a notice on their in-house WebBoard, but I told her the girl probably wouldn’t want the circumstances of her loss publicized. When I finished the seniors and moved on to the juniors, I saw my Juliet almost at once. Her eyes were serious despite the half smile the photographer had coaxed from her, and tendrils from her French braid were spiraling around her soft cheeks, as if she’d been too impatient to comb her hair just for a picture. Catherine Bayard, who loved Sarah McLachlan’s music, whose favorite sport was lacrosse and who hoped to be a journalist when she grew up. She probably would be: Bayard and publishing, the two words go together in Chicago like Capone and crime.

I didn’t linger on Catherine’s face-I didn’t want Celine alerting her at school the next day. Instead, I shrugged as if giving up the search as a bad job. Celine eyed me narrowly. Girls who work advanced calculus problems find adults like me tiresomely easy to solve. She knew I’d spotted someone, but maybe she couldn’t tell who it was.

Before giving the book back, I looked at the faculty section. The director was a woman named Wendy Milford, who had the strong expression principals put on to make you think their young charges don’t terrify them.