“I don’t know,” Desiree said, offhand, aiming her chin to her window as if she had nothing to say. But then she laughed at the wind and said, “I just treat them like adults. They’re funny, the shit they say.” She turned her shoulders toward me, suddenly amused and energized by a thought, her voice like a steamroller with no plans of slowing. “Like I could be working at a grocery store and hear the ladies talk weather and wrinkles, and customers complaining that I ripped their magazine. Or, for the same crummy wage I could throw kids around in the pool and teach them how to swim and hear the crazy shit they say about how they have a boy dog and you know it’s a boy dog because you can see its wee-wee or they hate their sister because she picks her nose and wipes it on the wall by the toilet.”

At the light there was a Mobil gas station and a KinderCare. The daycare building was dark, but a light on in the back shined on a concrete slab with empty red tricycles and illuminated the chain-link fence in the backyard. The third corner at the intersection was under construction. A backhoe stood abandoned next to a pile of dirt.

She pointed and I turned left onto Crane Road, a two-way street, much darker than the last. More woods lining the road, the smell of pine and cypress in the air. The car behind me turned left as well.

Her words kept coming, rough like a roller coaster going up and down a wooden track. “And they tell you they can’t put their head under, but you tell them, you can do it, really, I’m gonna push your head under for five seconds. Then you just do it, you just fucking push them under, and they let you because you’re the grown-up. When you let their head out of the water, they’re so happy they did it. It’s nuts.” She put one of her sneakers on my dashboard.

“But if I had to take one home with me,” she said. “Man, that’s another story. I would hate the kid. I mean I don’t want them to die.” As if this was something to brag about. “But you know that one guy, cute guy, young, washboard abs, orange trunks, his name’s Matt or Mac and he wants you to feel sorry for him because he’s got a baby and a toddler.”

Even as I found her thoughts disquieting, her reckless honesty drew me in. She was a stunning turquoise rainforest frog, and even though she was poisonous, I wanted a closer look. I wanted to touch her skin.