He frowned and shook his head. I squinted at him, as if he were lying to me. This made him shift uncomfortably on his feet. We didn’t say anything else to each other for the rest of the ride.

8

ONE DAY LONNIE SUGGESTED WE TAKE WILLIAM TO THE MET. Lonnie didn’t often suggest outings between the three of us, and I couldn’t read her motivations. I worried she’d begun to feel panicked about leaving William alone with me for some reason, and had the urge to check up, but she gave nothing away. She babbled uncharacteristically in the heat. She was talking about a camp upstate.

“I went every summer for years,” she said. “The whole month of July, and when I returned Dad would take me to the Hamptons until school started again. It still feels a little unnatural for me to be in the city in July. Seems full of tourists.”

She was right. Fifth Avenue was crowded, and I struggled to stay by her side as she pushed William in the stroller, parting a sea of people in sneakers.

I didn’t have to ask any questions; she kept talking. “No boys!” she said. “We had boys in preschool, when we refused to play with them, and then kindergarten started and they all disappeared. It’s a problem, don’t you think? School is supposed to teach you to socialize as much as it’s supposed to teach you math or reading. How are you supposed to learn to socialize with boys? They’re not just for special occasions, they’re a sort of everyday incidence.”

Incidence? Had she selected the wrong word?

“No boys at camp either, not lucky like my friends, but it was somehow more all right—it was just a big sleepover, the counselors hardly older than we were, and actually more interested in rebelling than the younger girls. They taught us how to drink and smoke, they thought it was funny, the little bit of knowledge they had on us, and they’d crack up if one of us coughed or threw up.

“It sounds funny—having to learn something like how to drink, but you do, not just because you have to learn how to recognize the perfect amount before the spins set in, but you have to get used to the taste, so you don’t just spit a shot out. It’s like cough medicine at first. You forget that once you like it. Better not to have boys around for all of that. Better to act like an old hand when one passes you a flask.”

She switched subjects suddenly, randomly. “How’s your love life?” she asked.

I laughed, startled by everything she did. “Not much to talk about there,” I said.

“You don’t have a boyfriend?”

“Not right now.”

“You go on dates though?”