I could tell Grete was worried because she asked me and Kaja what we wanted for dinner, something she never did. Chinese, I said even though Grete never did takeout, and I was a big fan of her cooking. Thursdays were Nina nights, and I wanted wonton soup so bad that eating over at Kaja’s was actually a letdown. After we’d finished off Grete’s meatballs, my mother still hadn’t come, so Kaja and I got to watch The Flintstones. Next came Donna Reed, and after that My Three Sons, an unprecedented glut of school-night television that eclipsed thoughts of my mother or Nina until the phone rang and Grete turned off the TV and I learned I’d be sleeping over that night—as well as Friday, Saturday, and Sunday—because Nina had been arrested, and my mother had been arrested with her.

NINA PAGANO: The whole thing was just bum luck and lousy timing. Lil had dropped by on her way back from work, so we were rapping at my desk when the two cops came in, a pink one and a jowly one. You’re a little late, I told them, the party was Saturday. Usually the badges crashed my openings around two or three a.m. to shut things down. Anyway Pink said, You the owner? and I nodded, and then Jowly said, You’re under arrest for pandering obscenity and illegal use of a minor.

Well, that just about skinned me. Pandering obscenity and illegal use of a minor? That’s dirty-old-man stuff. So I looked at the two cops, and I asked Jowly to repeat himself, which he did, and then I asked him what the hell he was talking about, which probably wasn’t the best way to phrase it, but at a moment like that the words choose themselves.

Jowly warned me not to get wise with him. He pointed to the pictures of Lil and Sam and said that I was in a family neighborhood selling dirty pictures. Pink grabbed my wrist and started in with the handcuffs. When I demanded to know what he was doing, he said something clever like, Lady what does it look like I’m doing, at which point Lil, all watercress and cucumber sandwiches, suggested there must be some mistake, which inspired Jowly to ask who she was.

You made these? he said when Lil answered, and that was that.