“Don’t worry.” Tully hung up the phone and went to the door. As the penthouse unit, hers was the only door on this side of the building, so she opened it and stood there, trying to look surprised when Marah stepped out of the elevator.

“Hey, Aunt Tully, I’m sorry to come here so late.”

“This isn’t late. Come on in.” She stood back, let Marah enter the condo first. As always, she was struck by her goddaughter’s remarkable beauty. Like most girls her age, she was too thin, a jangle of points and hollows, but none of that mattered. She was the kind of girl who’d be called coltish until she was thirty; that was when she’d settle into her body like royalty.

Tully went to her. “What happened?”

Marah flopped onto the couch and sighed dramatically. “I got invited to a concert.”

Tully sat beside her. “Uh-huh.”

“At the Tacoma Dome.”

“Uh-huh.”

“On a school night.” Marah gave her a sideways glance. “The boy who asked me is a junior.”

“That’s, what, sixteen, seventeen?”

“Seventeen.”

Tully nodded. “I went to see Wings in the Kingdome when I was about your age. What’s the trauma?”

“My parents think I’m too young.”

“They said no?”

“How lame is that? Everyone gets to do stuff like this except me. My mom won’t even let me drive with boys who have their license. She still picks me up from school every day.”

“Well, sixteen-year-old boys are notoriously bad drivers, and sometimes it’s not . . . safe to be alone with them.” She thought about that night in the woods, all those years ago. “Your mom is just protecting you.”

“But we’ll be in a group.”

“A group. That’s different. Nothing can happen as long as you all stay together.”

“I know. I think she’s worried about their driving.”

“Oh. Well, I could take you guys in a limo.”

“You’d do that?”

“Sure. Solves all the problems. Chaperone. Driver. We’ll have a blast. I’ll make sure no one gets hurt.”

Marah sighed. “It won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Because my mom is a bitch and I hate her.”

That caught Tully off guard, shocked her so much that she couldn’t think of what to say. “Marah—”

“I mean it. She treats me as if I’m a child. She doesn’t respect my privacy. She tries to pick my friends and tell me what I can do. No makeup, no thongs, no belly ring, no staying out after eleven, no tattoos. I can’t wait to get away from her. Believe me, once I graduate, it’s sayonara, Mom. I’m going straight to Hollywood to be a star like you.”