The boy checked his watch, made a noise like, ‘Oh, no!’ He had to go. He slung his backpack onto his arm, kissed the girl again, kissed her several times more, and then jogged to the exit with a wave. He disappeared into the parking lot. The girl was on her own, missing him already. Maybe it would last, and maybe it wouldn’t. It would be a summer romance, or, like her and Jonny, it would be a lifetime thing.

Cindy wondered what the girl’s name was, and almost on cue, another teenager shouted and waved. ‘Hey, Laura!’

Laura. Her own sister’s name. There were always little twists of fate like that.

Laura, the girl in the mall, had golden brown hair with bangs. The shape of her eyes made Cindy think that the girl had Asian blood in her. She wore a white T-shirt, which slid off one scrawny shoulder. Her lipstick was pale and pink. She twisted a cheap ring around one finger, and Cindy figured that the boy had given it to her. Laura pulled a book from her purse and began reading. One of the Harry Potter series. That was the craze. Laura popped gum in her mouth as she read, chewed, blew a bubble, popped it. When she saw Cindy watching her, she gave her a big, bright smile, and Cindy smiled back.

You saw people, and then you never saw them again. Have a nice life, Laura.

Watching the young girl, Cindy finally decided she’d been putting something off for too long. She grabbed her phone and dialed and held a hand over her ear. Steve Garske was her doctor, and she expected to get his nurse, but she got the man himself. Steve and Jonny were old friends. Tall, gangly, sweet, heck of a guitar player. His clinic was small, and if no one was around, he answered his own phone.

‘Appointment time, Steve,’ Cindy said.

‘You want me to figure out my own calendar system?’ Steve asked in dismay. ‘Okay, hang on. How about next week? Thursday?’

‘Perfect.’ She wrote down the date and time and felt better.

Then Steve said: ‘Everything okay?’

If everything was okay, you answered right away, and when she didn’t, his voice slid down an octave. ‘Cin?’

‘I – I don’t know.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Well, there’s pain sometimes.’ She lowered her voice and cupped a hand in front of her mouth. ‘Sharp pain between my legs. I’ve been nauseated, too. Throwing up.’

‘When did this start?’

‘Winter.’

She expected the lecture. You’re only calling me now? You let this go on and did nothing? He didn’t need to chastise her, because she’d said all those things to herself. ‘Well, I’ll see you in a few days,’ he told her. ‘We’ll check it out.’

‘Thanks. Nothing to Jonny about this, right?’

‘Of course.’