Kevin gave them a salute. “Well, you kids have fun. I expect a full report in the morning. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Yo,” Bryan whispered hoarsely as Kevin shuffled back down the hall toward the movie theaters. “Don’t tell everyone where we are. All right?”

“I won’t have to,” Kevin said over his shoulder. “I’ll just tell one person. Everyone’ll know after that.”

They took the Burger King bags to the back room and had a picnic in the dark, wearing their new clothes. With Kevin gone, the tension between them began to gather again, but now it was tamped down to a simmer. They had lots of time, more than they knew what to do with. It was only nine forty-five.

For a while they talked about work and the degradation of their current jobs. From there the conversation wandered to previous jobs, and then to their childhood dream jobs—backup dancer for Mariah Carey, professional boxer, respectively—until, finally, organically, they came around to the subject of what their parents did for a living.

Kendra knew Bryan’s father was a professional of some kind. She had once seen him from a distance, a hairier, lankier version of Bryan, wearing a tweed coat with elbow patches over a brown turtleneck sweater, a getup that had almost made her laugh out loud. She asked Bryan what he did in those clothes, and Bryan told her he worked for the EPA.

“EPA?” Kendra said. She was not ashamed to admit her ignorance to Bryan. In fact, she was almost glad to. She was happy to give him the opportunity to impress her with his worldly knowledge.

“He’s a consultant,” he said. “He works on water rights, mostly.”

“That’s cool,” she said, although the words didn’t clarify much. Neither consulting nor water rights were ideas connected to anything concrete in her mind.

“It kind of sucks, actually,” Bryan said. “He says he’s going to quit almost every day. But he sticks with it. He never thought he’d work for the government, but he thinks it’s the only way to make a real difference. He’s trying to change the system. You’d be amazed by the waste though. Everything you’ve heard about state workers is true.”