“Well,” Mr. Z said, giving her the lifeless stare of a disappointed parent. Dark rings were forming under his eyes. His chore at the shed interrupted, he turned to leave. The red backpack seemed to weigh down his arm even more than before.

“Workshop is canceled,” he said, in a neutral voice, “indefinitely.”

“What?” Arik turned his wild, bewildered eyes to Rosemary for backup, but got nothing. “Mr. Z! Why are you mad at us? We’re just doing what you told us to do!”

“All good things must come to an end.” Mr. Z said this calmly, and began walking, the dead leaves crackling under his feet. “Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

“Wait! I don’t get it!” Arik was about to cry. He pulled away from Rosemary and took three steps after Mr. Z. “Please! What’s going on?”

He looked back at Rosemary, who watched Mr. Z’s departure with folded arms. She shook her head: “He can be so fucking corny.”

She was finally ready to do it. With a branch cutter she found in the garage, she made a U-shaped tear in her window screen that could be lifted up like a dog door.

There was a shuffling of slippers and the rapping of knuckles at her door.

“Baby, why you lock door?”

“Because I’m not seven years old and I want some privacy, that’s why!”

“Where you put car key?”

“What do you want it for?”

“Give me car key, Rosie.” Mrs. Park continued knocking in her quietly insistent way. Groaning, Rosemary tossed the branch cutter under her bed and closed her curtains.

She opened the door. “Tell me what you’re planning to do with it.”

“Just give me car key.” There was a new hardness in Mrs. Park’s tone.

“Okay, okay.” Rosemary twitched. “It’s in the bathroom cabinet, inside my box of tampons.”

When night fell, she slipped outside to wait for Arik. She found a hidden spot behind the camellia bush and stood there, fending off ants and bugs by repeatedly stamping her feet in a ridiculous goosestep. She should have worn jeans instead of shorts but it was too late.

Finally, a male silhouette materialized, walking up the center of the street. She ran out to greet him.

“Hey!” She waved at him to hurry up, and he obeyed.

When her guest came into view, under the moonlight, Rosemary froze. It wasn’t Arik.

“Well, hello, Ghost,” said the man. He approached her like an old acquaintance, a bemused smile across his face. He wasn’t particularly threatening—he was much too ordinary-looking for that—but his tone of intimacy made her hair stand. “How’s it going tonight, you?”

She didn’t know what to say but common courtesy told her she had to say something. “Fine.”