After I brought in my last boxes, I walked home by the path at the base of the hill, behind the yards attached to the handsome houses. Jasper, his parents, and the rest of his sprawling family lived in one, with a huge back garden where I sometimes saw his grandmother or his ancient aunts. A lawn stretched toward the path from the rose bed, sinking damply as it neared the gazebo. From there someone whispered, “Go ahead. Come on.”

Not his elderly relatives but a girl’s voice, a teasing laugh.

Then, “Don’t,” I heard. “Don’t you . . .”

A man, not laughing. Against the gazebo’s back wall, Jasper was entangled with another pair of arms and hands, a swirl of skirts. A bit of white gleamed in the dusky light: a breast, perhaps; the girl’s shirtwaist was all the way open. The heads bent together, stayed together. I backed toward the hill until I was off the path entirely, my boots in the ferns, but I couldn’t make myself move on. The girl was Raney.

Jasper said, “Is that fun for you? To tease me like that?”

“Do what you want,” she said. “You know I’d let you.”

Jasper pulled away a couple of inches, his hands still reaching toward Raney but neither touching her nor resting at his own sides. Just—stuck there, stupidly. “I’d marry you, if you wanted,” he said.

The noise I made then was covered by Raney’s scornful laugh. “As if I’d ever live in this ridiculous place—I want to leave Rochester for someplace larger, not smaller. I come because it’s a change from home. And because my father’s too busy when he’s here to notice what I do. Anyway”—she flicked at one of Jasper’s frozen hands—“can’t you just have some fun? Enjoy what we have?”

“What makes you think I’m staying here?” he said. “Maybe I want to go someplace larger.”

“You won’t,” she said.

“I will,” he insisted.

“We’ll see. But for now, let’s just . . .” She moved toward him again, pressing her whole length against him so urgently that I flushed.

“Stop it,” Jasper said.

“Why?” Without meaning to, I’d inched closer and I had to catch myself. “It’s not like you’re the only one.”

“I know.” His voice caught. “Although I was hoping you might take me a little more seriously, and that maybe I could be the only one. I’m not interested in being part of the crowd you flirt with.”

I bolted then, feeling too much like Jasper; I wanted to be the only one so badly I was sick. When Raney had first plucked me from the dock, I’d thought that meant I was special. Even if only specially good at helping her get what she wanted.