Dad had finally sold the warehouse in Newark and now spent his days marveling at what most people had been doing for years: Myron, have you been to a Staples? My God, they have every kind of pen and paper there. And the price clubs. Don't even get me started. I bought eighteen screwdrivers for less than ten dollars. We go, we buy so much stuff, I always tell the man at the checkout counter, I say oh, he laughs at this, Myron I always say, 'I just saved so much money, I'm going bankrupt.' Myron cast a glance at Aimee. He remembered his own teenage years, the war that is adolescence, and thought about how many times he'd deceived his own parents. He'd been a good kid. He never got in trouble, got good grades, was lofted high because of his basketball skills, but he'd hidden stuff from his parents. All kids do. Maybe it was healthy. The kids who are watched all the time, who are under constant parental surveillance those were the ones who eventually freaked out. You need an outlet. You have to leave kids room to rebel. If not, the pressure just builds until... Take that exit over there, Aimee said. Linwood Avenue West . He did as she asked. Myron did not really know this area. New Jersey is a series of hamlets. You only knew yours well. He was an Essex County boy. This was Bergen. He felt out of his element. When they stopped at a traffic light he sighed and leaned back, and used the move to take a good hard look at Aimee . She looked young and scared and helpless. Myron thought about that last one for a moment. Helpless. She turned and met his eyes, and there was a challenge there. Was helpless a fair assessment? Stupid as it might be to think about it, how much of a role was sexism playing here? Play the chauvinism card for a moment. If Aimee was a guy, a big high school football jock, for example, would he be this worried?The truth was, he was indeed treating her differently because she was a girl . Was that right or was he getting mired in some politically correct nonsense?Take the next right, then a left at the end of the road . He did. Soon they were deep in the tangle of houses. Ridgewood was an old albeit large village tree-lined streets, Victorians, curvy roads, hills and valleys. Jersey geography. The suburbs were puzzle pieces, interconnected, parts jammed into other parts, few smooth boundaries or right angles . She led him up a steep road, down another, a left, then a right, then another right. Myron obeyed on autopilot, his thoughts elsewhere. His mind tried to conjure up the right words to say. Aimee had been crying earlier tonight he was sure of that. She looked somewhat traumatized, but at her age, isn't everything a trauma? She probably had a fight with her boyfriend, the basement-mentioned Randy.