Kim rubbed her waxy fingers on Heidi’s shoulder. “Or we could just hang out, you and me. Like walk around the Common. Find a hot dog stand.”

Heidi took a breath. “Let’s check this place out. Since we’re here.”

Inside, a blue-haired girl worked the counter, jelly bracelets bouncing as she foamed milk. Men sat on stools, or they might’ve been stone butches, which Kim had once described as lesbians with off-limits boobs.

“Where’s Lisa?” Heidi whispered.

“How am I supposed to know?” Kim twitched like a squirrel.

“Fix your hair.” A gob of ChapStick had lodged in Kim’s bangs. She scraped at it distractedly. “Are you even ready?”

“Doy,” Kim said, her voice a ghost.

Each step downstairs was danker than the last, the air cold and dense and mildewed. The basement was split into chambers by wall hangings and strings of lights tossed over pipes. The walls were padded with animal-patterned rugs, screen-printed sheets softening the surfaces: desert landscapes, clouds piled over ponds, geese arranged in formal units in the sky. A group of women huddled together, older than the high schoolers who smoked on Ledgelawn and younger than the parents whisking by in wood-paneled minivans. The age of no one in the suburbs. The smallest one had rolled her hair into twigs. Another wore a bandanna and overalls, feathers dripping from her earlobes. One had balls studded along the curl of her ear, like a wolf tagged for research. Heidi’s favorite was a large woman—older than the rest—with bleary cow eyes and a silk shirt that reached her knees, peacocks glittering from the billowing fabric. Her hands tickled her thighs like nervous spiders. She looked like she’d pull a runaway in from the cold or stroke a stray. Unlike Heidi’s father, who was too afraid of fleas to help anyone.

The woman watched Heidi, cheeks brightening. “Kim?”

“Lisa?” Lisa Parsons was at least twenty-five. But she didn’t look repulsed by the girls at the threshold, not even by Heidi’s puffy coat, sagging jeans, and gum boots. In fact, she seemed to prefer Heidi, carefully scanning her over.

Lisa Parsons stood up on tiny feet. “I didn’t expect you to be two.”

“I’m not Kim.” Heidi turned to Kim, rolling her hand in signal for her to begin her seduction. Kim just stood there, feet planted in the carpet.

“Ah.” Lisa Parsons turned to the real Kim. “Nice to meet you, Kim. I’ve enjoyed our chats.”

“Yeah.” Kim teetered where she stood. Why wasn’t she dashing forward to begin the great romance of her life?

Lisa Parsons blushed. “Would you care to meet my friends?” Women from the group watched on, some with lattes pressed to their cheeks, some flashing blocky teeth.

“Fine.” Kim spoke so loudly that Lisa Parsons turned to Heidi, startled.

“And what’s your name?”

“Um, Heidi?”

“Is that German?” a lesbian asked. “Guten Tag, Umheidi.”