“Hold this,” she said, in a voice that was mossy and damp. Before Heidi agreed, Lisa Parsons’s hand crossed over Heidi’s crotch and dug under the waist of her loose jeans, fingers worming below the elastic of Heidi’s underwear, into the cotton crotch, pushing through the few lonely curls of her pubic hair. The feeling was like a tickle but worse, too much, but good. A deep laugh backed up in Heidi’s chest.

Across the room, Kim yelped. Lisa Parsons’s hand ripped away. Heidi’s body seized with panic: she’d been caught. But Kim wasn’t watching Heidi and Lisa Parsons. She was only staring at her stupid watch.

“My mom’s coming home in twenty minutes.”

Heidi barely had time for relief before she was flooded with annoyance. “Since when does your mom care about curfew?”

“We have to go.” Kim jumped up.

Heidi longed to push Kim to the floor. Her crotch was still warm and soft from Lisa Parsons’s hand, and Heidi needed those fingers back in her underwear, wriggling like slow, gentle worms. Kim could shut up.

“I’ll drive you,” Lisa Parsons said.

“All the way to the suburbs?” Heidi asked.

The women laughed. Twig Hair made an “ooh” like a ghost. Kim picked up on it, trilled at Heidi, “Ooh, the suburbs.” Heidi wanted to scream.

At the car, a compact, rickety model with a toy strawberry on the antenna, Lisa Parsons collapsed the front seat and waited for someone to climb in back. Kim didn’t move, so Heidi crawled in like a dog, her butt raised in their faces. She swept aside crushed chip bags and CDs so scratched they weren’t even shiny.

They drove between lit-up buildings, over the Charles and into Cambridge. Kim and Lisa Parsons chattered about topics Heidi didn’t follow, referencing stories they’d swapped in their weeks of IMing. Now that Kim had shed her shyness, she had more to say to Lisa Parsons than Heidi ever would have, all those hours of raw material, intimacies ready to bloom. Lisa Parsons discussed her cat, who Kim called Noodle like he was a personal friend. Lisa Parsons fretted over Nancy’s DUI.

“You should tell her how upset you are,” Lisa Parsons said. “She thinks you’re strong.”

Kim picked at the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I wish I had at least one dad.”

Lisa Parsons shook her head with pity. No one included Heidi in the conversation, though she’d spent hours talking through the DUI with Kim, holding her while she cried, arranging rides for Kim when Nancy’s license was suspended.