On the map, Chinatown looked like every other neighborhood. They sat on one of the long wooden islands in South Station, Ben holding the tourist map in front of him, Hutch and Evan looking on from either side. It was strange for Ben to be in a place with so many people suddenly, and under the high ceilings of the station it sounded like an aquarium.

“All right, so Teddy said Beach Street, which is here…” Ben ran his finger down the street to show them. They hadn’t realized how close Chinatown was to the station.

“All right. All right, cool,” said Evan. “So like, do we go in all at once or do we each go in one after the other?”

Ben went to answer but Hutch answered first. He thought the store would get more suspicious about the sheer volume of alcohol if the three of them had everything on the counter at once.

Ben said, “I think they’ll catch on by the third fifteen-year-old in a row who comes in to buy five handles of vodka. Let’s just go in and get it done. I mean, we’re college kids buying for a party, right?”

All day they had been checking incessantly to make sure they had their IDs, and now they checked again. Ben had borrowed the ID of a fifth-former in Woodruff, Jamie Mason, and he thought that he actually did look a lot like the picture. They headed out. Just this much farther south the air contained the clammy hopes of spring now.

Right away they saw the concrete gate to Chinatown with the green pagoda roof. They passed under the arch and saw nests of signs in Chinese on every building all the way down Beach. Ben wished the sidewalks were full enough to conceal them. They passed a couple neon restaurants, but then there was a Subway, too, and Chinatown seemed not all that different from the rest of the city.

Almost immediately they were at the place. Ben had worried that he would be leading the other two around for hours, but now he somehow wished it had been more of a search. A yellow sign with red letters announced PACIFIC LIQUORS, with red Chinese characters underneath that presumably said the same thing. Three boxes of Veuve Clicquot were faded to yellow in the window display, and the glass of the door was clouded with adhesive and paper residue from dozens of stickers attached and removed. They all checked to see if they still had their IDs.