Alice stayed hunched behind the camera, now remembering the spring before, when she had seen Joanna Alpert walking from the quad toward the Schoolhouse by herself. Alice had to do it.

“Hey, Joanna?”

They were a little too far away from each other; Alice had to raise her voice as Joanna headed down the slope toward the Den. Joanna turned around and didn’t show any recognition as Alice half jogged the distance between them. Joanna was wearing a tan shaggy Patagonia fleece, tight blue thin-wale corduroys, and dark-brown clogs, and somehow it all looked sophisticated on her.

Alice knew it was just as hard for pretty girls.

“Hey, I’m Alice.”

Joanna nodded, but Alice couldn’t tell whether Joanna already knew who she was. They turned to keep walking toward the Schoolhouse together, and Joanna didn’t ask Alice what was up or what was going on. Joanna’s hair wasn’t blond, as Alice had remembered it, but rather very light brown.

“What are you up to?” Alice asked.

“Going to yearbook.”

“Ah ha.”

They kept walking, and Alice knew she had to bring it up now so that they wouldn’t get to the Schoolhouse before they were done talking.

“So listen,” Alice said. “Your mom.”

“Yeah.”

“Um, I heard that—I’m not sure where I heard it—but, she’s a surgeon, right? Like a plastic surgeon?”

Joanna kept looking straight ahead. “Yeah, she is.”

“And so, do you know a lot about the stuff she does? Like, what her work is?”

“You know. She does stuff a plastic surgeon does.”

Alice resummoned her persistence.

“Right, but does she like specialize in, I don’t know, doing stuff for people after an accident, or like nose jobs, or whatever? Or do all plastic surgeons do everything? Sorry, I just don’t know anything about this.”

“Oh, totally.” Now it seemed that of course Alice wouldn’t be expected to know the ins and outs of it all and had gone overboard with apologizing. “Yeah, she mostly does reconstructive stuff, nose work. I think she rebuilt someone’s ear after an accident.”

They started climbing the hill, and the roof line of the Schoolhouse appeared through the trees.

“Does she ever do breast reductions?”

Joanna’s posture seemed to soften, and she kept looking forward and down at the path.

“I think so.”

“So, like,”

“…”

“Do you think I might be able to talk to her sometime? Like could I call her at her office?”

“Sure, yeah, I think she could definitely do that.”

They kept walking, and Alice’s neck felt warm with relief. But then she wondered whether Joanna knew that Alice didn’t already have her mother’s phone number.