In the car on the way home, Antonia tells Sofia, like she is bursting with it, that she found her way to each of her classes without being late for any of them. That she didn’t trip or rip her dress or drop her books in the hall; that she got her locker open on the first try. Antonia tells Sofia about the library, where there are thousands, “Thousands, Sof,” of books stacked high on metal shelves that anyone, “Anyone!” can read. The freedom of settling in to a chair and realizing no one is looking at her. On Antonia’s first day of high school, she was anonymous, and she was filled with hope that there was a place for her in the world after all.

Antonia does not tell Sofia that she spent her lunch in that library, skipping the cafeteria hubbub in exchange for a growling stomach and a stack of books, Austen and Whitman. That she started like a frightened deer every time anyone said her name.

And Sofia does not tell Antonia that she missed her. In her recounting of the day there is only dark lipstick and smooth stockings. The admiring glance of a senior boy. The bulletproof armor of a group of girls laughing.

—

On Sunday after her first week of high school it occurs to Sofia that she should not have to go to church if she does not want to, and like a flashbulb has blinded her she cannot see anything else. When she tells her parents this over breakfast, her mother crosses herself and Sofia says, “You’re just being dramatic, Mamma,” and Frankie opens her mouth in a sharp little oh. Her father does not even respond until Sofia says, “Did you hear me, Papa, I said I am not going,” and then he raises one eyebrow and looks at her, his gaze inscrutable, and says, “Eat your breakfast.”

Sofia does not know it, but when her father is working and wants to remind someone a debt is owed, he calls and asks to take them out to lunch and does not mention the debt even once. Joey, like his daughter, has a little murky blood running through his veins—he relishes the nervous squirm of his indebted lunch dates. The terrified other man—a restaurateur, the owner of a downtown cinema, the manager at a bar—usually vacillates between a tentative, airy calm and an almost palpable panic. I swear, it’s coming, they say. Please, I just need a little more time. Joey finishes his food. He asks about the other man’s wife and children. He mentions their names. He smiles. He walks his lunch companion home, and says, I’ll see you soon.