Vera threw her clothes on, shivering in the air that coasted in the window. She hurried. Not because of the sound. Her parents were almost deaf from working in the East Saint Paul factories. The endearments shared by most couples who had seen the worst and stuck together, usually soft, feathered words, were shouted gruffly between her parents. Their love talk sounded more like argument than testament of affection. However, her father felt the slightest draft, in any season, and the thought that a door or window was letting out the heat, releasing the small precious wages they earned, sent him stumbling around the house to find the breached dike. Vera hurried into the pants and shirt and tossed her shoes and windbreaker out the window. She didn’t pause to wonder or ask what they were doing or where they were going. The few short months she’d been with Lester had conditioned her to be ready for anything, any sort of contrived adventure. She half-expected to see a circus camped on Broadway as she straddled the sill, swung her other leg out and dropped down on the dew-soaked grass. She stooped to grab her shoes and jacket, tucked a wisplet of hair behind her ear, and looked for Simon and Lester. It was late May, the azaleas and potentilla had plumped out and it wasn’t until she saw a wreath of smoke rising from behind the honeysuckle that she knew where they were.

“Where we going?” she asked as she took Lester’s cigarette.

“Downtown,” said Simon.

“What for?”

Simon rolled his eyes. “For a class trip.”

He bent down and lifted a black nylon duffel by the strap. They walked in silence until they hit Lyndale, an aging grandparent next to the emerging freeway, just then under construction. The traffic thickened and they shouted over the rumble of semis and delivery trucks. Simon reached into the duffel and pulled out a bottle of Thunderbird and passed it to Lester.

“You want me to drink this?”

“I don’t notice you payin for it,” said Simon with a shrug.

“Good point. Guess this’ll be a real Indian party. With one Pilgrim,” he said, nudging Vera.

“Very funny.”

She took the bottle and drank, a little too nonchalantly.

Simon and Lester raised their eyebrows at each other but said nothing.

“So where we going?” she repeated, wiping her lips on her sleeve.

“Told you already. Class trip, to the highest point in Minneapolis. We’re going up.”

“Where’s that?”

“Wait and see.”

They kept on Lyndale to avoid the small curving streets north of Hennepin. When they neared Loring Park, Simon stashed the bottle back in the duffel after he and Lester had another long drink.

“Jesus. Slow down. The two of you got to have the longest legs I ever seen.”