Yes, even now.

That night, we didn’t meet, for the Feeling or otherwise. I lay in bed, whispering the bird visualization to myself, over and over again, so I would remember it. (Another man, another mantra.) I had learned something; I told myself that was all that had happened. Before I fell asleep, I thought I heard Janet slip out into the darkness on her own. By the morning, I had forgotten, and it wasn’t until the next night, when we were hiking up to the rock palm together, that I even thought to wonder where she had gone.

But I soon stopped wondering, or even thinking about Janet, because as we hiked, Laurel entertained us with a running stream of what she called Important Information about the other girls at the Center. Harriet, she told us, had failed the eighth grade; she was older than us. Paola’s mother was in jail. Samantha had been in love with her cousin for years, and kept a photo of him under her pillow. We could look for ourselves if we didn’t believe her, it might as well be a picture of Samantha herself with short hair, so egotistical. Margaret was once so desperate for sex that she let her dog lick her between the legs. “And no one knows anything about Jamie,” Laurel said, “except that apparently she has a phobia of changing in front of other people. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s covered in scales.”

When I asked her how she knew all of this, it was Janet who answered. “Laurel knows everything about everybody,” she said. “She’s like an idiot savant for secrets.”

“I simply happen to have an excellent memory,” Laurel said. “Unlike some people whose names I could mention.” She tilted her head. “Janet’s basically a goldfish.”

“Why would I bother to remember someone’s sordid past or complex series of illicit lovers or gross thing with their dog if I know you’re going to do it for me?”

“What I’m hearing right now is that you can’t live without me,” Laurel said.

“It’s really much too early in the summer for suicide pacts,” Janet said.

I didn’t think so, I wanted to tell them. I was ready for a pact. But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to give myself away.

On the rock palm, Serena produced a small bottle of whiskey and four plastic cups. I never knew where she got any of this stuff—the cups, the whiskey, the Jordan almonds—but needless to say, it only enhanced her magic. “We are what we think,” she said again, standing above us where we sat on the blanket, rickety chairs eschewed. (The chairs were only for daytime, I’d been told. Another one of their rules, equal parts arbitrary and strict. Theme and ritual and symbol.)