“I don’t have to watch it, though.”

My Cheez Whiz had, sadly, not arrived. I offered to make Jazza some tea instead, but she didn’t want any. She planted herself on her bed and started refolding her laundry. We had a service at Wexford where they came once a week and took away our laundry bags, and when we returned in the afternoon, we’d find them outside our door, our clothes clean and folded. But Jazza always shook out her things and refolded them in her special way. I sat on my own bed and took out my computer, but before I could even open it, my phone rang. It was Jerome. I’d recently given him my number in art history so that we could meet up to work on a project. This was the only time he’d ever called.

“You guys should come over,” he said as soon as I answered. He sounded very excited.

“Over where?”

“Aldshot. Where else? We can go on the roof.”

“What?”

“Come on,” he said. “It’s all kicking off. We can get an amazing view from the roof. I know how to get up there.”

“You’re insane,” I said.

“Who is it?” Jazza asked.

I cupped my hand over the phone.

“It’s Jerome. He wants us to go over to Aldshot. To the roof.”

“Then you’re right,” she replied. “He is insane.”

“Jazza says you’re—”

“I heard her. But I’m not insane. Leave Hawthorne the back way and cut around to the back of Aldshot. No one is going to catch you. Everyone’s been checked in for the night.”

I repeated the message. Jazza glanced over from her folding. Her expression conveyed the idea that she still wasn’t very impressed with the suggestion.

“Say this,” Jerome said. “Say these exact words. Say ‘she’d never think you had the guts to do it, which is why you should.’”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Just say it.”

I repeated the message exactly as he said it. The words had a strange, almost magical effect. Jazza seemed to lift up off the bed a bit, her eyes aglow.

“Have to go for a moment,” Jerome said. “Text me when you’re coming. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. We’ll be able to see everything from up there, and no one will know, I promise.”

He hung up. Jazza was still suspended there, half sitting and half standing on the edge of the bed.

“What kind of voodoo was that?” I asked. “What did that mean?”

“He means,” Jazza said, “that Charlotte would never suspect I had the guts to use the exit.”

“The exit?”