“Scot says Mike is wanted in about twenty-five states. Did you know that?”

“He hasn’t even been in twenty-five states.”

“He acts like he’s been everywhere.”

“I’ll be a dancer there. You know I can dance.”

“Believe me, I know you can dance. That’s not the point.”

“What do you want me to do, Serena, stay in the Valley and be a Grimshaw for the rest of my life?”

“What are you going to be if you don’t even graduate from high school?”

“What am I going to be if I do?” she counters. “It’s not like you graduate from high school and suddenly all these opportunities start flying at you. At least not for me. Be serious. Anyway, he’s going to pick me up here. I told him I wasn’t going to go without saying good-bye to you.”

I just sit there and smoke like I hardly even hear what she’s saying. “You’re headed in the wrong direction,” I inform her. “I thought you wanted New York.”

“I do, but … everyone’s gotta start somewhere—” She keeps talking, but at that moment all the buses let out their air brakes and the noise drowns out what she says. All I get is the last part.

“—and you’ll be going to college,” is all I hear.

I don’t wait for the Corvette. He won. I grind out my cigarette and get on the bus.

With Grimshaw gone for real, my life shrinks still further, which is fine: without Grimshaw, I have even less in common with Rack or Angel, or anyone else, except maybe for Mr. C. He’s not letting me give up on my upward mobility project, he says. He assigns me people to talk to, and I get good at listening and asking questions and writing down what they say. I even get a tour of the Arms, which is vast and silent and amazing and depressing at the same time. Kids have already started to break the windows. I go in after school and tell Mr. C. the stories, and he gets excited, and we have arguments about upward mobility and capitalism and if there’s any hope for the Valley now that there’s no industry.