“What’s up with Mom and Scot?” I whisper. I turn on the water so my voice won’t echo.

“Nothing,” Allegra says.

“Is Mom on pills or something?” I ask. “She seemed weird today.”

“She just got off them, you idiot.” Allegra drops the toothpaste cap on the floor and bumps her head on the sink standing up. “She went on them after that fiasco you perpetrated last summer.”

The three of us go to bed. Allegra’s in the middle. “Turn out the light,” she says. I turn out the light. “And don’t talk anymore.”

“You don’t think Scot’s having an affair?” I ask into the darkness.

Allegra rolls over with her back to me. “Serena, go to sleep. Just because your life is a melodrama doesn’t mean everybody’s is.”

“What about Nanci Lee?” I ask.

“What about her? She lives with that cop. Now shut up.”

“What cop?”

“The one that fixes Mom’s speeding tickets all the time. The weight lifter.”

“Oh.” I think about the time I surprised Scot in the Crossways Tavern, and how he seemed much more relaxed with Nanci Lee than he’s ever seemed here. I have an image in my mind of the two of them, how they fit together comfortably on the bar stools, reading the paper. Maybe some people just fit together—their broken edges fit together and make them whole again—like Bo and I did for just one night. The fact that Mom and Scot don’t fit together probably matters more than any affair he might be having.

“Scot sold another lot,” she says. “So he works during the day and does contracting at night. He’s not having an affair. He’s too busy.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“I thought they were having an affair,” I tell her. “I better rewrite that part of my upward mobility notebook.”

“Your what notebook?” Robyn asks.

“I keep a notebook for Western Civ, as part of an independent study, and it sort of turned into a lot of other things. It made the trip to Los Angeles with me.”

“That sounds interesting.”

I turn on the light again, zip open my backpack, find my notebook, and give it to her. She leafs through it, reading parts, and for some reason none of this bothers me.

“Very picaresque.” Allegra puts the pillow over her head. “Who’s—” Robyn turns the notebook upside down. “William John Pabo?”

“Who?”

Allegra sits up and snatches it away from her. “From Beaumont, Texas?” she reads.

I take the notebook from them. On the back inside cover, in Grimshaw’s handwriting, is the name and address of William John Pabo, from Beaumont, Texas, complete with zip code and telephone number. I put my face in my hands.

“So who is he? William John Pabo?” Allegra smiles. “Tell.”

I tell them the rest of the story. To get from Boomtown through New Jersey all the way back to Colchis takes until three in the morning.

“So,” Robyn says when I’m more or less done. “That’s Bo’s leather coat, then.”