“If I had a car,” she says, “I could get a job. I could get hired to teach down at Monique’s. She knows I’m good with the kids. It takes money to get a car, and it takes a car to get money. And I don’t have either one. Nice, huh? And I’m almost eighteen.”

“You could come with me to Maine,” I offer.

“But I need money.” She stands up on the Helmers and starts swaying to her inner orchestra. “Some dancers make great money,” she says. “They work at night. Mike says he knows people in the business.”

“Mike,” I say, investing the word with as much disgust as one syllable can contain. I shake my head and turn my back to her. While she stretches and lunges, Grimshaw keeps talking about the great outfits strippers get to wear.

“My brother Wayne’s fiancée, Gloria, used to be an exotic dancer at this club in Florida,” she rattles. “She doesn’t do it anymore since she gained all that weight, but she kept the clothes.” I roll my eyes and shake my head. Wayne and Gloria. Wayne has a part-time job unloading trucks at a grocery store. They live in the trailer park, and they’re always trying to fall down the stairs so they can sue somebody. Grimshaw finishes warming up. She gets down from the Helmers and sits next to me. She’s taken the Harley shirt off. She’s wearing her bra and a pair of bike shorts.

“Do you ever have this … feeling?” she asks. “Like, you have this feeling you’re going to die young?”

“Not exactly. I try to look into my future, but there’s always a manhole cover in the way.”

“It’s just that—” She picks at the hem of her shorts. “I don’t know—I can’t see myself like Gloria, doing that.”

“That’s good.”

“Or any of the others, either. Lisa or anybody, with kids and a job and stuff. But I can’t see myself doing anything else, either, far away from here. That’s why I always figure I’ll be dead.”

“I think there are other options than Colchis or death.”

She executes a backbend on Mr. Sprague’s bench. She is so flexible that her hands and feet almost touch. Then she runs through splits and then she wants me to spot her up on the Helmers again, while she jumps, so I stand up. Spotting her is just a formality: she lands every jump like a sparrow landing on a twig. Standing up on the Helmers, you can look down into the Valley and see the smokestacks and the steeples of Colchis.

“I think it’s your fault, actually.” She stops to catch her breath. “Not that I blame you.”

“Go ahead. I’m getting used to having everything blamed on me.”