When he said that, I got this sudden urge to poke him with my corkscrew. Only I didn’t have my Swiss Army knife anymore. If I had, I swear I would have corkscrewed the guy. That was a really mean thing to say.

She is not, I said.

Look at her coat, Stanley said. For Christ’s sake.

What was wrong with her coat? It was a white fur coat and I thought it was sophisticated.

Once I saw a movie with a hooker. She was rough-skinned and thirty, always entertaining limousine men in her lacy negligee.

She’s my age, I said loudly.

Calm down, they both said at once. Calm down, calm down, calm down.

But why should I?

Just because a girl skipped school and dressed with style, they thought she was a hooker and tried to stop me from befriending her.

I bet she knew Justine. They probably ran down alleys together, having more fun in five seconds than these two had had in their entire lives. I felt sorry for them. Really, I did.

Sara’s so naive, Braun said.

So naive, Stanley said. It’s cute.

I started to walk away, holding the glass in my hand like a roll of stolen money.

Oh, come on, Braun said, and he grabbed my empty hand, tried to pull me back by his side. But I wrestled out of his grasp and turned without saying good-bye. Fuck them. I hated their guts.

Now I walked straight toward her, doing my best to look unafraid. I was gonna sit down and befriend her. I wasn’t going to fuck up this chance, this time. But by the time I’d reached her, the sailor was caressing her face.

I heard him.

Don’t break, China, he said. Don’t break.

So then I just headed for the bathroom, thinking, I was sixteen and no man had ever touched me that lovingly.

In the bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face. My face was still a lie. Naive, those fools said, though I’m obviously not.

I had just sat down on the tile when suddenly China came bursting in like a bull out of a cage.

Hey, man, she said, like she’d known me all my life. Nice long johns!

She pulled a bottle of Love’s Baby Soft out of her tan leather purse.

You should have seen the way she cradled the bottle. As though it wasn’t some girly pink perfume, but a soft and tender grenade.

Hey, man, she said again, and she wiped her nose. My friend thinks you’re cute.

The sailor?

Yeah, the fucking pongo.

That was what we called the American sailors who parked their boats in our harbor and strutted around our streets as if we asked for their protection.

What’s his name?

His name? I don’t know, man. Joe Blow, John Doe. I don’t know his fucking name.