He seems like a nice guy, I said. Really, he didn’t seem that nice. But I just wanted to keep talking to her. She was like the rising rowdy moment of a party just before the cops arrive and send everyone home. I always liked girls who looked like they could lose control. Around them, I felt, at last, that there was something in the world I wanted to learn.

He thinks you look like Anne of Green Gables. The freckles, the red hair. Men love that shit.

I lay down and pressed my cheek into the cold floor. There was mold in the cracks, green like silt at the bottom of the sea.

She sat down beside me, the pink bottle pressed between her thighs. I wanted to touch her fur because it looked so soft and comfortable, and everything else in the diner, the tiles, the mirror, the stolen glass, all seemed so hard and cold.

She poured some Love’s Baby Soft into her hands and then dabbed the pink water between her breasts. Under the fur coat, she wore nothing, not even a bra.

Man, men love this shit, she said.

I wished she’d stop saying man.

You should come party with me and John. We’re gonna go party at the fucking King’s Hotel.

I felt warm; it wasn’t the fever, though.

Come on, man, she begged, but not the way Stanley and Braun had begged, as if they expected something I could never give. Her pleading was really a promise. I promise you’ll have fun.

What else are you gonna do? she asked me. Hang out with Braun? She spat on the tile.

You know Braun?

Sure, I know Braun. Personally, I think the guy’s running a one-man jerk-off operation. But who asked me, right? He gets all the wannabe high school chicks going up to his “studio.” Maybe they end up in Seventeen, like he says. I couldn’t tell ya, man, ’cause I do not give a flying fuck about little girls and their cutesy magazines.

Do you know Justine? I asked nonchalantly, pretending I really didn’t care one way or another. But my heartbeat was like a punch under my breast when I said her name.

Sure. Who doesn’t know Justine? The girl is fucking insane, man. Did you hear about how she—oh fuck, I’m so thirsty.

She raised the bottle of Love’s Baby Soft to her lips.

Do you dare me to drink this? Come on, dare me, man.

Isn’t it poisonous?

It’s perfume! Hey, if I drink this entire bottle, will you come and hang out with me at the King’s?

She didn’t wait for my answer; she raised the bottle of sweet perfume to her lips. She swallowed, and then she drank some more.

The sailor knocked on the door. China! he yelled.