But I couldn’t leave China in a room where men knocked on her door, never knowing, never caring, never asking about the maps she drew and saved. Call her what you want. Hooker, whore, slut, tease. She was the first girl to befriend me, and I would have done anything for her.

I had to Do It now. Lose the necessary innocence. And what good was it anyway? It was just like a library card or a set of spare keys, something small you lose and then realize you never really used. In the last five minutes before Lee Majors arrived, I envisioned innocence as a small trinket falling out of the King’s Hotel and down onto the rainswept streets.

When I went back out, China was crouching on the floor smoking a cigarette, knees pressed against her naked breasts.

Hey, she screamed, so excitedly, as if I’d just entered the room for the first time.

Man, I said, lifting higher my wild mane, I’m a good kisser, man.

She smiled a little wickedly. That’ll come in handy, she said. And then Lee Majors knocked on the door and I was the one who let him in.

THE SCHOOL FOR MAPS

THE Six Million Dollar Man turned out to be a dead ringer for my science teacher, Mr. Klein. Just last week, Mr. Klein told me I was wasting my potential dating a dumbass like Dean Black. Imagine what he’d think of me now. I’m sure he’d be disgusted, but Everly, she’d be proud. My mother idolized Patty Hearst. She kept Patty’s photo on her mirror. The rebel heiress, the brainwashed hostage.

Yeah, Everly would be proud of me now.

Mr. Klein’s twin brother sat nervously on the edge of the bed. His hair was orange and thinning; he wore wire-rimmed glasses; he crossed a leg over his knee. Like Mr. Klein, he was awkward, as if he’d never quite believed the length of his own overgrown body. Why would he want to be here? China, staggering around in her white sports socks, holding up two fingers in the headbanger’s victory sign and looking like she might pass out at any moment. Me, standing near the bathroom door with my arms folded across my chest, glaring at him.

Well, hello, Tahiti, he said.

I didn’t even know who he was talking about at first.

He had that fake way of laughing, like a lot of forty-year-old men. I guess they can’t laugh naturally anymore so they just speak some words which vaguely resemble laughter. It drives me crazy, especially when they do it nervously, which is what he did when he looked at me. Well, hello, he said, har-har-har.

This is Fresno, China said, putting her arm around me.

I haven’t seen you before, he said. He looked at me again, suspiciously, I suppose.