Becky moves closer to me, either to wait for the wisdom of James, or to warm up.

This is it, he says, in the quiet space between explosions. The silence is so gigantic, it’s as if all of New York reserved this moment to hear what James has to say. And what he says is: This is the day it all begins.

What? Becky asks.

James looks at the sky as if he owns it and says, The best year ever.

And that is how I know I’m drunk—I believe him.

I’m the only one of us stuck with a curfew.

I have to be home by one thirty—a New Year’s Eve reprieve from my usual midnight deadline—because my mother worries.

And because my father is a control freak.

The question is always this: Use the bulk of my allowance to take a taxi—if I can even find one—or risk my life and take the subway?

A slideshow plays in my head. Graffiti-decorated trains and silent cars where no one will meet your eyes and, this time of night, the smell of piss and vomit, and lights that dim when we hit certain parts of the tracks.

Take a taxi, Becky says. Money won’t help if you get stabbed.

James grabs her from behind in a bear hug, his head resting on her shoulder. He says, Oh, kitten, that will never happen. Don’t forget that Andy and his new friends will swoop in like Spider-Man to protect Michael from the bad guys.

Becky has been dating Andy since the middle of sophomore year. BeckyandAndy, AndyandBecky.

Once Andy found out he only had to be sixteen to join the Guardian Angels, he started training to become a card-carrying vigilante, like he’s doing tonight.

James rolls his eyes. Must make the subway safe for the tourists, he says under his breath.

Becky scowls and pulls away. James shrugs and says to me, Or spend the seventy-five cents on a token and buy the new U2 import single. You know you want it.

There is that.

Really? Becky asks me with her hands on her hips. Really? You can’t wait, like, two weeks for a record to come out in the States?

James and I stare at her with matching expressions.

I love you, Becks, but you don’t get it, I say.

And she doesn’t get it. She listens to music, follows the fashions, but to her, it’s all background noise. Something to cover up the sound of traffic and the neighbors screaming at their kids, and to take her mind off the fact that it’s New Year’s Eve and her mom probably won’t come home or even call.

Music isn’t the thing that makes her feel alive.

I try to stand next to the cop on the subway. Try not to stare at the hundred-year-old woman with the accordion, or the girl reclining on the lawn chair, or the guy talking to himself and rattling the door between the cars, or the two kids at the end of the car with gang tats.