Jackie sprinted through the diner as quickly as a person can sprint after a stranger through a diner, which was not quickly at all. The blond man burst out the front door and Jackie was moments behind him. She was younger and she was faster and she would catch him. Her feet slapped hard on the asphalt, so hot in the midday sun that she could feel the heat through the soles of her shoes.

“I’ve got you,” she shouted, before she had him.

“Troy!” Diane shouted, running from her car. “Troy, I need to talk to you.”

The blond man broke right, toward the road and the abandoned gas station across the street.

Diane and Jackie both turned to follow, and collided with each other. Subsequently they both collided with the ground.

“Goddammit!” Jackie shouted into the blacktop, a long red scratch on her face. Diane had the makings of a bruise on her thigh but didn’t know it yet. They both looked toward the gas station, but the man was gone.

“Goddammit!” Jackie repeated with her mouth. “Goddammit!” she repeated over and over with her palm onto the asphalt.

Diane glared at her, rubbing her leg.

“Why were you chasing Troy?” she asked.

Jackie glared at her. Diane Crayton, John had said. Diane was involved, and didn’t this prove it?

“Why was I chasing him? Why do you have that paper?”

Diane didn’t understand what that question had to do with anything that had just happened. Jackie looked back at the gas station.

“I almost had him, Diane. That weird dude.”

“You almost had him? What did ‘that weird dude’ do to you, Jackie?”

Jackie tried to come up with an explanation as to why her actions made sense. Her head hurt. “He just stares and smiles. What’s his deal? I mean . . .”

“Maybe you’re too young to understand this, but you don’t just run after people because you want to know what their deal is.”

Diane had slipped into didactic mom voice without meaning to, and they both heard it.

“Ah, so the mature approach is to body-tackle people in parking lots. Awesome. I’m sure when I’m as old as you I’ll remember that.”

Diane sighed and stood up, seeing if her body could still do that. She looked the teenager up and down.

“If you want to be treated as an adult, Jackie, you have to act like it.”

In her head, Jackie heard the voice of her ex-friend Noelle Connolly, brimming with parental condescension: Oh, Jackie, did you ever think of just turning twenty?

“Screw you,” she said.

“Oh, good. That’s good.”

Diane turned and walked back to her car. Jackie walked after her.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going? How do you know that guy? How did you know his name was Troy? Like, seriously, what’s his deal?”

Diane collected herself and spoke with only a mild tremble.