you stand a little excitement?” Richard twisted her arm some more. “I give excitement lessons free.”
Debbie giggled.
“You’re all crazy,” said Maggie. She started down the ladder again. “God, is she always like that?” she heard Richard say again.
“I’ll walk you home,” said Bruce, coming up behind her.
“I know how to get to my own house.”
“I want to.” They walked together in silence, not looking back, until finally Maggie said, “I wish I could figure out what’s going on with people.”
“He’s easy to figure out. He gets bored.”
“That can’t be the only reason why people do the things they do. It’s got to be more complicated than that.”
“I think it’s pretty simple.”
Maggie could feel the nail in the pocket of her shorts. They walked along in silence until they got to her backyard and then Maggie ran ahead, across the lawn. She thought she heard a small voice call “good-by”; then there was no sound except the crickets. But when she got upstairs to her bedroom, before she turned on the light, she looked out and she could see Bruce still standing at the edge of the yard. She thought he’d seen her, too, because as soon as she’d looked out the window he’d turned and walked back into the development, his head down.
Her door opened, and her mother was standing in the doorway. The light from the hallway fell through the pale folds of her nylon nightgown, and Maggie looked away.
“I thought you were staying at the Malones,” Connie said.
“I changed my mind.”
“I could hear your voice outside,” Connie said, still standing in the half-dark. “Were you with some boy out there?”
“I was talking to a boy I know. Bruce.”
“That poor boy whose mother died?”
Maggie winced. Connie added, “Aren’t you a little young to be hanging out at night with boys?”
“How old is old enough to be hanging out at night with boys?”
Connie shrugged. She looked tired. The lines from her nose to her mouth seemed deeper than usual. “I don’t know. I’m asking you.”
“Don’t ask me. You’re the mother.”
“Then I think you’re too young.”
“I’m getting older,” Maggie said, wanting to say much more. “I’m getting a lot older.” She expected her mother to ask her what she meant by that, but instead she just sighed. “Yes,” Connie said, “I know.” She sniffed and Maggie was afraid she could smell the smoke, then realized it must be the Tabu. Connie turned on the bedside lamp and looked at Maggie sadly. Then she smiled. “That’s pretty,” she said, pointing to Maggie’s head.
Maggie took the clover chain off and held it, limp and dying, in her hand. “Where did you get that?” Connie said.
“I made it,” Maggie said. “It’s easy. You just tie them together. Mrs. Malone taught us. Don’t you know how?”
Connie shook her head.
“Your mother didn’t teach you?”
Connie shook her head again. “I don’t know whether she didn’t know how or she just didn’t want to teach me.”
“I think if she didn’t do it, it was probably because she didn’t know how. If she could have, she would have.”
“Maybe,” said Connie. “Go to sleep.” Then she ran her hand along Maggie’s upper arm. “What did you do?” she asked, and Maggie looked down to see the marks of fingers purpling on the tan skin above her elbow.
“I fell,” she said, drawing back. Her mother looked at her for a long minute, and then turned and left, closing the door behind her.
When her mother was gone Maggie stared at herself in the mirror. She looked at the bruises and put the nail from her pocket into her jewelry box, the red leather one Celeste had given her for her birthday. She lay in bed, the moon casting a silver shaft of cold light across the ceiling, and wondered whether in the morning she would be saddled with another dreamlike memory, half real, half incredible. For a long time she kept her eyes open wide in the darkness, and finally, still smelling smoke, she fell asleep.
11
JOHN SCANLAN’S HOSPITAL ROOM looked like a committee meeting of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, A half dozen men, sleek and florid in their sharkskin and seersucker suits, came in after work to pump his good hand and make jokes about pinching the nurses. Tommy stayed out in the hall, wandering around the nurses’ station, buying a bag of M & M’s from the vending machine and eating them in the stairwell, reading the newspaper. It was cool in the hospital, and after ten days the