the string Helen had put there until Maggie was ready to wear earrings. Maggie smelled the liquor, a hospital kind of smell, and tried to pull away, but he kept his hand on her shoulder hard, like a vise.
“Hi, sexy,” he said. And he looked over at Debbie and then laughed and turned back to Maggie. He was leaning on her, and Maggie suspected that if she stepped aside he would fall over. “You’re the coolest-looking girl I know. I love your eyes. Your eyes are so cool.”
Maggie shivered. The flames suddenly blazed toward them, leaping toward the ceiling, turning the fresh paint to a pale curdled mess. Debbie yelped and then looked over and said to Richard, “I wouldn’t waste my time.”
“This is bad,” Maggie said. “You guys better get out of here. This is going to burn down the whole house.”
“Good thinking,” said Richard, who did not move. “Watch it burn with me. You’ll like it. Relax. Just for once. You’d be so cool if you’d relax.”
“You’re crazy. The police will come now. We could all get arrested for this. Look at her. How are you going to get her home like that? What if her mother smells her?”
“She smells good,” Richard said, and he ran his hand inside the back of Maggie’s shirt. “So what if we get in trouble? Who cares?” He turned his face to her, streaked with soot, smelling of gasoline. “What difference does it make?”
“Deb, don’t stay here,” Maggie said. “They’ll be here soon. You guys are going to get in so much trouble.” But Debbie just stood there, staring. “Look at it,” Richard said, and he moved toward the burning wall. And then as though the fire had reached out to throw its arms around him, a flame leapt out and flared on his sleeve, played around his hair. Debbie screamed and finally ran from the house, stumbling, and Richard ran behind her, panting, coughing, falling. Maggie knelt down beside him, and by the light of the fire she could see the shriveled red flesh of his hand and arm, and his singed hair and eyelashes.
“Ah, shit, Maggie,” he said evenly. And then he began to sob with great wrenching heaves. “I think I blew it.”
A few steps away, Debbie was sitting on the ground, her head turned to one side, being sick all over her hair. Maggie went over to her. “You have to get up,” she said. “They’ll be here soon.”
Debbie lay back and stared straight up at the stars. “You tried to take my boyfriend, too,” she said, slurring her words.
“Shut up. They could put you in jail for this. Come on.” She pulled Debbie into a sitting position and then hooked her arms beneath her armpits. Richard was starting to wail.
“Go away,” Debbie said as Maggie pulled her to her feet.
She went limp in Maggie’s arms and Maggie dragged her to a house across the street that was almost finished. Gently she lowered her onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor. “Stay here,” she said, looking down, but in the dimness she could tell that Debbie had passed out. Maggie buttoned up her friend’s blouse and then ran between the houses, leaping over pieces of lumber and discarded cardboard, trying to keep from falling. Her own house was still dark. She saw a light in the window of the construction trailer, and veered toward it. She knew someone was there; she had watched Joey Martinelli’s car pull up an hour before, moving with a series of little jerks like hiccups. Maggie had laughed out loud because it reminded her of the way her aunt Celeste drove, swearing at the clutch and the gear shift as she stalled in intersections, her middle finger stuck out the window as other drivers blew their horns and pulled around her. Then the lights had gone on in the trailer, yellow squares reflecting down on the dirt, picking up the little silver trajectories of moths dazzled by the beams. Maggie disliked Joey Martinelli, even though she knew in her heart that he was probably a nice person; it seemed that he was always hanging around, the edges of his mustache wet, half-moons of dirt beneath his square nails. She hated it when he asked about her grandfather. She knew that if her grandfather ever met Joey Martinelli, the man would barely be out of earshot before John Scanlan would start calling him a guinea. One afternoon he had come over to talk to