“Here,” he said, holding the jacket up so that I could slide right in. He shook it a little bit, encouraging me, and then said, “Go ahead.” I glanced back at Rogerson. He lifted his chin at me, smiling. It was a gesture I would associate with him for the rest of my life. And I saw myself, then, setting out across uncharted territory, places Cass had never been or seen or even heard of. My world was suddenly wide and limitless, as vast as the sky and stars I'd been dazzled by earlier, and it all started there with the door he was holding open for me. “I'm sorry,” I said to Mike Evans and his jacket as I walked down the hallway to where Rogerson was standing, ready to help me along as I stepped past him and into the night.

As I walked down the front walk with Rogerson, across the yard to his car, I had no idea what I was doing. I knew that back inside the house Rina was probably mad at me for thwarting her plans, and Mike Evans had most likely already put his jacket back on and reported to everyone that in my fall I'd whacked my head and was now, clearly, insane. “So,” Rogerson said to me. He seemed to be laughing at me, or so I thought, and suddenly I felt completely idiotic. He leaned against his car and said, “What now?” I stood there in the cold, in my little skirt, my hair pulled back in matching school- color barrettes. And I thought of Rina, the only woman I knew who always told men exactly what she wanted. So I tossed my head the way she did and said, “Give me a ride home?”

“Okay,” he said. And he got in the car and unlocked my door. He didn't know who I was. He didn't know about Cass or anything about my entire life up to that very second. I could have been anybody, and it made everything possible. “Where we going?” he asked me as he started the car. As he reached to shift into reverse, his hand brushed against my knee and, instead of pulling away, I moved closer. “Lakeview,” I said, and he nodded, reaching forward to turn up the stereo. We didn't talk the whole way there. He parked a ways down from my house and cut the engine, then turned and looked at me. “So,” he said evenly. “You regret that yet?”

“Regret what?” I said. “Leaving back there,” he said. “Looked like somebody had plans for you.” I thought of Mike Evans, holding out his jacket, and the blandness of his face, plain plain plain. “He had plans,” I said. “But they weren't really about me.” He nodded, looking down to run his finger along the bottom arc of the steering wheel. “I knew you were trouble,” he said in a low voice. “Could tell just by looking at you.”

“Me?” I said. “Look who's talking.” He raised his eyebrows. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, you know,” I said. “You've got that whole thing going . .. the car, the hair.”

“The hair?” he said, reaching up to touch one dreadlock. “What about it?”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “You know.” He shook his head, smiling. “Whatever,” he said. “Whatever you say.” I got the feeling he was waiting for me to leave: Of course he was. I was just some dinky cheerleader, entertaining for a minute or two, but now he was ready to move on to other things. But I didn't want to leave, just yet. It was like being in a long, dark corridor and having someone crack a door, just for a second, and let a slant of light peek through. For one instant, I could have been anyone else. But now, sitting in front of my neighbor's house, with all the landmarks fire hydrants, streetlights, sidewalk pavement I'd played a million hopscotch games acrossI was quickly becoming just me again, plain and simple. He was leaning back in his seat, eyes on the dim green glow of the dashboard. Waiting, I knew, for me to leave. I had my hand on the door handle, ready to slip out, when he said, “Caitlin?” I turned to look back at him: his green eyes, wild hair, so foreign and strange, a million miles from Mike Evans and the defensive line. And I could understand why Cass had rolled around the bed, so giddy and stupid, saying good night a hundred different ways just to keep that voice there, one more second. “Yes?” I said, and before the word even fully left my mouth he was leaning forward, one hand rising to brush back my hair, and kissing me. We made out for thirty minutes in front of the Richmonds' mailbox, parked behind their blue Astrovan. There was something especially wicked about this setting. I realized as he struggled to unhook my bra that I didn't even know his whole name and this, suddenly, seemed wrong. “What's your last name?” I said, coming up for air somewhere near his left ear. “Biscoe,” he said, still working the clasp. “Oh,” I said. Just then a shadow passed over the car, and we both froze. It was Mr. Carnaby, from down the street, with his so-​old-​it-​was-​almost-​dead Irish setter, out for a late night walk. They were about to go right by us. Rogerson reached down next to my seat, grabbed the reclining lever, and in a split second we dropped quickly together out of sight, whump. I looked up into his face, those green eyes, and felt something all the way down to my toes. “Rogerson Biscoe,” he said, right into my ear, and then I went under again. At some point I saw on the little digital clock on the dash that it was past midnight, my curfew. “I have to go,” I said, buttoning my shirt so fast I forgot to put back on my bra, which I stuck in the pocket of my cheerleader jacket. One tumble off the pyramid and look how far I'd fallen. “Go where?” he said. His lips were right on my cheek, salty and cool. “Home.” I brushed my fingers through my hair. “I have to be in by midnight.”