“Tell her the other thing,” Scarlett said, popping another chip in her mouth.

“What thing?” Marion shook the bottle of polish.

“You know.”

“What?” I said.

Marion held up one hand, examining it. “Oh, it’s just this thing he does. It’s a hobby.”

“Tell her,” Scarlett said again, then raised her eyebrows at me so I knew something good was coming.

Marion looked at her, sighed, and said, “He’s in this group. It’s like a history club, where they study the medieval period together, on weekends.”

“That’s interesting,” I said as Scarlett pushed her chair out and went to the sink. “A history club.”

“Marion.” Scarlett ran her hands under the faucet. “Tell her what he does in this club.”

“What? What does he do?” I couldn’t stand it.

“He dresses up,” Scarlett said before Marion even opened her mouth. “He has this, like, medieval alter-ego, and on the weekends he and all his friends dress up in medieval clothes and become these characters. They joust and have festivals and sing ballads.”

“They don’t joust,” Marion grumbled, starting on her other hand.

“Yes, they do,” Scarlett said. “I talked to him the other night. He told me everything.”

“Well, so what?” Marion said. “Big deal. I think it’s kind of sweet, actually. It’s like a whole other world.”

“It’s, like, crazy,” Scarlett said, coming back to the table and sitting down beside me. “He’s a nut.”

“He is not.”

“You know what his alter-ego name is?” she asked me. “Just guess.”

I looked at her. “I cannot imagine.”

Marion was acting like she couldn’t hear us, engrossed in buffing a pinky nail.

“Vlad,” Scarlett said dramatically. “Vlad the Impaler.”

“It’s not the Impaler,” Marion said snippily, “it’s the Warrior. There’s a difference.”

“Whatever.” Scarlett was never happy with anyone Marion dated; mostly they were men who stared at her uncomfortably as they passed out the door on weekend mornings.

“Well,” I said slowly as Marion finished her left hand and waved it in the air, “I’m sure he’s very nice.”

“He is,” she said simply, getting up from the table and walking to the stairs, fingers outstretched and wiggling in front of her. “And Scarlett would know it too, if she ever gave anyone a fair chance.”

We heard her go upstairs, the floor creaking over our heads as she walked down the hall to her room. Scarlett picked up the dirty cotton balls, tossing them out, and collected the polish and the remover, putting them back in the basket by the bathroom where they belonged.

“I’ve given lots of people chances,” she said suddenly, as if Marion was still in the room to hear her. “But there’s only so much faith you can have in people.”

We sat in her bedroom and watched as Steve arrived, in his Hyundai hatchback, with flowers. He didn’t look much like a warrior or an impaler as he walked Marion to the car, holding her door open and shutting it neatly behind her. Scarlett didn’t look as they drove off, turning her back on the window, but I pressed my palm against the glass, waving back at Marion as they pulled away.

When I went home later, my mother was in the kitchen reading the paper. “Hi there,” she said. “How was school?”

“Pine.” I stood in the open kitchen doorway, my eyes on the stairs.

“How was that math test? Think you did okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “I guess.”

“Well, the Vaughns are coming over tonight for a movie, if you want to hang around. They haven’t seen you in a while.”

Noah Vaughn was in eleventh grade and he still spent his Friday nights watching movies with his parents and mine. I couldn’t believe he’d ever been my boyfriend. “I’m going over to Scarlett’s.”

“Oh.” She was nodding. “Okay. What are you two doing?”

I thought of Macon, of that clock in the gym, of the momentous day I’d had, and held back everything. “Nothing much. Just hanging out. I think we’re going out for pizza.”

A pause. Then, “Well, be in by eleven. And don’t forget you’re mowing the lawn tomorrow. Right?”

My mother, deep into writing a book about teens and responsibility, had decided I needed to do more chores around the house. It enhances the sense of family, she’d said to me. We’re all working toward a common goal.

“The lawn,” I said. “Right.”

I was halfway up the stairs when she said, “Halley? If you and Scarlett get bored, come on over. The more the merrier.”

“Okay,” I said, and I thought again how she always had to have her hands in whatever I did, keeping me with her or herself, somehow, with me, even when I fought hard against it. If I’d told her about Macon, I could hear her voice already, asking questions: Whose party was it? Would the parents be there? Would there be drinking? I imagined her calling the house, demanding to speak to the parents like she had at the first boy-girl party I’d ever gone to. I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I’d slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at arm’s length, behind a closed door, miles away.