Marion and her big mouth. I lay down on my bed, turning my back to her and pulling my knees up to my chest. “He’s just this guy, Mom.”

“You never mentioned it to me,” she said, as if I had to, as if that was required.

“It’s no big deal.” I couldn’t look at her, couldn’t risk it. Her voice sounded sad enough. I had my eyes on the window, where the lights of a plane were coming closer, red and green blinking, the noise not quite loud yet.

Another sigh. Sometimes I wondered if she’d have breath left to speak. “Okay, then. Come down if you feel like it.”

But she lingered there, maybe thinking I figured she’d left, as that plane came closer and closer, the lights brighter, the sound growing louder and louder and finally starting to shake the house, the panes in the window rattling. I could see its broad belly, coasting overhead, white like a whale. And in the din of its passing, the shaking and thundering and noise, my mother slipped out of the doorway and down the stairs. When I turned back over, in sudden silence, she was gone.

Chapter Seven

At work, in the middle of a typical terrible Saturday rush, Macon stepped up to my station and grinned at me.

“Hey,” he said. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking as long as I could to scan his Pepsi and four candy bars. Scarlett reached over to poke him and he waved to her.

“So,” he said, “How’d it go this morning? Did you pass, or what?”

I looked at him. “Of course I did.”

He laughed, throwing his head back. “Halley with a license, look out. I’m staying off the roads for a while.”

“You’re funny,” I said, and he grinned.

“You didn’t answer the phone last night,” he said, leaning over my register and lowering his voice. “I called, you know.”

“That,” I said, hitting the total button, “is because I got busted.”

“For what?”

“What do you think?”

He thought back. “Oh. Skipping school? Or helping Scarlett go AWOL?”

“Both.” I held out my hand. “That’ll be two fifty-nine.”

He handed me a five, pulling it out of his back pocket all wrinkled. “How bad did you get it?”

“I’m grounded.”

“For how long?”

“A month.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “That’s too bad.”

“For who?”

The woman behind him was murmuring under her breath, irritated.

As I handed him his change he grabbed my fingers, holding them, then leaned over the register and kissed me fast, before I even had a chance to react. “For me,” he said, and with his other hand slipped a candy bar into the front pocket of my Milton’s apron.

“Really?” I said, but he just grabbed his bag and walked off, turning back to smile at me. Everyone in my line was watching, grumpy and impatient, but I didn’t care.

“Really,” he said, taking a few steps still facing me, smiling. Then he turned and walked out of Milton’s, just like that, leaving me speechless at my register.

“Man,” Scarlett said as my next customer stepped up, slapping a carton of Capris on the belt. “There’s something wrong with that boy.”

“I know,” I said, still feeling his kiss on my lips, saving me from all the Saturdays ahead. “He likes me.”

That evening we had my party at Alfredo’s: my parents and me, Scarlett, and of course the Vaughns. Scarlett sat next to me; the way she told it, my mother had saved her baby. She said when Marion had come storming in she’d already made another appointment for the next day and planned to sit outside the operating room, chair blocking the door, if that was what it took to see it was done. They had a huge blowout, and she said she’d been packing a bag, ready to leave to go somewhere, anywhere, when my mother appeared at the front door in her red cardigan sweater like Mr. Rogers, ready to handle everything. She held Scarlett’s hand and passed her tissues, calmed Marion down, and then mediated through the twists and turns of what Scarlett had done. In the end, it was decided: Scarlett would go through with the pregnancy, but would honor Marion’s wishes of seriously considering adoption. This was the truce.

“I’m telling you,” she said to me again as I ate my pasta, “your mother is a miracle worker.”

“She grounded me an entire month,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I can’t even go out later.”

“This is a very nice party,” she said. “Noah looks especially happy for you.”

“Shut up.” I was already sick of my birthday.

“I’d like to propose a toast.” My mother stood up at her seat, holding her glass of wine, with my father smiling from where he sat beside her. “To my daughter Halley, on her sixteenth birthday.”

“To Halley,” everyone else echoed. Noah still wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“May this year be the best yet,” my mother went on, even though everyone had already drank. She was still standing. “And we love you.”

So everyone clinked their glasses again, and drank again, and my mother just stood there with her cheeks flushed, smiling at me, as if yesterday had never happened.

When we got home we opened presents. I got some clothes and money from my parents, a book from the Vaughns, and a silver bracelet from Noah, who just stuffed the box in my hand when no one was looking and ignored me for the rest of the evening. Scarlett gave me a pair of earrings and a keychain for my new car keys, and when she left to go home she hugged me tight, suddenly emotional, and told me how much she loved me. As I hugged her back I tried again to picture her with a baby, or even just pregnant. It was still hard.