“Just take them,” Scarlett said. “Better to be safe than sorry.” One of my mother’s favorite sayings.

She was looking at me as we stood there in the kitchen, as if there was something she wanted to say but couldn’t. I pulled out a chair, sat down, and said, “Okay, spit it out. What’s the problem?”

“No problem,” she said, spinning the lazy Susan. Cameron was watching us nervously; he’d recently branched into wearing at least one thing that wasn’t black—Scarlett’s idea—and had on a blue shirt that made him look very sudden and bright. “I’m just—I’m just worried about you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Because I know what you’re doing, and I know you think it’s right, but—”

“Please don’t do this,” I said to her quickly. “Not now.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she said. “I just want you to be careful.” Cameron got up from the table and scuttled off toward the stove, his hands full of dough. He was blushing.

“You said you’d support me,” I said. “You said I’d know when it was right.” First my mother, now this, thrown across my path to keep me from moving ahead.

She looked at me. “Does he love you, Halley?”

“Scarlett, come on.”

“Does he?” she said.

“Of course he does.” I looked at my ring. The more times I said it, the more I was starting to believe it.

“He’s said it. He’s told you.”

“He doesn’t have to,” I said. “I just know.” There was a crash as Cameron dropped a cookie sheet, picked it up, and banged it against the stovetop, mumbling to himself.

“Halley,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t be a fool. Don’t give up something important to hold onto someone who can’t even say they love you.”

“This is what I want to do,” I said loudly. “I can’t believe you’re doing this now, after we’ve been talking about this for weeks. I thought you were my friend.”

She looked at me, hard, her hands clenched. “I am your best friend, Halley,” she said in a steady voice. “And that is why I am doing this.”

I couldn’t believe her. All this talk about trusting myself, and knowing when it was time, and now she fell out from beneath me. “I don’t need this now,” I said, getting up and shoving my chair in. “I have to go.”

“It’s just not right,” she said, standing up with me. “And you know it.”

“Not right?” I said, and I already knew something hateful was coming, before the words even left my lips. “But with you it was right, Scarlett, huh? Look at how right you were.”

She took a step back, like I’d slapped her, and I knew I’d gone too far. From the stove I could see Cameron looking at me, with the same expression I saved for Maryann Lister and Ginny Tabor and anyone who hurt Scarlett.

We just stood there, silent, facing off across the kitchen, when the doorbell suddenly rang. Neither of us moved.

“Hello?” I heard a voice say, and over Scarlett’s shoulder I saw Steve, or who I thought was Steve, coming into the room. The transformation, clearly, was complete. He was wearing his cord necklace, his boots, his tunic shirt, thick burlaplike pants, what appeared to be a kind of cape, and he was carrying a sword on his hip. He stood there, beside the spice rack, a living anachronism.

“Is she ready?” he said. He didn’t seem to notice us outright staring at him.

“I don’t know,” Scarlett said softly, taking a few steps back toward the stairs. She wouldn’t look at me. “I’ll go see, okay?”

“Great.”

So Vlad and I stood there together, both of us fully evolved, in Scarlett’s kitchen at the brink of the New Year. I heard Scarlett’s voice upstairs, then Marion’s. On the table in front of me I could see the pregnancy Bible, lying open to Month Six. She’d highlighted a few passages in pink, the pen lying beside.

“I have to go,” I said suddenly. Vlad, who was adjusting his sword, looked up at me. “Cameron, tell Scarlett I said good-bye, okay ?”

“Yeah,” Cameron said slowly. “Sure.”

“Have a good night,” Vlad called out to me as I got to the back door. “Happy New Yearl”

I got halfway across the backyard before I turned around and looked back at the house, the windows all lit up above me. I wanted to see Scarlett in one of them, her hand pressed against the glass, our old secret code. She wasn’t there, and I thought about going back. But it was cold and getting late, so I just kept walking to Spruce Street, Macon’s car idling quietly by the mailbox, and what lay ahead.

The party was at some guy named Ronnie’s, outside of town. We had to go down a bunch of winding dirt roads, past a few trailers and old crumbling barns, finally pulling up at a one-story, plain brick house with a blue light out front. There were a few dogs running around, barking, and people scattered across the stoop and the yard. I didn’t recognize anyone.

The first thing I thought when I stepped inside, past a keg set up at the front door, was what my mother would think. I was sure the same things would jump out at her: the fake oak paneling, the coffee table crammed with full ashtrays and beer bottles, the yellow and brown shag carpet that felt wet as I walked over it. This house wasn’t like Ginny Tabor’s, where you knew in its real life it was a home, with parents and dinner and Christmas.