Carrie and Melinda are also still friends. Melinda’s parents are still rich. Melinda plays tennis. She is a cheerleader. Her parents have condos in Vegas, Marco Island, Vail, and somewhere in Greece. Melinda mostly hangs out with other rich kids. And then there’s Carrie. Janie doesn’t mind being with Melinda. Melinda still can’t stand Janie. Janie thinks she knows the real reason why, and it doesn’t have anything to do with having money. June 25, 2004, 11:15 p.m.

After working a record eleven evenings straight, and being caught by old Mr. Reed’s recurring nightmare about World War II seven of those eleven evenings, Janie collapses on the couch and kicks her shoes off. By the number of empty bottles on the ring-stained coffee table, she assumes her mother is in her bedroom, down for the count.

Carrie lets herself in. “Can I crash here?” Her eyes are rimmed in red. Janie sighs inwardly. She wants to sleep. “’Course. You okay with the couch?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Janie relaxes. Carrie, on the couch, would work fine.

Carrie sniffles loudly.

“So, what’s wrong?” Janie asks, trying to put as much sympathy in her voice as she can muster. It’s enough.

“Dad’s yelling again. I got asked out. Dad says no.”

Janie perks up. “Who asked you out?”

“Stu. From the body shop.”

“You mean that old guy?”

Carrie bristles. “He’s twenty-two.”

“You’re sixteen! And he looks older than that.”

“Not up close. He’s cute. He has a cute ass.”

“Maybe he plays Dance Dance Revolution at the arcade.”

Carrie giggles. Janie smiles.

“So. You got any liquor around here?” Carrie asks innocently. Janie laughs. “There’s an understatement. Whaddya want, beer?” She looks at the bottles on the table.

“Schnapps? Whiskey? Double-stuff vodka?”

“Got any of that cheap grape wine the winos at Selby Park drink?”

“At your service.” Janie hauls herself off the couch and looks for clean glasses. The kitchen is a mess. Janie has barely been here the past two weeks. She finds two sticky, mismatched glasses in the sink and washes them out, then searches through her mother’s stash for her cheap wine assortment. “Ah, here it is. Boone’s Farm, right?” She unscrews the bottle and pours two glasses full, not waiting for an answer from Carrie, and then puts the bottle back in the fridge.

Carrie flips on the TV. She takes a glass from Janie. “Thanks.”

Janie sips the sweet wine and makes a face. “So what are you gonna do about Stu?” She thinks there’s a country song in that sentence somewhere.

“Go out with him.”

“Your dad’s gonna kill you if he finds out.”

“Yeah, well. What else is new?” They both settle on the creaky couch and put their feet on the coffee table, deftly pushing the mess of bottles to the center of it so they can stretch out. The TV drones. The girls sip their wine and get silly. Janie gets up, rummages around in her bedroom, and returns with snacks.

“Gross—you keep Doritos in your bedroom?”

“Emergency stash. For nights such as these.” Since Mother can’t be bothered to buy any actual food at the grocery store when she goes there for booze, Janie thinks.

“Ahh.” Carrie nods.

12:30 a.m.

Janie is asleep on the couch. She doesn’t dream. Never dreams. 5:02 a.m.

Janie, forced awake, catapults into Carrie’s dream. It’s the one by the river. Again. Janie’s been here twice since the first time, when they were thirteen.

Janie, blind to the room her physical body is in, tries to stand. If she can feel her way to her bedroom and close the door before she starts going numb, she might get enough distance to break the connection. She feels with her toes for the bottles on the floor, and goes around them. She reaches out for the wall and finds her way into the hallway as she and Carrie are walking through the forest in Carrie’s dream. Janie reaches for the door frames—first her mother’s bedroom (hush, don’t bump the door), then the bathroom, and then her room. She makes it inside, turns, and closes the door just as Carrie and Janie approach the riverbank.

The connection is lost.

Janie breathes a sigh of relief. She looks around, blinks in the dark as her eyesight returns, crawls into bed, and sleeps.

9:06 a.m.

When she wakes, both her mother and Carrie are in the kitchen. The living room is cleared of bottles. Carrie is drying a sink full of dishes, and Janie’s mother is fixing her homemade morning drink: vodka and orange juice on ice. On the stove is a skillet covered by a paper plate. Two pieces of buttered toast, two eggs over easy, and a small fortune of crisp bacon rest on a second paper plate, next to the skillet. Janie’s mother picks up a piece of bacon, takes her drink, and disappears back into her bedroom without a word.

“Thanks Carrie—you didn’t have to do this. I was planning on cleaning today.”

Carrie is cheerful. “It’s the least I can do. Did you sleep well? When did you go to bed?”

Janie peeks in the skillet, thinking, discovering hash browns. “Wow! Um…not long ago. It was close to daylight. But I was so tired.”

“You’ve been working ridiculous hours.”

Janie. “Yeah, well. College. One day. How did you sleep?”

“Pretty good…” She hesitates, like she might say something else, but doesn’t. Janie takes a bite of food. She’s famished. “Did you have sweet dreams?”