"We're waiting with bated breath," Lacey said.

"Took her with me. Every party, every concert. You should've seen her, swimming in a Metallica T-shirt, bangs sprayed up to here," she said, saluting the air a foot over her head. "Even got me backstage a few times. Bouncers couldn't resist."

"Ask her what she did with me then," Lacey said. "Hard to keep track of a toddler when you're fucking a roadie."

"You shut your mouth," her mother snapped. Then, summoning a full measure of dignity, "I have never in my life fucked a roadie."

"Standards," Lacey said.

"She won't admit it now, but she loved it. How do you think she ended up so musical? It's in her blood."

Lacey snorted. "That trash is hardly music."

"How did I raise you to be such a snob?"

"How did I raise you to get knocked up by Jersey's biggest dickhead? Somebody call Unsolved Mysteries."

If I'd talked to my mother like that, and it was a gargantuan if, I could only assume she'd duct-tape my mouth shut and sell me to the circus. Lacey's mother, on the other hand, smiled fondly. Mother-daughter bonding, Champlain-style.

"She was less whiny then," Lacey's mother confided. "Didn't complain when I let her stay up until two A.M., dancing around the apartment. We were good then, weren't we, Lace?"

Lacey's face softened, almost imperceptibly. Maybe she was even about to say yes, acknowledge a sliver of good, but then the front door rattled, a key turned, and both of them went rigid.

"Shit," Lacey said.

"Shit," her mother agreed. "He's not supposed to be home this early."

Already on her feet, Lacey tossed her mother a pack of gum. "We'll be upstairs," she said, and this time she didn't wait for me to follow.

I bolted up the stairs after her, behind me a steady murmur-pull it together, pull it together, pull it together-as the front door creaked open, horror-movie-style. Lacey tugged me into her room before I could catch sight of the monster.

IN THE DARK, IN LACEY'S room, with Kurt's voice turned up to drown out whatever was happening below. Her in black lacy pajamas, me in my Snoopy T-shirt and Goodwill boxers. Our sleeping bags kissing, head to toe. Voices in the dark. Orphans, alone together.

"Never?" Lacey said.

"Never," I said.

"Is it killing you?"

"It's not like I'm in this huge hurry."

"Oh, God, you're not . . . you're not waiting for marriage, are you?"

"I'm just not in a hurry. Plus, it's not like there's some guy banging down my door."

"But if there was?"

"What's he like?"

"Who?"

"This guy, Lacey. The one who wants to ravish me."

"Oh, I don't know, he's some guy. Who thinks you're hot."

"Do I love him?"

"How do I know?"

"Does he love me? Is it his first time, too? Does he think that matters? Is he going to notice how I kind of look pregnant from the side-"

"You do not look pregnant."

"After I eat a lot-"

"Everyone looks pregnant after they eat a lot."

"I'm just saying, what does he think when he sees me naked? And do I know what he's thinking? Can I read his mind when I look in his eyes? Does he-"

"Jesus, I don't know, okay? He's freaking imaginary. But I get it. You're holding out for the fairy tale. Candles, flowers, Prince Charming. Et cetera." She laughed. "It's not like that, Dex. It's weird and gross and awesome and messy," she said, and told me a story about the time some guy's thing had blown its wad when she popped a zit for him, because guys were weird, and you could never overestimate how much. Blown its wad was hers, along with popped its top, went Old Faithful, and fizzed its whizz, which made very little sense to me. She was a poet of ejaculation.

"I don't need a fairy tale. Just . . . something better than your average Battle Creek doofus jerking off in his father's Oldsmobile. Something better than, like . . ."

"Nikki and Craig?"

"Exactly. The most expected people falling into the most expected thing. Like some depressing fairy tale. Boring and the Beast."

"People can surprise you, Dex. You never know what kind of wild, kinky sex they might have been having in that Oldsmobile-"

I cut her off with a pillow to the face, because the last thing I needed to think about was Nikki's naked body writhing in pornographic positions beneath a soon-to-be corpse. "I just think there's got to be something better out there," I said.

"Dex, my friend, for once you have a point."

"Thank you."

"But you've, like, made out with people, right?"

"Obviously." I had not.

"What base?"

"Seriously?"

"Seriously, Dex. What base?"

"I'm not having this conversation."

"Sure, okay, we don't have to talk about this. I'm not some kind of sex-crazed lunatic, I can discuss plenty of other things, you know. Politics. Philosophy. Gardening."

"Good. Pick one."

"So when you're home, alone, do you ever, I don't know, dig out that old Kirk Cameron poster I know you keep hidden at the back of your closet-"

"Do not."

"Totally do too, and I bet you stroke his face and stare into those dopey big brown eyes and slide your hand under the covers and-"

"Lacey! God, shut up!"

"What, it's totally normal. Healthy, even."

"I'm not listening to you anymore."

"You're a growing woman, with womanly urges-"

"I hate you."

"Oh, you love me."

"You wish."

"Come on, Dex, I'm sorry, you know you love me, you know you do. Say it. Say it."

"I'm not saying it."

"You love me you love me you love me you love me."

"Lacey, get off me."

"Not till you say it."

"And then you'll let go?"

"Never!"

I waited her out, testing the words in my head, on my tongue.

"Fine. I love you. Even though you're a sex-crazed lunatic."

She did not let go.

I KNEW WITHOUT ASKING THAT I wasn't supposed to leave the room, but Lacey was asleep and the bathroom was down the hall, and there seemed no harm in following the voices, navigating the dark easily enough in this house that mirrored my own. I knew exactly how far down the stairs I could creep without being seen.

The man Lacey called the Bastard stood shorter and skinnier than I'd imagined, with wire-rimmed glasses and a graying military flattop. Lacey's mother knelt before him in a white bra and panties, palms assuming prayer position, eyes on the Bastard's black loafers.

"God forgive me," she said.

"For being a drunk," he prompted.

"For being a drunk. For being weak. For-"

"For giving in to the temptations of my whorish past."

"For giving in to temptations."

He toed her hard in the belly.

"The temptations of my whorish past," she corrected herself.

I felt like I was watching TV.

Lacey's mother was crying. Somewhere beyond me, a baby echoed her.

She tried to stand, but the Bastard pressed two fingers to her shoulder and shook his head. Her knees returned to the tile.

The baby was screaming.

"He needs me," Lacey's mother said.

"Should've thought of that before." The Bastard's voice was so reasonable, as if they were sitting across the table from each other discussing a credit card bill. He was even dressed like an accountant, a pocket protector tucked neatly into his starched white shirt.

"You won't do with my son what you've done with your daughter," he said.

She nodded.

"Say it."

"I'll do better with James Junior."

"You'll have some respect for yourself."

"I'll have respect."

"No more of this garbage."

"No more," she whispered.

The baby cried.

There was a touch on my shoulder, just gentle enough not to startle, or maybe I wasn't startled because I knew, of course, Lacey would be there.

"There's a back way out through the kitchen," Lacey whispered, though she didn't have to: Our houses shared the same floor plan, escape route and all. I went first, sliding through the dark, any noise covered up by the baby's increasingly unhinged screams. I had to tamp down an impulse to turn back for him, carry him and Lacey away, but of course he wasn't my brother and Lacey was the one with car and license. I wasn't in a position to rescue anyone.

She eased the door shut behind us, and said nothing as we got into the car and peeled away. There was no music.

"You want to go home," she said finally, and I knew if I said yes, that's what it would be. Final.

I understood now: This was a test. Maybe the whole night had been a test. With Lacey, it was hard to tell whether events were unspooling of their own accord or under her behind-the-scenes machinations, but, I reminded myself, it was always safest to assume the latter.