"Come on." Natalie grabbed Miri by the sleeve and pulled her out of the room, then down the hall to a sunroom, where other kids had visitors, too. Many of the kids had braces on their legs. Some had crutches. Others were in wheelchairs, their legs straight out in plaster casts. "They had polio," Natalie explained. "They're learning to walk again. If you want milk and cookies they're on a table over there." She pointed across the room.

"What about you?"

"I don't drink milk or eat cookies."

"Okay." Miri helped herself to two shortbread cookies and a small cup of milk.

She sat down on a sofa next to Natalie.

"My hair is growing back." Natalie said.

"I didn't know you cut it."

"I didn't. It was falling out. From my condition."

Miri was dying to ask, What condition? But she was trying to act ordinary, like it was just another day. "It looks good. Like always."

"Lulu and I are the only freaks here. We didn't have polio, and we don't have cerebral palsy. What's happening at school?"

Wait-what do you mean freaks? Miri wanted to ask. Instead she said, "School...you know...the usual, except I was almost expelled."

"You, Goody Two-Shoes? What'd you do?"

"Wrote a story for the paper Mr. Royer didn't like, so I handed it out on my own." And I'm not Goody Two-Shoes, she wanted to add, but didn't. "The chorus is practicing for graduation. We're singing 'Younger Than Springtime.'"

"I hate that song."

"It's pretty sappy."

"What about you...are you still in love with Mason?"

"We're still the same."

"Why won't you admit you're in love?"

Miri didn't answer. Didn't say she was afraid to call it love, although it was love, and not puppy love, either. It was something much deeper now. Last week, in Irene's bas.e.m.e.nt, she took his hand and placed it on her breast. It bothered her that he never tried to get to second base, never mind third. Why didn't he want to go any further with her? As an experiment she pulled her sweater over her head. His hands on her naked back were almost more than she could stand. But she didn't stop there. She reached around and unhooked her bra, showing him her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Neither one of them spoke for the longest time. Then he said, "What are you doing?"

"I want you to touch me." She took his hands and placed them on her perfect A-cup b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

She could hear his breath quicken as he ran his hands over them. And she felt something, too, something down there, the way she did at night in her bed when she touched herself.

"It's not a good idea," he said.

"Why?" she asked, kissing him.

"Suppose I can't stop?"

"I'll stop you."

"You don't understand."

"I just wanted to make sure..."

"What?"

"That you like me that way." She put her bra back on, pulled on her sweater.

"And now?" he asked.

"Now I know you do."

She couldn't tell Natalie or anyone how much she cared. Probably Rusty once loved Mike Monsky, or thought she had. And look how that ended.

"What are the girls saying about me?" Natalie asked, bringing Miri back to the moment.

"They hope you'll get better soon."

"What do they think is wrong with me?"

"None of us knows what's wrong."

"Do they laugh when they talk about me?"

"No! Why would they laugh?" She would never say that they hardly ever talked about her. She was as removed from their lives as Robo, living in her new house in Millburn. Even more removed.

"Because it's funny, isn't it? I didn't even see the crashes, but here I am. My mother says I'm just very sensitive. Do you think I'm sensitive?"

"I guess. What about Ruby? What does she think?"

"She abandoned me a while back. Didn't even say goodbye. Didn't even say I'd be okay without her."

"Are you...okay without her?"

"What you see is what you get."

"Why are you talking in riddles?"

"That's not a riddle. A riddle would be more like, What's soft and mushy and gray all over?"

Miri didn't have a clue. "I give up."

"Natalie's messed-up brain. Get it?"

Miri was growing more uncomfortable by the minute. How long did Corinne expect her to stay here?

"Did you hear?" Natalie said. "My father wants us to move to Nevada. To someplace called Las Vegas."

"Nevada! But that's so far away, isn't it?"

"Only two thousand, five hundred miles. It takes five days to drive there. Some people fly. You have to make two or three stops. My mother swears she'll never go. They hate each other."

"No, they don't."

"Ever since the crash that killed Mrs. Barnes's son, all they do is fight."

"But New Year's Eve...the party, the diamond earrings..."

"All an act. G.o.d forbid Corinne's friends think there's trouble in paradise. One time she slapped his face at a party."

"No."

"She accused him of flirting with one of her friends. I found out from listening in on a phone call between my mother and Ceil Rubin. 'We all understand,' Ceil said. Then my mother started crying and I hung up the extension. That's one good thing about being here. I don't have to listen to them arguing. They never visit at the same time unless the doctors say they have to. Sometimes I think it would be fun to live in Nevada. No plane crashes. I'd have my own horse."

"But where would you go to school?"

"They have schools. At least I think they do. I'd go anywhere to get out of this place. But first I have to eat." She jumped up and grabbed a banana from the snack table. "I've been eating bananas without throwing up. Next is sweet potatoes. Did you know sweet potatoes are a perfect food? All the vitamins and minerals you could want wrapped into one tuber. Come on, let's go..." She grabbed Miri's hand and led her down the hall, back to her room. "I've been studying food groups in science. My tutor-did you know I have a tutor?"

"No."

"She graduated from Teachers College at Columbia. She's Lulu's tutor, too." Natalie pushed open the door to her room. "The trouble with Lulu is she wants to die. I don't want to die. I really don't."

Miri reached for Natalie's hand and for just a moment Natalie looked right into her eyes. "Will you miss me if I go?"

"You know I will." Did she mean die or move to Nevada?

Lulu said, "If I wanted to die that badly I'd be dead by now, Goldilocks."

"She pulls out her tubes," Natalie said. "She tricks the nurses. You know what she has? It's called anorexia nervosa."

"You have it, too, cutie pie." Lulu looked at Miri and pointed a finger at Natalie. "She has it, too."

"You never know if she's telling the truth or lying," Natalie said with a nod toward Lulu. "You can't believe anything she says. If she croaks I just hope she does it when I'm not around."

"I'll remember that, Golden One."

"See this banana," Natalie said to Miri, as she began to peel back the skin.

"Don't eat that in front of me or I'll vomit," Lulu said.

"She can't even look at food."

"I can if it's a picture in a magazine. Just not the real stuff. Not the smelly stuff."

"I have to go outside to eat a banana," Natalie said. "Banana!" she shouted, wagging it in front of Lulu.

Lulu gagged and reached for her call b.u.t.ton. A nurse came into the room. "What now, Lulu?"

"She made me gag."

"I didn't make her gag," Natalie said. "I showed her the banana, that's all."

Miri snuck a look at her watch. She wanted to get out of there in the worst way.

"I think your mother is waiting for me," she told Natalie. She picked up the gift-wrapped copy of Seventeenth Summer from the chair where she'd set it down earlier and handed it to Natalie. "I brought this for you."

"I hope it's not chocolates."

"It's a book."

"Let's see," Lulu said as Natalie tore the paper off Miri's gift. "Seventeenth Summer...how sweet. Are you in love with her?" Lulu asked Miri.

"Don't answer that!" Natalie said. Then, quietly, she told Miri, "I already read it."

"I know," Miri said. "We read it together. I just thought...I thought..."

Lulu started singing, "Be my love..."

"Shut up, Lulu!" Natalie said.

"I've got to go," Miri said.

"Sure," Natalie said. "I don't blame you."

- "HOW DID SHE SEEM?" Corinne asked on the way home.

"She was good."

"Argumentative? Angry?"

Miri nodded. "A little."

"That's better than depressed. She's eating again. Not a lot. And only a few things. But that's progress. Green grapes, iceberg lettuce and bananas. Like a chimpanzee." Corinne gave a sharp laugh. "Oh, G.o.d-I don't know why I said that. Please don't mention that I said that, about the chimpanzee."

Miri wanted to say she liked chimpanzees, but she didn't.

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