"Look, I don't think that-"

"You don't think what?"

"Nothing," I said. "Just forget it."

We rode and rode. When we were nowhere in particular, he turned his blinker on. A hand-lettered sign said "Animal Shelter-Town of Westwick." Then we were on a bumpy road lined with pine trees.

"I don't get it," I said.

"I haven't been out here for a while. There's a reservoir off thataway. And a waterfall somewhere around here. Listen for it."

The road dipped and rose and Jack swerved his way around the ruts and puddles. I thought of the wild rides with my father in Mrs. Masicotte's car. "So why are you taking us here?" I asked.

"I was thinking about this place today while I was on the air. Thinking about you, too. You'd be surprised how many times a day I think about you. I want to show you some-thins. This Will hrftalr vonr hart "

"What?"

"Don't be impatient," he said. He had on his teasing smile.

"Has Rita ever seen it?" He took another sip without answering me. "Are you drunk or something?"

"Hey," he said. "Didn't I tell you a while back to shut up?"

"Okay, fine," I said. "Just remember, I have homework."

I listened for that waterfall but heard, instead, the sound of barking dogs up in the trees. It got louder, came down to the ground. Up ahead was a cement building.

Jack slowed, pulled onto a crunchy gravel driveway, and cut the engine. "There," he said.

The dogs were behind chain-link pens that ran the length of one side of the building. Their angry barking filled up the air. A big white one kept lunging at us, buckling the fence with each charge.

Jack got out of the car. He tried the doorknob of the building, called hello, knocked on the metal door. "Guy I know's the dog warden but it looks like no one's home," he called back to me over the barking. "Come on out and see the pups."

I approached hesitantly. One had a cloudy eye; another had scratched his back raw. The white dog bared his pinky-gray gums at us and bit at the wire of the cage. "Why are they out here?" I said.

"These are the poor fuckers nobody wants. Keep them here a couple of weeks. Then they gas 'em."

He reached out and placed his hand on the small of my back, drawing me in next to him. "Don't they have sad eyes?" he said. "Makes you want to sit down and cry."

I couldn't see it. They were riled and dangerous-looking and I felt no sympathy. Their claws clicked against the concrete floor as they paced, dodging their turds and their slimy water bowls.

Jack started rubbing my back. The dogs seemed to calm. "The world is a lonely place, all right," he said. "Just look at these guys."

"Yup. So Where's this waterfall?"

"We're friends, right?" he said. "Can I ask you for a favor?"

"I don't know. What is it?"

"You promise you won't take it the wrong way?"

"I won't," I said.

"Could I give you a kiss-just a friendly one?"

My stomach pulled in; blood pounded in my head. "I don't think so."

"Some friend."

Then he bent toward me and kissed me anyway-softly, on the mouth. His breath was smelly and sweet from the liquor. His fingers dug into my back. The dogs were barking again.

"That felt nice," he said. "Nicest kiss I ever had. Don't be afraid."

He tried to do it again but I pulled away and stood by the car. "And you said there's a reservoir?" I said. My voice was quivery.

He laughed and got back in the car, shaking his head. I got in, too. Our door slamming echoed in the trees. His hand moved to the ignition switch, then stopped.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

"What?"

"Do you think much about sex?"

"No," I said. "Can we go?"

"Because I think you're very, very sexy-as if you didn't know already. Sometimes when she and I are..."

I wanted to be back at Grandma's, in the bathroom with the door locked, figuring everything out. "Can we just go?" I said.

He reached in front of my knees and flopped down his glove compartment. I was surprised to see his hand shaking a little. He pulled out a rolled-up magazine.

"See this," he said.

It took me a second to figure it out: a woman on the cover had her mouth on a man's penis. I flung it back at him. "Here," I said.

"Don't you want to take a look? Aren't vou curious?"

I started to cry. "No."

"You sure?"

"Shut up."

He chuckled. "They're doing a great job with you over at that school. You're going to make a terrific nun."

I didn't speak.

"Stop shaking. It's just a magazine." He was trying to sound calm and cool, but his words came out tight and his breathing was quick and jerky. I could tell he was losing his temper. "Sometimes I forget what a little kid you really are," he said. "What a little baby..."

I jammed my hands under my legs. "I'm not a little kid. I just don't feel like looking at dirty pictures," I said. "So shoot me."

"Maybe I will," he laughed. "The thing is... the way I look at it, anyway, is that love isn't dirty. And neither are pictures of it. But some people's minds are."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Besides, it's not even mine. I borrowed it from someone for a joke. But I guess I made a big mistake... Either that or I was misled by a little cocktease who's probably going to run back and tell Mommy."

"Look, I don't tell her stuff, okay? And I'm not that thing you just said, either."

"What thing?"

"You think I'm such a baby, but I'm not."

"Okay, okay," he said. He reached over and began playing with my hair. "Because we're good friends, you and me, and I hate to think I couldn't trust you."

"Well, you can, all right? Can we just go home now?"

He rolled the magazine back up and ran the edge of it against my leg, down to my foot, over and over. "I'll probably have this for a while. Before I have to give it back to that guy. You tell me if you ever want to look at it. We'll look at it together."

"No thanks," I said.

" 'No thanks,'" he mimicked. He slid it under the seat. A few of the dogs were lying down. One paced his cage.

"Dolores," he whispered. "Look." His hand was between his legs. He was rubbing his lump, watching me.

I turned away and stared hard out the window, tears falling fast "Would you please stop that?" I said. He didn't even seem to be the same person. A sudden thought slammed into me: I might not get home. "Stop what?" I could hear him still doing it. "That!" I said, flailing my hand back at Mm. Then I flung the door open, was out of the car, running past the dog pens. The animals barked and leapt None of it seemed real He caught me behind the building. I lost my balance and he fell down onto me. He twisted my arm back, yanking and pulling. "Don't tickle me!" I cried. "This isn't funny. What are you doing?"

He didn't seem to hear. "Little Miss Innocence__ fucking fed up with your bullshit. Give you what you been looking for." The words spit out of him. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" he shouted. "Bitch!"

His knee jabbed against my leg, pinching the skin against the ground. I looked.

"Now, say it: say Tuck me, Jack.' Tell me to fuck it into you."

When I swung, he reached out and caught my wrist, pressing the bone against the ground. He gave my arm another painful yank. This isn't Jack, I told myself. Somebody-Daddy, the real Jack-will come and save me. With his free hand, he yanked my skirt up and I heard something tear. "If you rip this uniform, you're paying for it!" I screamed. "Honest to God!"

"Shut up," he whispered Begged. "Listen. It's nicer if you don't fight it We're friends, you and me. Dont wreck it. I can't... It won't hurt if you don't fight. I promise..."

He kept fumbling and poking at me. I tried to pull my head up, to punch and spit, but my fists wouldn't land. The drool fell back against my chin. His elbow swung out and jabbed against my throat, gagging me.

His rubbing was rough and mean. His pants were down. "I hate you!" I shouted. "You pig!"

I stopped fighting, cut off by the pain of it. The sound of the barking dogs fell away so that all I could hear was his cursing and grunting, over and over, in rhythm with each thrust, each rupture. He's splitting me open, I thought. He'll break me and then I'll die.

I turned my head away and watched my fingers rake the dirt. My hand opened and closed, opened and closed. I couldn't feel myself controlling it. "Just pretend I died," I had told my father-and I knew no one was coming for me, that I was by myself.

Jack's anger shook us both. Then he stopped altogether, his dead weight on top of me. He was whimpering, catching his breath. When he got up, he kicked me hard on the leg and walked back out in front.

I heard him talking softly to the dogs, soothing them.

On the drive back home, he sobbed and talked. He wouldn't shut up. "We're awful people, you and me. Don't think this was all my show. We did what we did together."

My mind was numb; my insides burned. He seemed to drive so slowly.

He was talking about some gun. "You don't think I'd use it. But I would. What would she want to live for, anyway, if she found out what we just did... You want to call my bluff and tell, you just do it... I'll leave a note. Think of all the questions they'd have for you."

When he pulled up near Connie's, he reached over and brushed dead grass off my uniform. I was scared not to let him. "I feel so much closer to you now," he said. "You and I are together in this. If you tell anyone, I'll do it. You'll probably hear the shots. Her and me will be lying up there with half our heads blown away. Two deaths, thanks to you."

Three, I thought. The baby. I got out of the car. I looked only at my shoes, one in front of the other, getting me home.

Inside, the table was set for supper. Ma's mail was waiting for her on the counter. Potatoes were peeled and cut up in water on the stove.

The TV blared in the parlor. I walked past Grandma and up the stairs. My blouse had a dirt smudge on the sleeve. My underpants and legs were filthy with blood and him.

I looked at myself in the medicine-cabinet mirror. What had happened was going to be always on me, in me, as permanent as one of Roberta's tattoos. "Dolores," I said. I repeated my name over and over until it sounded warped and unreal. I was never going to be myself again.

I eased down into the bath. I'd made it hotter than I thought I could ever stand Through the clear, steaming water I watched my skin redden, studied the swollen place on my leg where he'd kicked me. A thin streamer of blood floated on the surface near my knee. I opened my sore legs wide to the scalding water.

I was afraid to stay in my room, afraid to be alone. I could hear him up there.

Grandma looked up from her story. "How was school today?" she asked.

"All right."

"You say that exact same thing every afternoon. Don't you ever have a day that's swell?"

"No."

I wanted Ma-to see her face, hear her voice. Know she was real, know I was inside the house with her and not out there. But when she got home, I saw it wasn't enough. Her mouth talked about her supervisor, her aching feet, her bowling average. The thing that had happened ached up inside me but was invisible.

Rita miscarried on a Sunday afternoon in November, the week after she'd sat at our kitchen table and told us the good news. Grandma called me to the dining-room window and whispered in my ear about the spotting. We watched Jack walk her to the car and ease her down into the passenger's seat, then drive her away. At bedtime, they still weren't back.

I awoke in the dark, drawn out of a troubled sleep where dogs chased me, cornered me, licked at my feet. I sat up and told myself to admit it: we had killed that baby, Jack and me-destroyed it with the filthy thing we did. I wasn't Little Miss Innocence. Hadn't I gotten into the car with nun all those afternoons? Touched myself thinking about him that time? Baby-killer Dolores, guilty as sin.

Downstairs it was shadowy and still. Steam seeped from the radiators. The front door handle was cold. The cold sidewalk against my bare feet kept me going.

Roberta's back light was on.

"Dolores?" she said. She was in pin curlers, pajamas. My knocking had scared her. "What's the trouble, honey?

What?" I leaned into her shoulder and sobbed.

Told.

She hugged me and rocked me against her and made me a cup of tea. The comfort of it, the warmth I swallowed, was the first thing I'd felt in weeks.

At dawn, we walked back across the street to wake up Ma.

I.