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baseman for the baseball team, had to work for it, put in some serious effort, to get any. These girls never gave it up rashly, even if the desire for it was mutual, or in some cases greater, because Brooklyn College girls were taught nothing if not this: No one buys the cow when they can get the milk for free. Had that adage not been drummed into her consciousness to the point of shackling her legs shut, Miriam mighthave hiked up her skirt right then and there in the Boylan Hall cafeteria, for Miriam was a passionate girl by nature, and Ronald Kessler set her blood to boil.
    Having made arrangements for their date, Ronald walked off, and the girls at Miriam’s table fell upon her, carrying on as if Miriam had just been crowned Miss Sheepshead Bay.
     
    Beth changed back into her street clothes—Levi’s, navy-blue Shetland sweater, Stan Smith sneakers, and the bunny jacket, which was also known as a junior fur and the first in a series that would climax with a full-length mink—before going to get Valentine who was still seated in the bleachers and humming away.
    “Hey. Earth to Valentine,” Beth asked. “Are you ready? Let’s go.” Yet Beth made no move to walk home. Instead, she sat alongside of Valentine and said, ““Valentine, we need to have a serious talk.”
    A serious talk from a teenage girl was never going to be good news or any kind of a compliment.
    “I have to be honest,” Beth said, “because you’re my best friend. And it would be wrong of me if I wasn’t honest with you. Because that’s what best friends are for. Right?”
    And serious talks that were honest were the worst kind possible. Beth was bound to tell her something like her breath stank or maybe, like Laura Volkman was told, she had an obnoxious laugh and that she should do something about it.
    Valentine crossed her arms in front of her chest. “So?” Her voice went squawklike. “What is it?”
    “Now, don’t be mad at me,” Beth said. “Promise you won’t be mad,” and then, without waiting for the aforementioned promise,she came out with it. “No offense, but I think maybe you need to see a psychiatrist.”
    “A psychiatrist? Why?” Valentine asked. “Because I liked that church music? That makes me crazy?”
    “It’s not just the church music,” Beth said, although, in her book, it was a good place to start. “It’s that, I don’t know, you were always quiet, but now it’s like no one is at home in your head. And then when you do talk, you say weird things.”
    “What weird things?”
    “Well, like before when you said I looked like the Little Dipper. That’s not a normal thing to say.” Ah, normal. Such faith Beth had in normal . It was the only way to be. Normal. “You seem weird lately. Everyone says so.”
    As if she had been a hundred times stung, as if everyone says so were a swarm of hornets, the bloodletting of the vicious attack of adolescent girls telling the truth for your own good because you should know all the hateful things being said about you, Valentine’s big blue eyes filled with tears. “Fuck you, Beth,” Valentine said. “Fuck you.”
    “Yeah, you wish,” Beth retorted because that was the known response to Fuck you . Fuck you. Then Yeah, you wish, and that should’ve been the end of it, but instead, as Valentine fled, Beth called after her, “I was just being honest.”

Four
    W hen Valentine stopped running, she found herself back at the Church of the Holy Family as the last Mass of the day was breaking. The priest was at the open door, shaking hands with the Catholics as they made their way out. Valentine glimpsed inside to the altar, splendiferous and rococo to the hilt, cherubs and angels carved and painted in gold leaf. The sunlight, coming in from behind stained glass windows, etched sharp lines in the red carpet. Gloria Tibi, Domine .
     
    For the duration of their Sunday breakfast together, not one word was spoken. It was that kind of quiet, if it fell on you, it could