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she said, grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the street. “I told Charlotte Lily about you, and she’s anxious to meet you.”
    We started toward the bus stop and then broke into a run when a bus pulled up. Kathy Ann didn’t seem to notice the way other passengers looked at her.
    “Here,” she said, handing me a college ID. “Tonight, you’re Parker Carson and you’re twenty-one.”
    “Why do we need this? I thought you said we could get in.”
    “Just in case,” she said. “You have to flash something so Charlotte Lily’s sister’s boyfriend doesn’t get into trouble.”
    I shrugged and put it in my shirt pocket.
    “Now tell me all about yourself,” she said, sitting back and looking like a five-year-old about to hear a bedtime story, “and don’t leave out the sad parts.”
    I made up a story, claiming Mother darling, who was now known as my older sister, and I had lost our parents in a plane crash. The more elaborate and far-fetched I was, the more Kathy Ann believed and enjoyed the story. I went into how we had to live with our grandparents, who were both old and feeble, with no memories, and how Grandma had set the house on fire accidentally in the kitchen one night. They were both now in homes, and we had left to start a new life in Nashville.
    “Wow,” she said with envy, “you have had an exciting life already. You’re going to love Nashville,” she added when I had mentioned my concern about moving here. “You’ll see,” she promised.
    With all the lights, people, and music, downtown was more interesting than I had anticipated. We went directly to the park and to the carousel where Charlotte Lily was waiting for us. She was quite the contrast to Kathy Ann. Tall and stylish in her cowgirl’s hat, red fringed-sleeved shirt, and laminated black jeans and black boots, I thought she was pretty enough to be a model. She had long, light brown hair parted in the middle and brushed down, hazel green eyes, and features as petite as mine and Mother darling’s, only with a dimple added to her right cheek. She looked me over quickly.
    “Hi,” she said, and glared angrily at Kathy Ann. “You’re nearly twenty minutes late.”
    “We left when I said we would,” Kathy Ann whined. “I can’t help it how long the bus takes.”
    “C’mon,” she ordered, and marched ahead of us.
    We caught up, and she looked at me again.
    “Where are you from?”
    “Granville, near Columbus, Ohio.”
    “Why did you come here?”
    “Her sister’s in a band and someday will be singing in the Grand Ole Opry,” Kathy Ann bellowed.
    Charlotte Lily smirked.
    “What about your parents?”
    “Her parents were killed in a plane crash when she was only five.”
    “What did you do, Kathy Ann, get her whole life story in ten minutes? Be careful,” she warned me. “Her picture’s next to the word
gossip
in the dictionary.”
    “It is not!”
    “What’s it next to then, Pothead?” Charlotte said, laughed, and impulsively crossed the street.
    “I thought you said she was your best friend,” I told Kathy Ann as we caught up.
    “She is. She’s very popular and she can get us into Stumpin‘ Jumpin’,” Kathy Ann reminded me.
    “Maybe it’s not worth it,” I told her.
    She looked at me as if I was crazy.
    “Give me a cigarette,” Charlotte ordered.
    “Oh, I left them home,” Kathy Ann said. Charlotte stopped walking and glared at her.
    “What? I told you not to forget.”
    “I know,” she said mournfully.
    “You smoke?” she asked me.
    “Yes, but I don’t have any cigarettes on me at the moment.”
    “Terrific.”
    I looked at the drugstore just down the walk.
    “Give me five minutes,” I said, and headed for it.
    “Five minutes?”
    They followed me in. I located the cigarettes quickly, but picked up a box of tampons I actually did need. I checked out the mirrors, watched the clerk behind the counter, and then picked up a pack of my favorite menthol cigarettes, shoving it into my blouse.