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gotten plenty of attention from the boys.
    Tina checks the time. Wade should be here any minute. She’s not ready. She walks back into the bathroom. She grabs another lipstick, something more demure.
    “Are you nervous about tonight?”
    “I am.”
    “Have you guys . . . ?” Stephanie makes a slapping gesture with her hands.
    “Have we what?”
    “Fooled around yet.”
    “No.”
    “Really?”
    “Really.”
    Stephanie drapes herself inside the door frame.
    “Tina, have you fooled around with anyone since Bobby?”
    “Jesus, Steph, no.”
    Stephanie adopts a look of mock surprise.
    “What about Tommy Patek?”
    Four years ago, Tina went out on a few dates with little Bobby’s baseball coach. His wife had run off to Florida with her trainer and left him with two young kids. He was a nice-enough guy with stale breath and a fragile psyche. On their third date, he took Tina to a Spanish restaurant in Mariner’s Harbor. He excused himself to go to the bathroom as soon as they sat down. Fifteen minutes later, Tina’s cell phone rang. It was Tommy, calling from the parking lot. He was rambling and Tina suspected he was drunk. He said he was confused and that he couldn’t keep seeing her, that he had left money with the maître d’ for her dinner and a cab home. Then he hung up.
    Tina ordered a carafe of sangria, a shrimp and chorizo appetizer, and seafood paella. She asked for the check halfway through her second carafe of sangria. When the embarrassed waiter brought it over, she opened the black check holder to discover the crumpled twenty Tommy had left her sitting on top of a scribbled bill.
    There was no fourth date.
    “We made out on his couch one time. His seven-year-old daughter walked in on us just as he was getting to second base.”
    “Oh, very high school. Role playing. You slut.”
    Tina doesn’t respond, keeps applying the new lipstick.
    “You’re lying.” Steph presses.
    “It’s the truth.”
    “So you’re telling me you’ve never slept with anyone beside Bobby.” She lowers her voice, down to a hoarse whisper. “I don’t fucking believe you.”
    “I didn’t say that. Jesus, I don’t want to talk about this. Not tonight.”
    “C’mon, Tina.”
    “I’m trying to get ready. Jesus.”
    “Was that his name? He-zeus? Was he Dominican?”
    “Enough. Junior year, Bobby and I broke up for like three months, when I was away at school. I don’t even remember why. Anyway, I went out with this other guy, Dave McKinley, a few times.”
    “You and the Irish guys.”
    “He wasn’t Irish, he was Scottish. And Bobby is half Italian.”
    “So what happened?”
    “We had sex twice. The first time I was drunk and the second time he was. Nothing special, no big deal.”
    “Did you ever tell Bobby?”
    “No.”
    Tina sometimes wonders what Bobby did during the three months they were broken up. She asked him when they got back together that summer. He said he got drunk with his friends same as usual, confessed that he made out with Chrissy Nolan in the back of the Leaf one night, but that was it.
    He was probably telling the truth. Bobby was incapable of deceit. Capable of calling her a bitch. Capable of drinking more than he should. But not a lie. Not a big one anyway.
    When he asked her the same question, she lied. She never mentioned Dave McKinley or the other guy that she dry humped for a week. She said she’d focused on her studies, gone to the gym, some other bullshit. She acted hurt at the Nolan revelation, as if it were a huge betrayal, even though they were broken up, even though she’d done far more than Bobby.
    And he believed her! He spent the whole summer trying to make amends, treating her extra nice. All because of a drunken make-out with Chrissy Nolan.
    And what does she wish today? That Bobby had fucked Chrissy Nolan. Fucked her senseless. Fucked her for two months straight. So he didn’t go to the grave having only slept with her. So that Bobby had as much joy and sex and