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leaving. 
                  “By pimping me—where do we go down from here?”
                  He laughed.  Then I laughed.  He placed his palms flat on the car roof, arms outstretched.  He smelled like the ocean.  “Hey, that guy’ll be here.”
                  “What guy?”
                  “That guy you were Googling at the hotel—Tom Davis—tonight he’s introducing Senator Watkins—we’re hosting a fundraiser for his reelection campaign.  You should stay.”
                  “After my background check?”
                  “I’m serious.  Stay.”
                  “Thanks, but I’m not doing another eight-hour round-trip to get my prom dress.”
                  “That’s it.”  He snapped his fingers.  “ That is how I will make it up to you.  I will take you shopping and introduce you to Tom Davis.”
                  “Oh, yeah, that is just like a job.”
                  “Great.  Let me grab a shirt.”
                  I sat in the drive and waited for him, daring myself to peel out.  But all I could hear was the fairground’s barker beckoning me to get on.
     
    Pax’s sports car was so low to the ground it was hard not to flinch every time an SUV passed—it felt like it would ride right over us.  I looked at him—he was—well, the phrase that came to me was something I’d seen in Grease .  He was the living end.  The tan, the car, the sunglasses, the way the wind tussled his hair—he was in those minutes beautiful like a dolphin is beautiful, like certain things in nature attain momentary perfection.  He was perfection.  And I was in the passenger seat of it.
    “Mama always told me never to ride with strangers.”
                  He shifted gears.  “Well, technically, we’ve seen each other naked so I think that makes us something other than strangers—and I was witness to a life-altering event.”
                  “Kind of like you helped me give birth in an elevator.”
                  “Kind of.”
                  “Only you were the one pressing the emergency stop-button.” 
                  He smiled as he turned onto Worth Avenue.  “You hungry?”
                  “Always.”  He swerved to a stop in front of a little café and came back a few minutes later with two milkshakes.  “I don’t like to go into these places empty-handed.  It makes them so much more nervous if you’re carrying food.”
                  “Where, exactly, are we going?” I asked as he pulled back out and then up to one of the stores down the block. 
                  “Wherever Cricket’s charge accounts take us.”
                  “Cricket?”  I asked, getting out as he tossed the valet his keys.
                  “My Mom.  But I call her Cricket.”
                  “That’s funny,” I said, taking a sip, letting him hold the door for me, like this was a date. 
                  “What?”
                  “I call my Mom by her name, too.”  It was strange to think we had anything whatsoever in common.  “Delilah.” 
                  “Does she live up to her name?” he asked of its biblical origins as the air conditioning and scented candles made me shiver, something unsettling about such a sweet fragrance in a simulated winter. 
                  “No, sadly, more often the guys are her undoing.”  The carpet was Kelly green, the walls a vintage floral.  It felt like a glimpse of the world Grammy had aspired to and Delilah reactively spurned.  “This feels fancy,” I said.  “I don’t need anything this fancy.”
                  “Look, if only my friend had gotten you fired we’d be at Chicco’s right now.  But this is a