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loves Pastor Jim.”
    “She’s insane about him,” I said, remembering how Natalie had described Pastor Jim as “special.” I thought she had just been implying that he didn’t like gay people either.
    “You can’t tell Katy.” Mom maybe read my thoughts. “We have to pretend this never happened. We have to act like Natalie is the same girl.”
    “We aren’t going to talk about it at all?” I protested.
    If I had been the one to get pregnant, Katy would have pointed to the loaf of bread popping from under my shirt and straight out asked me who had inflated my inner tube. Then she would have blabbed to someone, and the next thing you know I would have been at the Women’s Health Clinic, or pushing a stroller through the mall like other girls of our acquaintance.
    “It has to be our little secret, baby,” Mom said.
    Before I could ask what would happen if Natalie was caught, the outside door clicked, Nana returning fromcard night. We heard a muffled scream.
    “She overheard us.” I panicked.
    Mom flung the covers from our legs and we both rushed into the living room. I expected to find Nana sprawled in a heap, gray with the pallor of death. Instead, she stood over the soda stain with her hand covering her mouth. I could tell she wasn’t going to believe my excuse that a breeze had tipped the glass. Mom explained what she thought had really happened.
    “Oh my Lord,” Nana said, expressing her frustration. She sent me to bed, then she and Mom initiated a new process of blotting and dabbing. From my room, I heard what sounded like paper towels ripped from the roll.
    I also heard Nana rage about how careless and irresponsible I was while I listened through the walls. I worried that Nana might burst into the bedroom, brush me into a dustpan, and flush me down the toilet as part of the cleaning and bleaching, which kept her occupied for two hours. I couldn’t relax knowing Nana thought I was the most scandalous member of the Sorenson family while Natalie slept peacefully in the bed across the room from me.
    Natalie was curled into a C, her cheek pressed to her palms, her long lashes brushing her cheek. She lookedabout as guilty as an angel atop a Christmas tree, and I couldn’t shake the feeling Mom had made a mistake, had misunderstood the situation somehow. I watched Natalie breathing, the little hamster in my head spinning his wheel.
    When I was a kid, I used to believe another me awoke and interacted with the world while the day me nodded off, and that out there I had another existence miles from everything I had control over. As hard as I tried to catch a glimpse of the other girl inside me, I never succeeded. I kept hoping she was fabulous, but you never know, she could be unconsciously attracted to knee socks—I could nod off and wake up dressed in corduroy.
    The next morning, Nana marched into my room four hours earlier than I usually woke up on a Sunday. All the secrets and revelations of the night before rose too, and I couldn’t tell whether I was hung over from gin or I had gone to buy groceries at the Jack and Jill and a baby fell out, just like I had joked with Katy.
    “What time is it?” I asked.
    Nana told me to wash my face and get into my clothes, it was time a monkey like me greeted the day. Natalie’s bed was empty, her covers smoothed and her pillows lined against her headboard.
    “Where is Li?” I was suddenly deeply afraid that she had disappeared. Li was one of Natalie’s nicknames, one Mom used and I almost never did.
    “Out shopping with your mother.” Nana raised a shade.
    In the bright light of morning, the heart-shaped pillow with the white frill around its edge on Natalie’s bed reminded me of a ripe cherry Life Saver. It had probably been sewn by a six-year-old girl in a sweatshop somewhere in Pakistan. It had the word love stitched right on it.
    “Nana?” I asked, stalling, rubbing my eyes.
    She told me that I had five minutes, which was no time really, to get myself