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had not been here yet. Now she never would. At the rate Con’s mother bought, fixed up, and sold at a profit the old Victorian houses that were scattered around the city of Westerly, the Winters would be living in yet another one by the time Anne returned from seeing the world.
    If Anne returned.
    If she could be bothered to telephone Con once she did.
    “Now, now. You two have been dating steadily since you were in junior high,” Con’s mother said. She put aside the memory of the days when they dated others or the long, sad stretch when Anne was (as the four parents referred to it) Out Of Town.
    “That’s right,” said Con huffily, “and Anne shouldn’t be dumping me like this. And if she is, she should at least ask me first before she goes and gets a job instead of coming with me to school.”
    “I don’t know how I raised a son like you,” said his mother, laughing. “A girl doesn’t need your permission to arrange her adult life, any more than you need hers.”
    Con sulked. He was good at this. Usually Anne rose to the occasion, trying to sweep away his bad humor as if her task in life was to keep Con happy. This was a pleasant contrast to Con’s mother, who felt that if her son wanted to be in a bad mood, that was his problem, not hers. Anne would rush forward, offering distraction, comfort, affection, and homemade brownies.
    Con liked being with Anne. She was invariably the loveliest girl in any gathering, and boys and men admired Con for having Anne as much as they admired Anne for looking the way she did.
    But it was the end of summer. Anne was about to possess the world and he would be an ordinary freshman on a campus with nearly twenty thousand other students. He would have to fight for a place like anybody else, and hunt for pretty girls, and struggle for grades. At State, he would be nobody.
    The whole thing was an outrage. If Anne just did as she was told, and went with him, he could continue college just as if it were high school.
    Con’s mother went right out and rented the Duet.
    Rather than exert himself, Con sweet-talked Kip into making every other arrangement. Old Beth Rose agreed to run the dumber errands.
    Con had a sudden insight.
    With Anne no longer shining by his side, he, Con, would be the boring one. Like Beth, good for the dumber errands.
    His resentment at being left behind filled his chest. Some party it would be.
    And he’d have to act all night as if he were enjoying it.
    Matthew O’Connor remembered once in soccer when he was knocked down so hard that hitting the ground whacked all the air out of his lungs. It was a strange, collapsed, deathlike feeling. No air. No strength. He remembered how the coach’s face swam above him and the air seemed thick like cloth and would not enter his lungs and revive him. “Is he hurt?” everybody had shouted. “Nah,” shouted the coach back, “just has to catch a breath.”
    Matt stared at Emily, and struggled once more to catch a breath. She was so mad at him she had actually thrown away his ring? Like the paper wrapping of a Big Mac?
    Her features were small and old-fashioned. He always thought of her as a heroine in a silent movie. It did not surprise him when she stalked off, got back into the car, and slammed the door.
    He loved her.
    He did not know what to do. The whole situation was like a math equation that would not work to a solution. It should be so simple. Boy goes to job, girl waits.
    Matt got into the car with her. He was actually afraid to touch her, for fear that along with throwing his ring away, she would throw him away.
    He drove mechanically to the dock.
    How were they supposed to get through a party now?
    Kip rushed through her schedule. She and the boys unpacked the groceries. George accepted her menu, and especially the pre-shredded cabbage, with delight. She hopped into the shower to rinse the chlorine out of her hair. She blew it dry, put on her dress, slid her bare feet into her sandals, and left.
    Kip loved