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Where are you?” said Jenny.
    “I cannot tell you. Where are you?”
    “I’m in the garage.” I pictured her in there, huddling near my dad’s fishing poles, and the extra refrigerator my mom used to stash beer. She looked just like I did at her age, everyone said so. You could hold my yearbook photo up to her face and never tell the two apart. We were twins, only years apart. Of course I had just been that girl on Thomas’s arm, and she was something special.
    “Where is Mom?” I said.
    “Inside, having herself a shit fit. I think she’s kind of loving all of this though. At least something is happening in her life.”
    I did not like that my mother was enjoying it, but there was nothing I could do about it. I could not turn around now.
    “Will you come back?” said Jenny.
    “I do not know,” I said, and that was the truth. Was it possible I would never see my hometown again?
    “I need you.”
    “When have you ever needed me?” I said. I laughed. Jenny did not laugh back.
    I squinted for a second. I pictured her again. She was not wearing any makeup at all and her hair was all around her in a beautiful golden mess. She was squatting on the ground. Her knees were touching her chin. Her eyes were closed. She held the phone with one hand, with the other she traced the shape of a heart on the ground, like she was feeling her way toward love. Air came out of her mouth slowly. She inflated. She deflated.
    “Does Mom know?” I said.
    “No. Now will you tell me where you are?”
    “No,” I said. I did not see how her knowing would help her any, even if she felt like she needed a little power right about then.
    “Bitch,” she said.
    “What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” I said. “And you got enough to worry about, sister.”
    I heard wild laughter, two almost identical voices, high and girlie, and I turned my head. In the backseat of the cab next to me two red-eyed women wearing wigs—one pink and one blue—were laughing so hard they were crying. What was so funny? I wanted to know. They saw me look at them, and they laughed harder.
    “Do you know who the dad is, Jenny?”
    The million-dollar question. She was the million-dollar question, and I was the $178,000 question.
    “It’s one of three people,” she said. “There was that one guy, and then there was a party the next night that got a little out of hand.”
    I said nothing. I was terrified for her. This was nothing like the life I had led just a few years before.
    “Doesn’t matter who it is anyway,” she said. “Ain’t none of them want it.”
    “Jenny, do not talk that way.”
    “What way?”
    “Like-you-do-not-know-how-to-talk-better way.”
    “Will you tell me one thing?” said Jenny.
    “Maybe,” I said.
    “Is it fun out there?” She sounded kind of jealous. I realized for the first time that it should have been her in this car and not me. A little part of me had always admired her for wanting to break free, even though I had never felt the same way. She was the one aching for freedom. “Is it better than here?” I could hear her heart waiting for me. I did not want to break it. I thought hard. Was it fun?
    “It is scary,” I said. “And it makes me sad to be away from home.” The women next to me laughed so hard it started to worry me. Could you die from laughing? Could you use up all your breath?
    “It’s not a little bit fun?” she said.
    I had not thought about it before, but it was kind of fun. The not-knowingness of it all freaked me out. But it was like playing a game, too. I felt like every new person I met, every new city I visited, the farther I got away from my past, I would be making a move. The lies, too, were moves. I had not told any big ones yet but I had told a few, and I knew I would have to tell more before all of it was over.
    “It is a little fun,” I said. “The most fun of all is letting yourself go. When you just decide to do what you want to do and not listen to anyone else at