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hall there’d be signs for HELP AND CONSOLATION , and CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM . Sort of an open-air bazaar for your emotional and spiritual needs.
    But I turned in at Guidance because it was guidance I needed. There was nobody in the outer room. Just a cup of coffee on the desk. A computer terminal which was humming quietly to itself. On the wall behind the desk was a poster picture of a black fuzzy bear cub. Underneath the bear it said HAVE A BEARY NICE DAY .
    No psychobabble here.
    I waited for a minute and listened. A couple of kids went by in the corridor, their heels tapping against the tile floor. I waited another minute and was turning to leave when a woman came through the door fast and low and caught me in the shoulder.
    â€œOh, I’m sorry,” she said.
    â€œAn emergency?” I asked.
    â€œThey’re all emergencies,” the woman answered. “Are you a parent?”
    â€œNo,” I said, “but someday I hope to be one.”
    She was small and dark, maybe twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Sort of pretty, with dark hair and large intense brown eyes set in deep shadowed hollows. Her sweater was thick and coarse and hand-knit, probably in the Andes or someplace. Her earrings were long and silver and no doubt made by some local artisan whose sweater came from the Andes, too.
    â€œJack McMorrow,” I said. “Are you the guidance counselor?”
    â€œThe one and only,” she said, as if all the king’s horses and all the king’s men would have a tough time putting these kids back together again. She turned and walked into the office to the left of the bear poster. I assumed the invitation to accompany her was implied.
    Her name was Janice Genest, pronounced like genetics , and she pronounced her first name “Janeece.” It gave the name a tongue-twister sound but she was all business. She shook my hand over her desk. Her hand was tanned and strong. She was attractive in a handsome sort of way. High cheekbones and dark brown eyes. A lot of unruly hair pulled back and clipped. Very little makeup and very slim. A woman too busy to preen. And too busy to clean her desk, which was a mess. The poster directly behind her—a boy and a girl in sunglasses and leather jackets, models masquerading as tough kids—was an ad for condoms.
    â€œWhat can I do for you, Mr. McMorrow?” Genest said.
    I pointed at the poster.
    â€œIt has to do with that,” I said. “Sort of.”
    She didn’t flinch.
    I told her about New England Look. The story, I said, was about teenage pregnancy and how it shapes the world of rural Maine. She listened with no-nonsense directness and I tried to make every word count. It was as if I had gotten in the door with the head of a very large company and I had one chance to make my pitch.
    â€œSo here you have this vicious circle,” I said, both of us still standing. “They have kids at sixteen because their mothers had kids at sixteen. And I would guess—you would know more about this than me—that when you have kids at sixteen, it’s tough to do a heck of a lot more. You must see this. Grandmothers who are thirty-five. All these generations packed into a few years.”
    â€œThe record is thirty, I think,” Genest said. “That was the grandmother. The great-grandmother was under fifty. But looked sixty-five.”
    â€œHard life?”
    â€œHarder than yours or mine. You know, it’s a matriarchal thing. The woman, or girl, has the babies. Mommy’s boyfriends come and go. Stay long enough to make more kids. In jail as much as not. Alcohol is part of it ninety-nine percent of the time. He’s a drunk. She tries to keep things going but it’s pretty hopeless, so she ends up a drunk, too. Between drinking and cigarettes and general abuse, nobody lives very long.”
    â€œIt does sound kind of hopeless,” I said.
    â€œClose to it,” Genest said, shuffling through phone