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smoky motel room or maybe even a wet ashtray. Gemma is the more pleasant of the two. She has nice, blue eyes and zitless skin that suggest either good hygiene or an acne prescription from a dermatologist. She always smiles at me and occasionally asks me over to her house at the end of the street, but I almost always come up with an excuse to get out of it. I have no room for girlfriends in my life. I do the bare minimum to be friendly without getting close.
    Gemma and Caradee talk incessantly, which suits me. Their chatter can fill the air. It means that all I have to do is nod and say “Oh my God” or “No way!” or if it’s about a guy, “What a prick.” As long as I punctuate their silliness with some kind of supportive remark they think I like them. Having them think that is fine. I don’t want or need any more enemies.
    I left the girls smoking on the corner. It’s not that I felt some kind of urgency to get home. You know, like I knew something was wrong. I’m not that dramatic. You don’t have to be dramatic if you’ve lived my life, anyway. Drama has just always been there. No need to create it.
    AS I SIT HERE NOW on the Walla Walla , looking out at the city of Seattle as it blushes pink with the sunset over the Olympics to the west, I think about what I might have seen or heard. What might be helpful later. Hayden has taken one of every brochure off the rack by the bathroom—destinations for tourists, real-estate offerings for locals. Right now he’s looking at a brochure for whale watching on Neah Bay, over on the Olympic Peninsula. He seems occupied. It gives me a break, time to replay more of what happened.
    Colby, a neighbor’s cocker spaniel with sad droopy eyes, barked at me as I passed by—after I left Caradee and Gemma. Even though that dog knows me, and even though I gave him treats nearly every day all school year, he still treats me like I’m a stranger on my own turf, and it unnerves me. Dogs, I know, can be very smart. As I rounded the corner of our street, I stopped a moment to shift my backpack from one shoulder to the other. And then I noticed the fire department truck flashing its red strobe over the soggy green grass of the white house with black trim next door. My heart beat a little faster. I hoped that Mrs. Swanston was all right. She and her husband have been so nice to me and Hayden. Not grandparent-nice, but as close as we could get to that kind of relationship. The aid car had been there three nights ago, and once the month before. The lights were flashing as I approached, and my eyes widened  … 
    “She’s going to be okay,” a young paramedic told me when he saw the look on my face. He was handsome. Fireman-calendar handsome, I thought then. Even for Port Orchard. He knew how I felt, because in that moment I wasn’t wearing the mask that is my second nature.
    “That’s good,” I said.
    Peter Swanston came over to me. He is in his sixties, maybe even a bit older. His eyes were rimmed with red. He breathed in short puffs of emotion.
    “Rylee,” he said in that sandpaper voice of his, “Steffi is going to live to make trouble another day. It’s just her diabetes. We have to get that in check.”
    I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t. I have never really hugged anyone but my mom, dad and brother. Instead, I nodded silently and, for the first time, I noticed Dad’s car in the driveway. With everything going on around me, it didn’t register as odd that his car was there, that when I went inside a minute or so later that he’d be there. It was too early in the day for Dad to be home.
    “Steffi had a fit that the sirens were so loud,” Peter was saying. “She thought it would blast people out of the neighborhood. You know, she doesn’t like a show of things.”
    “Tell her I’ll be over tomorrow,” I said, not knowing then that it was a commitment I wouldn’t be able to keep.
    “Your company left. Like a bat out of hell,” Mr. Swanston said by way of