Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

The only person who knew I had a secret life was Nini.

What scared her about Brody was the way he got money.

At work, he sometimes rang up his own version of sales, but not too often.

His other more ambitious scam was stealing items from department stores and then returning them for cash.

Once a cashmere sweater, once a silk shirt, once a watch.

one ever really goes to jail for that, I informed Nini.

They were allied in my mind, the new bodily thrills and Brody's lawlessness.

Sometimes we smoked weed in the park.

I was very adamant about not drinking.

I thought civilization had advanced beyond alcohol, which made people violent, to more peaceful drugs like cannabis.

an evolutionary change.

Smoking pot made me nestle in Brody's arms on the park bench, curve against him in delight.

By May, Brody had finished a year of community college, allegedly studying business administration, and he said he'd had it with school crap.

"'Want a hitch to Arizona?'

he said.

"'It wouldn't be hard.'

He had a friend there we could stay with.

It was a good place to live, he'd heard.

The wide expanse of the desert.

We had found a new place to have sex, Nini's bedroom, when her parents weren't home, and he said this after a long, intricate session.