Victoria was considerably younger than most of the secretaries at the law firm, so she didn’t make any friends. People were busy and didn’t have time to socialize and chat. She spoke to a few people in the employee dining room at lunchtime, but they were always in a hurry and had things to do. And she didn’t know a soul in New York. She didn’t mind. On weekends she went for long walks in Central Park, or listened to concerts, lying on a blanket on the grass. She went to all the museums, walked around the Cloisters, explored SoHo, Chelsea, and the Village, and wandered around the campus of NYU. She still would have liked to transfer there, but she thought she would lose credits and didn’t know if she had the grades. She was planning to stick it out at Northwestern for the next three years, or finish sooner if she could by going to summer school, and then move to New York and find a job. She knew after living in the city for a month that this was where she wanted to work, without any doubt. Sometimes during her lunch hours she looked up lists of New York schools. She was determined to teach at one of the private schools. And nothing was going to sway her from her plan.

When she finished her job at the law firm, she flew to L.A. for the last three weeks of her summer vacation, and Gracie threw herself into her sister’s arms the minute she walked through the door. Victoria was surprised to see that the house looked smaller, her parents older, and Gracie suddenly looked more grown up than she had four months before. But she looked nothing like Victoria had looked at the same age, with her rapidly maturing body, full figure, and big breasts. Gracie was tiny like their mother, with the same lithe figure and narrow heart-shaped face. But despite her skinny body, she still looked more mature. And on Victoria’s first night back, Grace admitted that she had a crush on a boy. She had met him at the swim and tennis club that their mother took her to every day. He was fourteen. And Victoria was too embarrassed to admit to her or her parents that she hadn’t had a date in over a year. When they pressed her about it repeatedly, thinking she was being coy, she finally invented a mythical boy she had gone out with at Northwestern. She said he was a hockey player and was studying to be an engineer. Her father informed her immediately that all engineers were bores. But at least they thought she had a date. She said he had spent the summer with his family in Maine. They seemed relieved to hear that she had gone out with someone, and she said she hadn’t gone out with anyone in New York. But dating someone at school made her sound more normal than the reality of the nights she had spent studying alone in the dorm.

Her mother pulled her aside and told her she might have gained a little weight in New York, and when they went to the club so Gracie could see her “boyfriend,” Victoria stayed in her shirt and shorts, instead of putting on a swimsuit, which was what she always did when she gained weight. And she and Grace had an ice cream nearly every day on the way home. But she never touched the Häagen-Dazs her mother had stocked in the fridge. She didn’t want them to see her eat it.

The weeks in California flew by, and they were sad again to see her leave. Gracie was more composed this time, but it was hard knowing they wouldn’t see Victoria again for three months until Thanksgiving. But she would be busy with a heavy workload at school, and Gracie was going into seventh grade. It was difficult for Victoria to believe that Gracie would be in high school in two years.

Victoria’s roommate sophomore year was a nervous-looking girl from New York. She had an obvious eating disorder and was frighteningly thin. She admitted after a few days that she had been in a hospital all summer, and Victoria watched her get thinner every day. Her parents called her constantly to check on her, and she said she had a boyfriend in New York. She looked miserable at school, and Victoria tried to ignore the atmosphere of stress she created. She was a crisis in full bloom. Just looking at her made Victoria want to eat more. And by the time Victoria went back to L.A. for Thanksgiving, her roommate had decided to leave school and go back to New York. It was a relief to know that she wouldn’t be there when Victoria got back. It was hard to live with the tension she exuded in the room.

It was between Thanksgiving and Christmas that Victoria met the first boy who had interested her since she’d been there. He was in prelaw, in his junior year, and he was in an English lit class with her. He was a tall, good-looking boy with freckles and red hair, from Louisville, Kentucky, and she loved to listen to his drawl when he talked. They were in a study group together, and he invited her out to coffee afterward. His father owned several race horses, and his mother lived in Paris. He was planning to spend Christmas with her there. He was fluent in French, and had lived in London and Hong Kong. Everything about him seemed exotic to Victoria, and he was a kind, gentle person.

They talked about their families, and he said his life had been pretty upside down since his parents’ divorce, and his mother constantly moved from one place to another around the world. She had married someone after his father and was divorced again. He thought Victoria’s life sounded a lot more stable than his own, and it was, but she didn’t consider her childhood a happy one either. She had been an outsider in her own home all her life. And he had been a newcomer wherever he was. He had gone to five schools after eighth grade. And his father had just married a twenty-three-year-old girl. He was twenty-one. He admitted to Victoria that his stepmother had come on to him, and he had almost slept with her. They had both been drunk, and by some miracle of good judgment, he had managed not to give in to temptation, but he was nervous about seeing her again. He had decided to spend Christmas with his mother in Paris instead, although she had a new French boyfriend he wasn’t crazy about either.

He was very funny about his stories, but there was something almost tragic about the tales he told about a lost boy caught between crazy, irresponsible parents. He said he was living proof that people with too much money screwed up their kids. He had been seeing a shrink since he was twelve. His name was Beau, and despite some romantic moments and a little heavy petting on the night before she left, they hadn’t slept with each other when she went to L.A. for Christmas. He promised to call her from Paris. And he seemed wonderfully romantic and exotic to her. She was fascinated by him. And this time when her parents asked who she was dating, she could say a junior in pre-law. It would sound respectable to them, although she couldn’t imagine her father or mother liking him. He was much too offbeat for them.

Beau called her over the holidays and had gone to Gstaad with his mother and her friend. He sounded bored and a little lost. And he texted her constantly with things that made her laugh. Gracie wanted to know if he was handsome but said she didn’t like red hair. And this time Victoria watched her diet. She passed on desserts even though her father expressed surprise when his “big girl” said no. It was impossible to shake his view of her as someone who ate all the wrong things and was always overweight.

Victoria lost five pounds during her ten days in L.A. And she and Beau got back to Northwestern within hours of each other on the same day. She had thought of nothing but him over the holiday, and she wondered how long it would take for them to wind up in bed. She was glad that she had saved herself for him. Beau would be her first, and she could easily imagine him being gentle and sensual in bed. They were kissing and laughing and cuddling when he came to her dorm room, and he said he was so jet-lagged that nothing happened that night. Nor for the next many weeks. They were with each other constantly, they studied in the library together, and since she no longer had a roommate, sometimes he fell asleep on the other bed. They spent a lot of time kissing and fondling, and he loved her breasts, but it never went past that point. He told her she should wear miniskirts because she had the best legs he had ever seen. He appeared to be totally enthralled with her, and for the first time in her life, Victoria was seriously losing weight. She wanted to look great for him. And she was feeling good about herself.

They had snowball fights and went ice skating, they went to hockey games, restaurants, and bars. He introduced her to his friends. They went everywhere together and always had a terrific time. But no matter how close they got to it, they never made love. She wasn’t sure why, and she was afraid to ask. She wondered if he thought she was too fat, or if he respected her too much, or if maybe he was afraid, or if his near miss with his twenty-three-year-old stepmother had traumatized him, or his parents’ divorce. Something was holding him back, and Victoria had no idea what it was. He obviously wanted her, and their makeout sessions grew more and more passionate, but their hunger for each other was never consummated, and it was driving Victoria insane. They were down to their underwear one night in her dorm room, and then he held her in his arms and lay there silently without moving for a long time, and then he got out of bed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him quietly, sure that it was something about her. Something wrong with her. Maybe her weight. All her feelings of not being good enough came back to her in a rush as he sat down on the edge of her bed.

“I’m falling in love with you,” he said miserably, as he dropped his head into his hands.

“So am I with you. What’s wrong with that?” She was smiling at him.

“I can’t do this to you,” he said softly, and she touched his red hair falling over his eyes. He looked like Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. He was a boy.