"And some people live in palaces and can't make a good life. It's not where, it's how. And it's who."

Maybe, Zoe thought, that was one more thing she was meant to remember.

"That's ours. Hers. Ours." She dropped the hand she'd used to gesture to the dingy green doublewide. "I'm ashamed that I'm ashamed of this. And I hate myself for hating that you see this. She always said I had too much pride. I guess she was right about that."

"I guess you're not perfect, then. Maybe I don't love you after all."

She tried to laugh, but it got stuck in her throat.

"Are you going to introduce me to your mother, Zoe, or should I just go up and knock on the door myself?"

"She won't like you."

"You're not taking into account my incredible charm."

Noting the amused and confident tone, Zoe merely slid her gaze up to his face. "That's one of the things she won't like about you." Resigned, she started forward. She heard the chattering inside as she reached the door. Young voices, at least two.

Saturday morning drives into Saturday night, she thought. Date night. A couple of girls wanted to get done up for a night on the prowl. She knocked on the metal frame of the screen, squeaked it open, then gave the inner door a good nudge with her shoulder.

Three girls, she noted. One with her hair already plastered with stripper. Somebody was going blond. The second had her short do already coated and setting up, and a third waited her turn and was holding out a fashion magazine to show off a hairstyle.

They sounded like an excited flock of birds, then fell into silence, then into snorting giggles when they spotted Brad behind Zoe.

The place smelled of bleach, dye, smoke, and last night's dinner.

Crystal finished setting an egg timer on the counter, turned. Her eyebrows raised high. "Wind blew you back a second time in one month, and it ain't even my birthday." Her gaze shifted to Brad and held, speculatively.

"I was out this way. I wanted you to meet my friend, Bradley."

"Bradley. That's a silver-dollar name."

"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. McCourt."

"Too many people in here." She grabbed her cigarettes and her hot-pink Bic. "Goon outside."

"Ladies," Brad said to the girls, and the giggles erupted again as he stepped back.

"I can see you're busy," Zoe began.

"Good Saturday business today." When the door shut behind her, Crystal flicked on her lighter, blew out a stream of smoke. "The Jacobson girl wants her hair blond. Wants to be Britney Spears. Had herself a nice head of chestnut brown, too, but it's no never mind to me if she wants to ruin it."

"Is that Haley Jacobson? She was just a little thing the last time I saw her."

"She's sixteen. Same age as you when you ran off. She keeps sashaying around like she does, she'll get herself in trouble same as you did."

"I stopped thinking about it as trouble a long time ago." Zoe knew the girls were there, too, and that as her mother hadn't bothered to lower her voice, that they heard every word. "Simon's the best thing that ever happened to me."

"You said you weren't breeding again." The line etched between Crystal's eyebrows deepened as she shot another look at Brad. "You come to tell me different?"

"No. Bradley's, he's…" "Zoe and Simon are important to me," Brad said smoothly. "I wanted to meet you. Zoe told me you raised four children, mostly on your own. That must be where she gets her courage."

Fancy name, fancy looks, fancy talk, Crystal thought as she chuffed out smoke. "Doesn't take courage to raise kids. It takes a strong back."

"I imagine it takes both. You have a beautiful and amazing daughter, Mrs. McCourt. You must be very proud."

"Bradley. Silver-dollar name and a fancy manner. You want to take her on, that's your business." As if it didn't matter to her one way or the other, she jerked a thin shoulder.

"She's a good worker, and she breeds well. Doesn't whine much."

"I'll keep that in mind," Brad said equably, and made Crystal laugh in spite of herself.

"Maybe she's got better taste this time around. You don't look to be too much of an asshole."

"Thanks."

"You never tried to wiggle out of work," she said to Zoe with a hint of affection. "I'll give you that." On impulse, she reached out, touched Zoe's hair. "Good cut—got style. Anyway, you never were stupid, either. You got a chance for the high life here—'cause this one looks like the high life to me—you'd be a fool not to take it. A woman's got to take what she can get."

"Mama."

"I say what's on my mind, always have, always will." Crystal dropped the cigarette, crushed it under her shoe. "I gotta get back inside. Get a ring on your finger this time," she told Zoe, then tipped her chin at Bradley. "You could do worse."

She dragged the screen open, went back inside. And shut the door.

"It never comes out right. It just never does." Tears flooded Zoe's eyes and were ruthlessly blinked back. "We need to go."

She started toward the woods almost at a jog, kept her head down when Brad took her arm. "She doesn't understand you."

"That's not news to me."

"She doesn't understand the light inside you. Or that it's not about what you can get, it's about what you want to make. She doesn't understand you, so she doesn't know how to love you."

"I don't know what to do about it." "You keep trying, and it's going to hurt you. You stop trying, and it's going to hurt you." He ran his hands up and down her arms for comfort. "I understand you, Zoe, so I know which choice you'll make."

She looked back toward the trailer. "I'll come back at Christmastime and maybe… just maybe." Because she thought they both needed it, she worked up a smile. "I told you she wouldn't like you."

"She did too like me. She's already caught in my web." He bent to kiss her lightly on the lips. "Just like her daughter."

"Me, I'm hell on cobwebs." She took his hand again, and they walked into the woods.

"Why do they call them cobwebs? They're not made out of cob."

"There's a question for Dana. She'll look it up somewhere—I don't know where she finds half these things— and give you a whole lecture on it. I never knew anybody so smart with words. It was always numbers for me. Now I'm friends with Dana, who knows everything about books, and Malory, who knows everything about art. I've learned a lot from them in the last couple months. Sometimes it all seems like some kind of dream."

She paused, looking around as she spoke. "And I'll wake up one morning and it'll all be the way it was. I'll be working for that bitch Carly again and I won't even know Dana or Mal. I'll pick up the newspaper and read Flynn's column, but I won't know him. Or I'll see one of Jordan's books and wonder what he's like, because I won't know."

She looked up at Brad, touched her fingers to his cheek. "I won't know you. I'll go pick up something at HomeMakers, and I won't think of you because none of this happened."

"It's real." He curled his fingers firmly around her wrist so she could feel his grip, so he could feel her pulse. 'This is real."

"But if it wasn't, if I'm in bed having some long, complicated dream, I think I'd wake up heartbroken." She looked back in the direction of her mother's trailer. "Or worse. Whatever happens next, wherever all of this ends, I couldn't stand it if I'd missed knowing you. Kiss me." She leaned in, rose on her toes. "Will you?"

He drew her close, and laid his lips on hers gently. Letting the moment spin out. When she sighed, when she linked her arms around his neck, it was more lovely than any dream.

She felt something shift inside her with an ache so sweet it brought the tears rushing back. The air was cool, his mouth so warm. Love, beyond what she'd ever hoped for, was here.

She felt his hand stroke her hair, smooth it all the way down her back. His slim young body pressed to hers with his need quivering through it, and into hers.

She eased back, looked into bright blue eyes, and let a tear trickle down her cheek. "James." She said it softly, cupped his face in her hands.

"I love you, Zoe." James's voice—a little breathless, eager, fell on her ears. "We were meant to be together. You'll never feel this way about anyone but me."

"No, I won't." Swamped with the love that poured from a sixteen-year-old girl's heart, she pressed his hand to her lips, to her cheek, held it there. "Nothing will ever be the same, not for either of us."

"We'll run away together. We'll be together forever."

She smiled, very gently. "No, we won't." She kissed him again, with no regrets, then stepped back. "Good-bye, James."

Brad hauled her upright when her knees gave way and continued to shake her, to say her name, as he had since he'd felt her leave him.

Her eyes had blurred, her cheeks had paled.

She'd called him James.

"Look at me. Look at me, goddamn it."

"I am." Limply, her head rolled back, and though her vision grayed with the effort, she fought to focus. "I'm looking at you. Bradley."

"We're getting out of here." He started to scoop her up, but she pressed a hand to his chest.

"No. It's all right. I just need a second. Let me take that second sitting down."

She slid down, sat on the ground with her forehead pressed to her updrawn knees. "I'm a little dizzy. Just need to get my bearings."

He pulled the knife from the sheath under his jacket and took a long scan of the woods before crouching in front of her. "You clicked off, like someone had flicked a switch inside you. You called me James."