Theo dropped his bag and collapsed on the wooden bench. “Man, I wish you hadn’t said that.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not how it is,” Theo said. “She’s a friend of my mother’s. This is an errand, you know, like going to the store.”

“I’d like to go to that store,” Aaron said.

“Me, too,” Brett said. “Anyway, how about we come along? This lady lives on Polpis, right? We’ll hit the Islander on the way back.”

“No,” Theo said.

“Why not?” Aaron said. His black hair stood up from his scalp like porcupine quills. “You said it was like going to the store.”

“I don’t know what it’s like,” Theo said.

Because the truth was, it felt sort of like an errand for his mother, but sort of like a date, too. Or not a date, but giving a girl a ride home. Antoinette was waiting in the parking lot, leaning against his Jeep, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

“You can get in,” he said. “You look cold.”

“I’m all right.”

He threw his bag in the back, dug his keys out of his front jeans pocket, and started the engine. Antoinette closed her door and stared straight ahead. Theo worried what he must smell like-what if he’d carried out the stench of the boys’ locker room? The radio was on way too loud, and he quickly turned it down. Why was he so nervous? He left the parking lot.

“You used to have a Jeep like this, didn’t you?” he asked.

“I had a CJ7,” Antoinette said. “Drove it until it fell apart.”

“And now what do you drive?”

“I don’t,” she said. “As you saw the other day, I ride my bike.”

“Oh. Isn’t that tough, though, I mean, living out on Polpis? What about the store and stuff? Or if you have to go to town?”

“I call a cab,” she said. “Or I hitchhike.”

“You hitchhike?”

“Sometimes.”

“Well, if you’re ever in a pinch for a vehicle, I can give you a lift. Dad and I split the cost of this thing on the condition that I’m at their beck and call at, like, any given moment. So, if you need a ride…”

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

But he could tell she thought he was an idiot.

He said nothing else and neither did she. She wasn’t like his mother’s other friends, who always had a question for him: How was school? Who was he taking to the prom? Had he given any thought to college? Antoinette, he was sure, cared nothing for his little life. He didn’t even know why she was friends with his mother. They were nothing alike. His mother was so normal. They’d been friends a long time, though, since before he was born, and Theo respected that. He understood that in certain instances, time could fill in for common ground.

As he turned onto the dirt lane that was Antoinette’s driveway, Theo allowed himself a glance at her chest. He remembered her nipples poking through the holes of the afghan, and it was an arousing thought. So he looked to see if her nipples were still erect from the cold, and she caught him. He averted his eyes slightly to make it seem like he was looking out her window-but no. He’d been caught checking out her tits as surely as if he’d reached over and touched one.

Antoinette smiled out the window.

Theo hit the gas, and the Jeep went shooting up the driveway to the house. He braked and turned on his lights; it was starting to get dark.

Antoinette sat quietly, making no move to get out.

What was she waiting for? Was she pissed off? Did she expect an apology?

Theo coughed. “My dad built this house for you, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, he did.”

“Thought so-”

“Theo-”

They both spoke at once and Theo laughed. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Do you want to come inside?”

“No, I’d better get home.”

“How old are you, Theo?” she asked.

“Eighteen,” he said. “I’m eighteen.”

“You’re graduating, then?”

“No,” he said. “I’m only a junior. I repeated third grade because I had mono.”

“Mono. The kissing disease.” Antoinette smiled again, and Theo reached for the gear shift. She didn’t make a move to get out or anything, so Theo shifted into reverse.

“Whatever,” he said. “I’m a year older than everyone else in my class. I used to hate it, but now it’s kind of cool. I have my license and stuff.”

She touched her lips and studied the front of her house. “You know, I think I remember that year you were sick. I definitely remember when you were born. Can’t believe eighteen years have passed. I must be getting old.”

“You’re not old,” Theo said.

Antoinette opened her door and hopped out. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, but I am,” she said.

He saw her again a few days later. Life was funny that way-he hadn’t given Antoinette a thought in five years, and now all of a sudden, she was everywhere he looked. He was at baseball practice, standing at third base while the assistant coach, Ned, who had hit.325 for the University of Arizona and had biceps the size of grapefruits, smacked balls to all the infielders. Theo had just caught a line drive that was so hot it burned the pocket of his mitt, when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye: a woman wearing a long black raincoat, riding a bike. Kevin Shaw, the shortstop, saw her, too, and he said, “Oh, look, the Wicked Witch of the West.” It was Antoinette.

Brett, who was leaning against the backstop with his catcher’s mask secured on top of his head, said, “Theo, man, there’s your girlfriend.”

The rest of the team turned around, and Big Ned sent a ball past Joey Mackenna at first base. Theo felt his face get hot. He shot Brett the finger, shielded from Ned’s view by his mitt. Theo heard the squeal of brakes, and he could tell without turning around that Antoinette had stopped just on the other side of the fence.

Please go away, he thought. Though a part of him was soaring-Antoinette had come to see him! It changed his whole day, and even after Ned barked out, “Gentlemen, pay attention!” and even after Theo heard the clickety-click of Antoinette’s bike chain resume, he glowed with the fact that she’d sought him out. Ned sent him a choppy grounder, which he plucked out of the air and aced to Mackenna on first.

“Theo on fire,” Brett said.

He started taking the long, long, long way home from the Islander so that he could drive by her house. An exercise in futility, because he couldn’t see the house from the road, only the first twenty yards or so of dirt driveway. Theo began to look for tire tracks. Did they seem fresh? Had she just gotten home? Was she still out somewhere on her bike?

One evening, he stopped right there on Polpis Road in front of her driveway. He wanted to pull in, but he was too afraid. He’d nicked a can of WD-40 from his father’s toolbox, thinking that he could stop by and offer to oil the brakes of her bike. He waited for about thirty seconds, listening for another car, which, if he didn’t get moving, would rear-end him and probably kill him. His father had lectured him for almost an hour about being a safe driver-one accident and the car got taken away, blah, blah, blah.

Then, without warning, the passenger door opened and Antoinette climbed in. Wearing black jeans and a silky black blouse, holding a long stick.

Where had she come from?

“Hi,” he said. “I was just…”

“Waiting for me?” she said.

“No. I, uh…”

“Too bad,” she said. “I went for a walk in the woods just now and I saw your Jeep. I thought maybe the reason you were peering down my driveway was because you wanted to see me.”

Theo’s eyes were drawn to the way the material of her blouse lay against her chest. Black material, brown skin.

“Do you need a ride somewhere?” he asked. “I can give you a ride.”

“How about you drive me home?”

“You are home.”

“Up the driveway,” she said.

His heart sailed like a home run. Going, going… He shifted into first and zoomed up the driveway to her house.

“Do you want to come inside?” she said.

As soon as she asked, he got an erection, a definite indication that his answer should be no. You’d better fuck her or we’ll never forgive you.

“No, I can’t. I have to get home.”

Now it was her turn to look-her eyes targeted the crotch of his jeans, the thickening there. Could she detect it? She reached out one of her long bronze arms, her slender fingers, and stroked him back, forth, like she was painting him. Theo groaned. The touch was feathery light, in honesty he could barely feel it, but the whole idea of Antoinette stroking him made him turgid. What was happening?

“I think you’d better come inside,” she said.

He followed her into her cottage, noticing only peripherally what his mother referred to as “Antoinette’s cool stuff”: the funky, hand-painted furniture, the African drums, the colorful candles knotted and twisted like magician’s balloons. He would see all that later. That first time, he followed Antoinette into the bedroom, where she stripped her clothes, casually, as though she were going to shower. She was a woman like none he’d ever seen. Like a flute carved from a single piece of wood.

Somehow he, too, undressed and sat on the bed, and Antoinette knelt before him and took him in her mouth. Sucking and stroking him as he watched the perfect arc of her spine and willed himself not to explode. He wanted to touch her, but he couldn’t. His hands were propping him up.

She climbed on top of him and his hands were pinned again, this time above his head. She was holding his wrists together as she slid up and down. Up and down, up and down, until she moaned and Theo knew it was no use holding back. He was gone, cut loose into a part of the world so wonderful he could never have predicted its existence.

Afterwards, he lay on his back, agitated, his mind floundering like a freshly caught fish. He thought of his father first and that led dangerously to thinking about his mother. His mother. Oh, shit.