"I can't take you away, Wen. But I can make the loneliness leave you."

"No—I don't want that. I want to leave."

"Just imagine, Wendy," I say. "a world without loneliness. Every trial would become bearable, wouldn't it?"

She thinks this over. She's smart and she sees the truth. "Yes." She sniffles. "You're right. You win the Brownie badge. But why do we have to get lonely? It's so awful. It's so—wait—" Wendy's composure returns somewhat. She wipes her eye and her voice becomes still. "You're not going to take me away—are you?"

"Nope. I would if I could, but I can't. You know that, Wendy."

She sits on a fallen stump to collect her breath, her mind racing so quickly it almost seizes up. She takes several deep gulps, calms down, and then looks across the ferns and moss at me, a sixteen-year-old dead boy. As she does this, her raincoat opens slightly, exposing her lingerie beneath. She sniggers and takes the jacket off completely, revealing her pale thick body. "Ta da! Hey Jared, welcome to the new me. Doesn't this getup make me lovable? Huh?""You're a part of the world, Wendy, as much as daisies, glaciers, earthquake faults and mallard ducks. You were meant to exist. You've gotta believe me. You're lovable .. . and you're hot! You look so good."

"Could you love me, Jared?"

"Which way?"

"Any way that stops me from being lonely."

Her skin is goosebumped, her nipples are rigid. "Oh man, could I—"

"I'm here."

And so I remove the bulk of my spectral football outfit—cleats and pads and shirt—but I leave my shoulder pads on.

"Your shoulders," she says.

I walk toward her: "Just shush, Wen. Feel me walking through you."

"Shhhh—quiet, Jared."

"Oh, fucking A, man, this is great. Man, this is even better than Karen's floor." Wendy giggles and her voice drains. "Oh, Wendy—I don't get to do this all too often these days. Oh!"

I stand there inside her body while a flock of crows caws in the treetops, and then I pass through her and it's as if I'm receiving answers to questions I'd asked long ago—the same sense of being suspended in a moment of truth. As I look back, she is frozen with pleasure, eyeballs skyward and white. Her senses are still locked inside another realm.

I put my football togs back on and float in front of her, watching over her for a few minutes as her mind and body thaw. She looks at me and asks, "That's as good as it gets, isn't it?"

"Yep."

"I've been thinking of this since 1978."

"It was a powerful dream. You were great."

"You're going to leave now, aren't you?"

"I'm not leaving you, but I do have to cut out. And also—"

"Shhh. Let me guess—-I'm pregnant now, aren't I?"

"Yep. How'd you know that?"

"It's this skill I have. I can always tell when a woman's pregnant." She pauses, her mind dreamy. "Thanks, Jared."I float upward, up into the canopy of trees and into the sky. "Good-bye, Wendy."

Jane is papoosed onto Megan's back as she motorcycles slowly through the ghostly suburb, ever vigilant for fallen trees, angry dogs, or freak weather bursts.

I look into Megan's mind and I am fascinated by the things I see. Megan, being a teenager, had the least formed personality of the group as the world shut itself down, and she is also the least affected by everything. She drives over a crunchy skeleton on Stevens Drive as though it were merely a fallen branch; lighting a cigarette, she throws the lit match into the nearest house, not even sticking around to watch it burn.

It's a sunny day and the air is clear—a rare day when the world doesn't smell like a tire fire, the endless reeking fumes that cross over the Pacific from China.

In the middle of driving down Stevens to Rabbit Lane, Megan endures a pang of loneliness so real and so strong that I can only compare it to a tornado or lightning. It dawns on her that she has never visited Jenny Tyrell's house in all the past year. She doesn't know what she will find there, but she knows she has to go.

Megan's hair is now long and falls to the side of her head like a bird lowering its wings as she pulls into the driveway of Jenny Tyrell's house. Its lawn, like all lawns, has turned into a scraggly meadow; the Christmas decorations have faded after a year of neglect; the shingles have begun to snaggletooth; the cars in the driveway are coated in dust, and the tires have gone flat—a fairly good indicator that there'll be Leakers inside the house, and indeed there are—Mr. and Mrs. Tyrell, mummified and serene on the living room floor surrounded by books of family photos, Mrs. Tyrell's wedding dress, a wine bottle, and two glasses. No odors.

"Yo! Mr. and Mrs. Tyrell—" Megan gives the parents a fond gaze.

"Came to check out Jenny's stuff. She's over at the mall in Lynn

Valley. Mind if I go upstairs? Thanks. Oh look, Janie—Jenny's room is a pigsty like always."Megan unstraps a googling Jane and puts her on Jenny's bed. The room hasn't changed much; the door was closed, so there's little dust. Makeup and clothes are scattered about. There's a photo of Megan, Jenny, and the old gang on the grass hockey team; ski boots; several Alanis Morrisette posters on the wall; and on the desk a diary— Megan had no idea Jenny kept a diary. "Move over, Jane—we're going to be here a little while." Her eyes moisten; her heart explodes.

September 28, 1997

Who does Megan think she is? Just because she's dating an older guy she thinks she's Mrs. Hot Shit. His name is Skitter and it's not like he's a big catch or something. He's got nice legs and he's buff, but he's so crude and he dresses like a metal-head and a druggie. Please give me a ten-foot pole.

Won our grass hockey game today. 5 to 3 against Hillside and I got a goal. We rock!

"Jenny, you cow. You were jealous from the word 'go,' and you know it. You tried to worm your way into everything me and Skitter did. Skitter's nickname for you was 'The Remora Fish.' I pitied you."

October 13, 1997

Megan got dumped by Skitter, but she tries to make it sound like she left him. As IF. She's really far away in her head these days, so it's no wonder she got the boot. I think it's because of that loser school she goes to—the school for losers down in North Van. I'm going to try and think of a way to call Skitter without looking like a slut. Maybe I'll call and ask him where I can score some hash. I've still got his number.

"Now this is really too much. Way too much. I left him, thank you. Because he was a cheating tightwad bastard and I ended up buying everything he asked for and I realized he just uses women-even having high school girls pay for his own cigarettes." Megan finds herself missing Jenny dreadfully.November 2, 1997

Wow! Megan's mother came out of her coma. Wow!!! She's been in it as long as I've known Megan, which is my whole life, which is a pretty long time. It was in the papers and on TV and everywhere, but Megan's family won't let anybody take pictures so they keep showing that creepy high school photo Megan's dad keeps in the den. I guess this means Megan is going to be ignored even more by her family. Ha HA. Now she'll know how it feels to be left out in the cold like me. I tried to call, but the phone was busy all day.

Later on I went with Skitter to one of his friends, but they weren't there so he pried open the door and we made out for 3 hours and it was really sexy being in somebody else's house.

"Jenny, you are so crude. You take my mom's waking up and twist it into something about you. You had nothing to do with it, and as for Skitter and other people's houses, he was a real perv and went out of his way to do it in cool places like the changing room at Le Chateau, which, I have to admit, was a real turn-on."

December 26, 1997

Megan and I are friends again, and to show it she invited me to a party down at Lois's and I got to see KAREN for the first time close-up. She was so scary looking—like she was anorexic to the point of death and it's so sick to think of Richard and her making it. Ick-o-rama. Maybe Richard'll wait a few months until she puts some meat on. She looked at me like she knew my secrets or something. She's just really really creepy.