“No.”

“You’re not hanging out here all day, are you, Lee?” she said. “You should do something fun. Surprise holiday only happens once a year.”

“Of course I’m not staying here,” I said.

“You’re going to the mall?”

Without thinking, I nodded.

“It’s kind of a trashy mall,” she said. “Remember that time Aspeth and I took a taxi there? It was a waste of time. The shopping is much better in Boston. Oh, but you’re probably going to the movies, huh?”

I nodded again.

“What movie are you seeing?”

I hesitated. “Actually,” I said. “Actually, the reason I’m going to the mall is that-well, I’m getting my ears pierced.” As I said it, I felt blood rush to my face. I had never considered getting my ears pierced; I wasn’t even sure my parents would allow it.

“Oh, Lee! That’s great. That’ll look so good. And you’ll wear dangly earrings, right? Not just studs?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“This is going to be such an improvement.”

It occurred to me to take offense, but it was clear that Dede was only trying to be supportive. There was something guileless about her-all her unpleasantness was close to the surface, like the earth’s crust; once you got below it, she was strangely innocent.

Dede was right; the mall was kind of trashy. The lighting was bright white, and the floor was made of shiny, fake-looking orange bricks. Several of the spaces where stores had once been had chrome grates pulled over them; behind the grates, they were dark, and vacant except for a few boxes or a lone office chair. I walked past a store selling clothes for plus-sized women, a music store, and then a string of restaurants: a sub shop, a pizza place, a diner with lit-up panels of glistening hamburgers. I kept seeing other Ault students in groups of two or three. After the bus had let us off-it hadn’t been full, and no one had taken the seat next to mine-I’d hoped that I would be able to blend into a crowd of strangers, but the mall was almost empty. I told myself that the other students were probably going to the movies, which would start in less than an hour, and then I could wander around in peace. First I had to get my ears pierced.

The mall didn’t have the kind of girlish store that sells barrettes and cheap jewelry. My only option seemed to be the male counterpart to such a store-a place with a motorcycle in the window that had flames running up the back panels, and lots of leather clothing.

A guy in his late thirties, with a long ponytail and a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off, stood behind the counter. “Help you, miss?” he said.

“I’m just looking.” I needed a couple minutes, I thought. I walked to a rack of leather jackets and touched the shoulders. The jackets were very soft and had that deep, bitter smell.

“Help you?” the guy said, and I turned. But this time he was talking to Cross Sugarman, who stood in the entrance of the store looking around. As I turned back toward the jackets, I couldn’t keep from smirking. Cross’s presence didn’t matter to me; what was gratifying was that his absence would matter to Dede. Then I remembered how warmly Dede had acted when I’d told her I was getting my ears pierced, and I wondered if I should feel guilty for being spiteful.

I approached the counter. “I want to get my ears pierced.” I paused. “Please.”

“Piercing’s free,” the man said. “Earrings run from six ninety-nine up.”

He unlocked a door to the counter, pulled out a velvet tray of earrings, and slid it toward me. There were moons and crosses and skeleton heads, all in both silver and gold. I felt a twinge of loneliness; getting your ears pierced was an activity to do with another girl, with a friend, so she could help you choose. I pointed to a pair of silver balls, the plainest pair I saw.

“Sit there.” The man nodded his chin toward a stool on the outside of the counter. He came around, and I saw the piercing gun, a white plastic square-edged object that was mostly featureless, with a silver rod that would jump forward, through my ear.

“Do you ever miss?” I asked. I laughed, and my laugh came out high and nervous.

“No,” the man said.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.” He set the gun against my right earlobe.

I thought that if I had a friend, even if it were only Dede, I would squeeze her fingers. I felt a pinching sensation, and then a burn. “Ouch,” I said.

The man chuckled.

I wanted to stand and run from him. But if I ran, I’d have only one ear pierced. The idea that I was trapped made it difficult to breathe. I could feel the gun touching my left earlobe, the man’s fingers in my hair. He pulled back on the trigger, and I shuddered, my shoulders jerking up.

“What the hell!” The man curled his body around so we could see each other’s faces and glared down at me. “You want this done or not?”

“Sorry.” As I looked at him, the composition of his face began to dissolve. A glowing, pulsating greenish spot-like when you look at a lightbulb and then look away-covered the tip of his nose and part of one cheek. A wave broke in my stomach. “Oh my God,” I said softly.

He moved out of my line of vision and pressed the gun to my earlobe again. The green spot remained in the air where his face had been; it expanded outward, seething. I closed my eyes.

Afterward, I could hear, but I couldn’t see anything. I felt as if I were lying beside a railroad track and the wheels of a train were spinning next to my ears. The whole world was skidding past, everything that had ever happened flipping in circles, and I was responsible. “You know her?” said a gravelly voice, and another voice said, “I don’t know her name, but she’s in my class.”

“She on something?” said the gravelly voice. “What’s she on? Why aren’t you two in school?”

“We have the day off. Do you have a washcloth?”

“Sink’s in back.”

“If you get it, I’ll stay with her.”

I felt the wetness against my forehead before I felt my own body. Then I could see them, but I was being pulled between the spinning green world and the static world of their faces in front of me. “She’s coming out of it,” said the second voice. “Hey. Hey. What’s your name?”

I blinked. I tried to say Lee, but the noise that came out was more of a prolonged croak.

“You fainted.” It was Cross Sugarman-he was the person talking to me. “Are you diabetic?”

I couldn’t answer.

He turned and said to the ponytailed man, the one with the gravelly voice, “Do you have any candy or soda?”

“This ain’t a 7-Eleven.”

“Yeah, I realize that.” Cross looked back at me. “Are you diabetic?”

I swallowed. “No.”

“Do you want us to call an ambulance?”

“No.”

“Have you ever fainted before?”

“I don’t know.” My words emerged slowly. The spinning green world was gone entirely. I felt exhausted.

“What’s your name?”

“Lee.”

“And you go to Ault, right?”

I nodded.

“Me, too,” he said. “My name is Cross.”

It struck me, even at that moment, as modest of him to introduce himself. Of course I knew his name.

I tried to sit up-I’d been lying on the floor-and Cross leaned over and stuck his hands beneath my armpits.

“Easy,” he said. He turned to the man. “You don’t have any soda?”

“Restaurants are that way.” The guy jerked his head toward the entrance of the store.

When I was upright, Cross peered at my face. “What day is it?” he said.

“Surprise holiday,” I said.

He smiled. “Go like this.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When I mimicked the gesture, a string of saliva clung to my knuckles. “We’ll find you something to eat,” he said.

We walked slowly toward the entrance of the store.

“Wait,” I said. “I didn’t pay.”

“I wouldn’t sweat it.”

When we had stepped back into the bright humming light of the mall, he said, “Man, what a prick.” After about a minute, he nudged me. “Here.”