Becky grabbed me after biology class just as I was headed outside to the unofficial smoking lounge—the benches under the big maple just two feet off school property. She had a distant, goofy grin on her face and she was carrying a pile of books.

“Okay. He is actually super freaking HOT!” she said. “Your description did not do him justice—he’s like actually interesting looking, not just some pretty boy. I don’t think there’s anything bad about him at all.”

“Hello? And you are talking about who? A little context here, please . . .”

“Okay. So, this morning I am walking to school and Graham drives by in like this James Bond car or something—but you know, like a James Bond car from the seventies—like Sean Connery James Bond . . . or the one right after him. Who was the one after him?”

I rolled my eyes. “Not that much context.”

Becky laughed. “And so I just watch him cruise by,” she said. “I think, okay, he’s cute. But THEN when I got to school I went around back and was sneaking a smoke out by that one corner where they don’t have their freaking spy cameras set up and he’s STILL sitting in his car.

“C’mon.” She pulled me by the arm and started walking back behind the school.

I dragged my feet following her and felt again like this kid had some kind of weird power. My sister, now my best friend—who was next, Declan? Was I the only one who thought there was something weird going on? Was Declan going to be best buds with this kid? But I only had to worry about that one for a second.

“I don’t know why you and Declan don’t like him,” Becky went on, stopping to light her cigarette. “Declan called him a drug addict, which I thought was hilarious. He said his eyes look funny and he seemed too skinny. I was like, YOU? You are calling someone a drug addict? You are saying someone is skinny and has red eyes or whatever? YOU, Declan Wells? Okay, whatever.”

We rounded the corner of the school and sure enough his car was still parked there. “Oh, sh sh sh,” Becky said, as if I had been the one loudly talking about him being a drug addict.

I had rarely seen Becky like this. She could be flighty, but generally she was too cool to get all hung up on some dude. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Look at his car. Is he like the richest person in the world or what? It looks like his clothes are manufactured by magic fairies to fit his body perfectly.”

“Jesus, Beck, can you stay focused for like two minutes?”

Graham saw us walking toward the car and waved. We waved back.

“Howdy, neighbor,” I said sarcastically when we reached the car. He was sitting there, clearly staring at Becky. Instead of saying hello he just said:

“Can I film you, Becky? I just want some footage of you smoking.”

Becky paused like some starstruck twelve-year-old. She exhaled a cloud of smoke into the crisp fall air and laughed shyly.

“Why do you want to film her?” I asked.

“I’m making this movie. It’s not a documentary or anything. It’s an art film, but it’s got real people talking about themselves in it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Becky said.

And then he took out the tiniest camera I’ve ever seen and filmed her face really close up, then asked her to say her name and exhale the smoke. He didn’t even get out of his car.

“Beautiful,” he said. “Perfect.” He was completely relaxed and confident in a way I’d never seen him. And Declan was right—his eyes were messed up—not like ours got, bloodshot, but weirder. The pupils were hugely dilated. Sometimes when I saw him they were constricted like little pinpoints but now they were wide, a black void surrounded by a pretty pale-blue ring of iris. But there was no denying he was handsome.

He filmed her for a few more moments. “What’s your address?” he asked, and she replied, smiling at him, pushing her hair behind her ears. “Where do you go to school? Do you like it here?” She answered all his questions and then he took a little notebook from the glove compartment and wrote something down.

“So what are you going to do with all this?” Becky asked when he was done.

“I’m going to use it as part of a feature-length movie,” he said. “An experimental movie. And hopefully bring it to London with me when I go again with my stepmom. She has some artwork at an auction house there and there’s a film festival I want to enter some of my stuff in.”

It was interesting, but I don’t know if I believed him entirely. I thought he might be lying to impress us, or to get Becky to go out with him.

“Well, thanks, ladies,” he said, then put his car in gear. “Bye, Becky.” He waved. “See you at home, Tate.” Then he drove away. He clearly wasn’t planning on going to school that day.

“Uh . . . don’t you think that was a little weird?” I asked Becky.

“No, I think it’s freaking awesome! He seems like a real artist. Oh, and I found out he’s taking studio art, so I’ll see him in there while the rest of you brainiacs are sitting stoned off your ass in Beecher’s bullshit chemistry lab. Ha!”

“If he ever shows up,” I said.

“Oh, he’ll show up, he’s FINE. What the hell is it with you? He does all the things you normally like. If I didn’t know better I’d say you had a crush on him and you just don’t know how to deal. You’re acting like a third-grade boy. C’mon, Tate! This is the coolest kid who’s moved to town in the history of Rockland and he lives right next DOOR to you. You should be psyched!”

“Maybe,” I said. “There’s more to people than their cool cars and their pretty clothes.”

“Right,” said Becky. “There’s their cool artwork and cool ideas and awesome bodies. And if he’s on drugs, he’s on something better than what we’ve got. We should check that out, no?”

I sighed and shrugged. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe I did have a crush on him. So little went on in Rockland it was easy to fixate on anything new that came along. And she was right in a way, Graham was cool. It would be something to know how to build a car or make movies. The things we did most were skateboard, talk about how we hated school while actually taking all the best classes and competing for class rank, listening to music and getting high, and wandering around the sleepy harbor town at night.

Graham had had some other, deeper life. It showed on his skin. I didn’t know what it was that drew me to him and made me resist the very idea of hanging out with him at the same time.

Becky tossed her cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out with her toe and then she put her arm around me and we started walking back in to our next classes.

She said, “C’mon, lovebug. I think things are really looking up!”

My mother told me not to marry an older man who had a child. Too big a restoration project, she said. But I never believed her. The truth is I fell in love with both of them. David brought Graham to an opening I had in Washington, DC. David was, of course, charming as usual, impeccably dressed. Tall, thin, handsome. He was a scientist and worked for the government, but he seemed so sweet, so human. It was wonderful to watch him with Graham.

I could see right away what a smart little boy Graham was, and creative. I knew that I could give him something he was missing—not just a mother, but maybe a way of looking at the world. I bought him his first camera when he was seven, and he took pictures of other kids. He took pictures of me and David. And later we got him the video camera. Made sure he had something to occupy himself, help him understand the world around him and make use of it.

My work began selling well and I had money coming in and was able to get a bigger studio. I had work bought by the National Gallery, in London. It was right around then that David asked me to marry him, and that’s when my mother said, Don’t do it. You’ve got your career, you don’t need anybody to look after you. But that was precisely why I did marry David! Unlike her generation, I was getting married by choice. I didn’t need a man to support me. I could do whatever I wanted, and I wanted a family—one that I didn’t need to start from scratch. I didn’t want to take time out of my career to be pregnant and have a baby, and here was a child I could help out, because he needed a mom.