Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah could see Mr. Magwan ("Mr. Magoo" his beloved students called him) flinch over his half-graded stack of papers. She felt a little anxious bubble puff up in her lower belly, that point where you throw your hands up at the top of the roller coaster. The classroom was empty except for the three of them.
"Right," said Carlie. Her eyes had the glazed look of a person whose autopilot switch has just clicked on. She hurried out of the room and Sarah followed, not daring to look back at Mr. Magwam, who had returned to his normal shuffle of grading papers.
The sun was setting over the abandoned building of the old factory town. Sarah stood outside the school smoking a clove cigarette. She wore a t-shirt that bore the name of her band, "The Lillith Plan"--an outfit she hoped would revive the Riot Grrl movement on the East Coast. She planned to begin learning to play an instrument along with the other girls that weekend.
Mary's car pulled up by the curb. She wore a black wool sweater. Her black hair was greasy and disheveled. She looked out the window, her face hidden. Sarah got in the front seat.
"What took you so long?"
"You know I wasn't in school today."
"You were supposed to be here at four."
"I was at Alex's." Here her voice cracked and Sarah realized that she had been crying. The grotesque black veil still shrouded the delicate figure hunched over the steering wheel. Sarah could imagine the puffy eyes and tears rolling down the pock-marked face. Mary was almost nineteen--she had started school a year late after spending her sixth year in a refugee camp--and she still had the worst case of adolescent acne Sarah had ever seen. For her last birthday, Sarah had bought her a copy of The Beauty Myth and a free facial at a spa in the capital.
"So he has the money?" she offered tentatively. Mary worked twenty hours a week at her family's dry-cleaning business and Alex, who had just turned 20, worked full time at a gas station.
"I'm hungry." Mary swerved right into a KFC parking lot. Sarah stared up at the colonel's stark white face against the red of the billboard. Mary finally turned to face her.
"Look at this," she hissed.
