"When I saw the pictures, I wanted to meet you."

Her finger traces the cut edge.

"And her."

Celia looks up fast. Stares at me hard. Perfectly still.

"I mean, if that's OK." Shit. Never occurred to me she might not let me see her. What if she says to go away? Would she just say, "Fuck off?"

She puts the picture down on the table, rubs her hands over her face, leaves one over her mouth. I have no idea what that means. She squints at me. She studies me, then the picture. I sit up straight, smile, try to show her I'm OK.

"Please, don't be mad," I whisper. "But I - I . . . read the letters."

She looks up, her whole face sharp and tight, her eyes huge.

"Sorry. Sorry. I . . ." I'm gonna puke. "I know. But I just . . . wanted to . . ." Can't say I wanted to know more about T.J. "I wanted to know . . . more."

She clears her throat again. "So, um . . ." She stares at the picture.

I'm starting to wonder if I'm gonna get it back, and even though I know I should let her have it, if she wants, I really, really want it back.

"You read the letters," she says.

"Yeah." My face gets hot.

"And looked at"- she pulls the bag of pictures closer to her -"Theo's pictures."

I just nod, staring at the bag of pictures. T.J.'s pictures. Like a half-finished collage.

"And then you . . . came to find . . . me? And . . . Zoe?" She's trying not to cry. And my hands are shaking, my everything is shaking. "All the way from Pennsylvania?"

"Yeah."

"How did you . . . ?"

This part is easy. "I saw your address on the envelopes, and then looked through the pictures, and once I saw the one of you and Zoe, and . . . and figured out that, that it was you and, and her . . ." I smile. I can't help it. I did it. I found them. I was right. "I wanted to meet you, and . . . Zoe. Especially Zoe."

She doesn't respond.

"I found you." I laugh with relief. I did it. I found them.

Her face doesn't register anything, and then her eyes close for a long moment, longer than a blink, and then pop open with a new look pasted on her face. My stomach turns. Something about the new look feels wrong, like she's suddenly remembered that she doesn't want anything to do with me, or maybe this is all too much and she wants me to go away.

"Do you have somewhere to stay?" she asks, still stroking the side of the picture with her finger.

"Oh, yeah, got a room at the hostel."

"Where?" She sounds like she thinks I'm lying.

"At the youth hostel? Over by the capitol?"

"Are you OK there? I mean, is it OK?"

"Oh, yeah, except for the no-shoes thing, which, yeah, is a little weird, it's fine. Nice even."

"OK, well, good," she says, letting out her breath. She hands me back the picture. "I still have to finish work, and I'm supposed to be over there behind the desk, so . . . want to come to dinner tonight? Say, around six? You could meet Zoe. And . . . the rest of the family."

Family. "Sure. That'd be great. I want to meet everyone." T.J.'s family.

She starts to give me her address, but I tap the letters. She smiles, and laughs a little, and rubs her face again. Before I leave, she gives me another awkward hug, holding on tight.

I run back toward the car. If I can get there fast, and get back to the hostel, and keep moving, dinner will come faster. And I won't have time to screw this up.

But by the fountain I stop short. The lockout hours - I won't be able to get back into the hostel for hours. And I don't want to waste the gas driving around. And my knees are shaking.

I was right.

Zoe.

That look - Celia's face, her nod. And dinner, to meet the family, and Zoe. I was right. Zoe was - is - T.J.'s. Celia and Zoe were his family. Are kind of my family.

My knees buckle. I drop onto the cement steps behind me.

I'm dialing Shauna before I even really think about doing it. Her voice mail. Shauna's voice, trying to sound all grown up and cool, spoiled by the sudden sounds in the background distracting her. The exasperation clear in the half-laughed next bit telling me to leave a message.

"Hey, Shauna, it's Matt." I laugh. Obviously she'll know it's me. "Anyway, just thought you'd like to know that I met her. Went to the library, and met Celia, and she's totally cool, and I'm gonna have dinner with them tonight, with her and . . . Zoe. And the rest of the family. It's totally cool. I'll, uh, I'll call you tonight, when I get back to the hostel, and tell you everything, but it might be late if we stay up talking and stuff, but, yeah. Shaun . . . thanks. For everything. Talk to you later."

I end the call and stare at the phone. Watch the minutes click by. Hours to kill. And I have no one to tell.

I'm bursting with it, with every detail of seeing Celia, how she talks, what she said, and how she said it. Meeting her races around my head.

Wish I could have at least talked to Shauna, heard her reaction.

Still . . . that look, when I showed Celia the picture, and how she said Zoe's name. The way she hugged me so tight.

I'm smiling so big people are going to think I'm high. Or stupid.

I was right. About everything. About coming here. About coming here alone. About Celia, and Zoe. I. Was. Fucking. Right.

PEOPLE COME AND GO. EVERYONE WITH SOMEWHERE TO BE, or someone to be with. Except me. Can't go back to the hostel. No money to waste. No gas to waste. Only time. And for the first time in . . . ever . . . I'm not running or hiding or scared out of my skull. I'm completely on my own time - no Dad, no school, no work. Not even Shauna.

And I have no idea what to do, but I don't care.

My stomach growls. I'm so thirsty the fountain's looking good. I haven't had anything since this morning, and that was just a soda and some peanut-butter crackers.

I'm pretty sure there's somewhere to get food at the building next to the library - I could smell it while I waited outside.

I follow the sounds of people and the smells of food and end up on a huge patio area next to the lake. Tables and chairs and people everywhere. And a grill. Eight dollars gets me two brats and a huge soda.

My first bite of brat is messy and good. Spicy mustard and spicy-sweet brat, surrounded by just-soft-enough roll. Juice on my chin, over my hand. After practically inhaling the first one, I force myself to eat the second more slowly, putting it all the way down between bites and consciously chewing each delicious mouthful.

Kids are feeding the ducks at the edge of the lake, splashing a foot or a hand in the water now and then. I wonder if Celia ever brings Zoe down here. If maybe T.J. sat right there, Zoe in his lap, waiting for Celia to get off work.

I wipe brat juice and mustard off my hands, then pull the picture out of my pocket. One of the corners got all bent. I smooth it down, then run my finger around the edges, not quite touching their faces.

Celia looks older now. Fancier, her hair and her clothes. I thought she'd look haunted and broken. Sure, she's sad, but she was totally there. Even when her eyes got all sad talking about Zoe, she was on solid ground. Not broken at all. Strong.

"Matt, right?"

I look up. A girl. Well, a girl-shaped darkness surrounded by the bright sun. She shifts, and then I can mostly see her face.

"Harley," she says. "From the hostel?"

"Oh, uh, hi."

"Mind if I sit?"

With me?

She tilts her head to the side, then laughs at me.

"Sure. Sit." Freaking moron. I push the last bite of the brat to the side. Too messy to eat in front of her.

She ignores the empty chair across from me and grabs a chair from the table to my right, where some guys are gathering up their stuff to leave. Several of them stop to look at Harley, and I can see why, now that the shock has worn off. She's wearing the shortest shorts I've ever seen. I could palm them and touch skin above and below. Tight pink shirt that barely reaches them. Smallish tits, but nice - could palm those, too.

She reaches behind her to tug her bag off her back. Smooth, tan, sloping belly. A tattoo - some kind of sun, but with lots of colors - circles her belly button. A ring with a sparkly bead in the middle. Hot as hell. I lean over the table to cover the bulge.

She pulls her chair to my side of the table, right next to me, then shifts around until she can face the sun. She smells like suntan lotion. The coconut-smelling kind.

"I love hanging at the Terrace," she says. "Brats. Beer. The lake. Maybe we'll get lucky and some windsurfers will go out later and we can bet on who will fall in the water first." I can't see if she's teasing or serious behind the dark glasses, and I can't move away from the table yet. "One of my favorite summer pastimes: watching windsurfers face-plant in the lake. So, what are you up to?"

I swallow a big gulp of soda to buy time. "You know, seeing campus."

"Sure," she says. "Man, that brat smells good. Ever had their popcorn? Really good."

"No, I, uh, just found this today." I don't know what else to say, so I slurp at my soda and watch the kids play in the water. "How long have you been in Madison?" I finally ask, for something to say.

"Oh, I come and go." She shifts the angle of her chair again to get all of her pale legs in the sun. "I'm killing some time before I start college in the fall, and I have a lot of friends here. Always someone around."

Starting college in the fall: that helps with the age. I would have guessed seventeen or eighteen, but then she mentioned beer, and they were carding everyone.

"Listen," she says, not even looking at me. "I could really use a drink, but I left the rest of my cash back at the hostel. Could you spot me for a soda? I'll pay you back later."

"Oh, uh, sure." Only a couple of bucks. "Here." I pull a ten out of my wallet.

She ignores it, face toward the sun. "Thanks. I'll take a diet." She tips her head back even farther.

"Oh, OK," I say, getting up from the table.

"And get some popcorn, too. You should try it," she says. "Have to go inside for the popcorn."

"Right." Inside. I look behind me at the long building. "Where?"

She waves her hand. "Just go inside. Head to the right. You'll find it."

I weave between the tables, dodge little kids with ice-cream cones and a large group following one of those red-shirted clipboards. Once inside, it takes my eyes a few moments to adjust to the dark. Goose bumps climb up my arms in the air-conditioning. Around a corner, and there's a bar, with a big popcorn machine. I wait in line.

Another five dollars down. The journey back is more treacherous. I leave a trail of fallen popcorn behind me; like Hansel, Shauna would say. I shove her out of my head. Too weird while hanging with barely dressed Harley.

Harley is right where I left her. Well, not exactly - she's moved the table and chairs and everything to face the sun again.

With my hands full, I'm having trouble getting around the obstacle course of chairs she's left in my way. I almost trip over my backpack, but manage to push it aside and get to the table without spilling too much.

"Oh, great," she says, sitting up and reaching for the drink first. She tips a bunch of popcorn onto a napkin on the table and starts tossing popcorn into her mouth between sips.

I sip at my own soda and try not to be irritated that she made such a mess of everything while I was inside. Now I'm wedged in between our table and the foreign guys sitting behind us. I think they're talking about her, laughing the way guys do when they can see that much skin. Or maybe they're laughing at me.

She happily eats her popcorn, giving me funny looks, like I amuse her, but not in a cool way.

"What?" I ask when the irritation becomes too much.

"Nothing," she says, still smiling weird. "You're cute when you're all paranoid."

I gulp down my soda, feeling my face go red.

"What are you really doing here?" She squints at me, holds a popcorn kernel out and then tosses it into her mouth.

"What, uh, huh?"

She smiles and tosses another popcorn kernel in her mouth, pushes her sunglasses up on top of her head, and folds her arms over the table. Pale eyes intense.

"I was watching you earlier," she says. "Saw you cutting across from Library Mall. Thought you were headed here, but then you went over and stared at College Library for like an hour. So, what's the deal?"

What the hell?

"Relax," she says. "I'm not going to blow your mission. I was just wondering what was up. Ex-girlfriend? New girlfriend? Robbery? Espionage? Private investigation? Stalker? What?"

"Huh?"

She laughs loudly and then settles back in her chair, taking the popcorn with her. "Come on - I'm bored. Share."

No way. "Nothing's going on. I was just . . . looking around. . . ."

"Yeah, not buying that." Harley tosses a kernel at me. "Come on! Tell me something. You have to!"

"No, I don't." I start to stand but she grabs my arm.

"Relax - I'm sorry. I was just curious is all." She nods toward the chair. "Sit. Please?"