Oh, great, it was on, it was all Welcome to Awkwardville: America's Hometown. The subject turned, perilously, to Woodrow Wilson High School, and Alecia's mom proved her knowledge of our exemplary public school system by saying: "Alecia is getting on fine at Woodrow Wilson! Oh, it's sooo good for her to be with her peers, compared to when she was in the separate special ed cla.s.sroom back in junior high."

Meanwhile, Alecia Hardaway kept kicking it with her wrenching chorus of "You're a real cool person, Sandinista, you're a real cool person every day," as if I had ever given her more than the random creeped-out smile in the hall. And so I made excruciating small talk: "Thanks, Alecia. You're cool, too. You're cool every day." Alecia's mother gave me a ravishing smile that made me suicidal, and said, "Alecia's going to be doing algebra on her own this year! She has shown a real affinity for math-so she's going to take algebra without her paraprofessional."

My own mother smiled at Alecia. It was a real smile, not some lame bulls.h.i.t grin. "Alecia, that's terrific! Truthfully, I despise all forms of mathematics. I'm afraid Sandinista agrees with me. She's taking algebra this year too."

"With Mrs. Bennett?" Mrs. Hardaway asked me. Even then I knew Alecia's mom shouldn't be taking such a bright tone, for Mrs. Bennett was widely known to be insane.

"Yeah." I nodded, wishing myself away from the checkout lane and into the parking lot, into the car, into the wide, wide world.

And then Alecia's mother said it: "I hear she's tough but good!"

Alecia Hardaway had grown bored with the conversation and was looking at the Pokemon cards and candy. My mother and Mrs. Hardaway grinned at each other under the fluorescent lights as the elephant in the room-Target!-rose up and moonwalked through the cosmetics section before he Rollerbladed back to Kitchenware and juggled butcher knives in his brand-new SpongeBob underwear. Because, um, h.e.l.lo? Why in the name of Christ would Alecia's mother think it would be good for her to have a "tough" teacher? Tough but good!

Finally my own deluded mother paid for our trash bags and tampons and lip liners, and we made our escape.

I tell Bradley how Mr. and Mrs. Hardaway went to my mother's funeral, how Alecia sat between her parents in a sparkly black dress, interrupting the service with her blurted, pure-hearted interjections: "Sandinista looks sad. Mom, do you think Sandinista's sad?" I don't tell him that Mrs. Hardaway dropped off gorgeous food for me in the endless autumn weeks after my mother died: Caprese salads, bittersweet brownies swirled with cream cheese, eggplant lasagnas. I don't tell Bradley that Mrs. Hardaway left many messages on my machine, inviting me to dinner with her family, and that I never returned a single call. But I certainly gobbled up the meals-packed in thoughtful, disposable pans flanked by ice packs-she left on my front porch.

"Christ," Bradley says, rubbing his face. "It was nice of her family to go to your mom's funeral. G.o.d, September? Just four months ago?"

I shrug. "Yeah."

"Jesus. That's what I say to all of it: Jesus! Man, I hope I haven't been too b.i.t.c.hy about the Windex or anything," he says.

"You are a kind instructor in the art of Windexing." I say.

Bradley's voice is soft. "So, without your mom-"

"We were going to Europe next year. I mean, we were going to go to Europe next year. That was the plan. My mom wanted me to see the fashion capitals of Europe." I can feel tears coming, so I quickly say, "I know it's kind of lame to go to Europe with a parent." My mind cooks up the mean response: Now you won't have to worry about that, little lady!

Bradley smiles; his voice is tender. "It's not lame. I wish the two of you could have done that."

I start to feel queasy as I turn onto the exit ramp for Woodrow Wilson High School.

"Bradley, this is the gateway to h.e.l.l."

"What would Woodrow Wilson say about all of this? Don't get me wrong, St. Matthew's sucked, too. But I mean, there you expect it to suck, you are following in the footsteps of Adam, as old St. Aquinas says."

I had no idea that old Saint Aquinas said that, which makes me thinks that at least the actual education is better if you go Catholic. Though I'm pretty surprised that Bradley went to the most exclusive high school in the city; I thought he was like me.

"You expect a little better treatment from a public school," Bradley says. "What with Big Brother watching and all. Maybe high school just sucks in general. College is a million times better: if you're gay, whatever, you can just sort of go ahead and be gay. At St. Matthew's? Not so much."

"I am highly honored to have a St. Matthew's alum in my car. Mr. Blazer and School Crest, I salute you. And I thought you might be Catholic"-I point to the crucified-Jesus tattoo on his thumb-"but I had no idea that you were some Catholic fancy pants."

Bradley laughs. "Oh, well, absolutely I am a tattooed Catholic fancy pants. And that would not be a bad name for a blog: the Catholic Fancy Pants."

But Bradley's words zigzag into buzzy nothingness, because as soon as I turn into the school parking lot, I see it. Catherine Bennett is back. Her car is in its usual spot in the teachers' row, her WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN RARELY MAKE HISTORY! b.u.mper sticker taunting me.

Bradley looks at me. "What is it?"

"She's back."

Did the school do nothing? Is that even possible? Legal?

"Are you kidding? Her a.s.s should totally be fired. Man, I thought only the Catholics were this lame," Bradley says mournfully. He leans over the bucket seats and awkwardly puts his arm around my shoulder. I put the car in park and sit there, staring at Catherine Bennett's car.

Bradley sighs. "I mean, a normal person? Their skirt catches on the desk and comes down? A normal person would take the whole week off. For that alone." Bradley clears his throat. He is working very hard. "This is ma.s.sively, ma.s.sively f.u.c.ked up. Ma.s.sively."

I stare out the window. I had thought waiting for the school to call made me stoic and mannered, a rawboned Midwesterner staring out at the frosty fields. I shall bide my time. Perhaps it was my rampant Midwesternitis that made me prim and polite, my Kansas City calling card: I don't want to bother anybody! I'll go ahead and wait for you to call! But probably geography has nothing to do with any of this; probably the school of We Will Mistreat You With Pleasure If You Let Us has an international open-admissions policy. And look at me: My mother gave me a punk-rock name, but my spirit is composed of elevator music: Tra-la-la-la./Don't mind me./I'm a nice girl./I have good manners./I'll not bother you./Tra-la-LA!

Because look how easy I have made it for the school; I have a bruise on my ribs from where my desk slammed into me when that crazy b.i.t.c.h freaked and kicked the desk leg and I have said nothing.

Still, isn't the school worried that I will contact an attorney? Do they not think I will report this to the state? Do they not think that I just might have a pretty pink and cream gun in my glove box?

But as I look at Woodrow Wilson High School, my rib starts to ache and pulse. Epiphany comes as soft sickness, acid pangs in the gut: the school knows of my personal situation, they know I am an eighteen-year-old with no parents. They know, a quick look at my transcripts, that I am not some shiny-haired Caitlin off to Yale, not someone whose name they would call out at graduation to a mad blast of applause. They have nothing in the world to fear from a girl like me: motherless, mediocre, my only As in art and English.

"Let's blow this Popsicle stand," Bradley says, his voice heavy with kindness, and so I drive off-there's not a reason in the world to stay.

Bradley seems to know that my brain has gone muzzy, possibly because when I merge onto the highway, a semi blows its horn. I always pa.s.s too close.

"For lunch we're getting burgers and fries and milk shakes, chica. We are having a comfort-food extravaganza and we are going to eat everything on our plates, even the wrappers, and you know what?" Bradley claps his hand on my knee and gives it a nice little shake. "We are going to love every last bite."

And so we do, we drive through and get burgers with bacon and cheese, and chicken strips, as if animal death is the antidote for all this-Viva the slaughterhouse!

But of course it does make us feel a little better, doesn't it, and we eat in a deserted park, brushing the snow off an ancient wooden picnic table carved with inane graffiti: DO YOU GET HI? FOR A GOOD TIME CALL JULIE'S s.e.xY GRANDMA. I HEART t.i.tS.

When we finish the winter picnic, we smoke our comfort-tobacco for me, weed for Bradley-and it's back to work we go, where all afternoon my mind flashes images of Catherine Bennett teaching algebra as if nothing ever happened, and I wonder, exactly, what the social expectation is: Is everyone expected to act like nothing happened? Like Monday was just another day in paradise?

And I am paying attention, I am paying attention, I know how to pay attention and I make change and I sell powder blue cashmere sweaters with iridescent pearl b.u.t.tons, and men's black tuxedo pants with a charcoal stripe. I Swiffer the floor, I Windex the mirrors in the dressing room, I fill and refill the candy dishes, and I have the satisfaction of this, though occasionally I check my home messages-surprise, surprise, n.o.body has called. No one is curious about me. No one would like to see how I am doing; both n.o.body and no one would like to go for coffee.

Okay: I understand how unnuanced the whole situation is and I understand that people enjoy being helpful and prescriptive if your problem is singular and manageable. Boyfriend dump you? It's all: Been there, sister. Smoke and write your stricken poetry and you will feel better in approximately seven months. But the school thing on top of the dead-mom thing is too much, one melodrama too many, and a girl becomes Typhoid Mary of the Plains. This is my fault too. After my mom died, I routinely blew off my friends for such minor offenses: I remember a sympathy card with a peach rose photographed in soft focus like an aging starlet that infuriated me.

But now there is Bradley.

I see him crouch behind the rack of coats, pull his cell phone out of his jacket pocket, punch in numbers, and wait, his eyes cast down, his dark lashes fringing the planes of his cheekbones. He's waiting, too.

When he stands up, he gives me a bright smile that seems full of effort and says, "What's your plan for tonight, Sandinista?"

"Advil and vino?"

"Nice," he says. "I'm there."

And so he is. When we lock up for the night, when the minutiae of commerce are done-counting out the cash drawer, the soft shuffle of bills, the crisp flick and flutter of checks, the rusty zi-i-ip of the bank deposit bag-we drive to my house, cranking the radio and smoking, the feeling of a fun night on deck undercut with the specter of Catherine Bennett behind my eyelids. She might be popping a Lean Cuisine in the microwave right now, or watching Law & Order or ironing clothes for tomorrow, which is a school day, after all ... heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to work she goes!

But then there is the joy of sc.r.a.ping my key against the doork.n.o.b in the darkness. Can you guess who forgot to turn on the porch light this morning? Can you guess who isn't paying attention? There is the joy of having someone standing behind me, so that I can open the door without the fear of a stalker jumping out of the snowy hedges and pushing me into my house. I get the door open, and first thing I do is look at the answering machine, at the red zero flashing in the darkness: molten, taunting. But then Bradley follows me inside. When I flip on the light, he doesn't do the jacka.s.sy thing where a first-time visitor looks around your home like they're at a museum, eyes flitting and voice buoyant: I love the red paint! Did you make that vase? What a super print, I didn't know you liked Marc Chagall. And the framed alb.u.m cover of Sandinista! Tres apropos! Oh, we bought that bookshelf at Ikea too. We painted ours a glossy apple green.

There's just Bradley being himself, smiling, his shoulders slightly hunched, his hands in his pockets. He stands like that for a moment before he takes his coat off, slings it on the arm of the couch, and says, "I love it here, Sandinista. I'm never leaving."

But he is, of course. He'll leave us all in two weeks when he goes back to college, the semester break a shocking six weeks, but I try to push this reality from my thoughts and enjoy having Bradley at my house.

I haven't had a boy spend the night since the whole debacle with Jonathan H. last summer. Jonathan spent the night on the Fourth of July when my mother went to visit her friend Arla in Omaha. Oh, the embittered drama of last summer now seems swathed in cotton candy, lit by pink and lavender incandescent bulbs. Had I known what the future held, I would have cherished the innocence of smashed romance and written bland odes celebrating my generic teenage heartache. I would have blessed Jonathan for dumping me for Tatiana Turner, she of the p.o.r.n-star alliteration name and the extensive body piercings. Through her whorishly tight T-shirt, you could see the flat silver hoops that ringed her pierced nipples, two perky Saturns that Jonathan could not, apparently, resist.

But Bradley is no Jonathan. Bradley sits on the couch and pulls out his cell phone to check his messages. My soul mate. It seems as if he as always been here, not in a ceramic-elf-on-a-shelf way, but in the way of naturalness, of inevitability. And so our angsty slumber party commences: I order pizza without the fear that the Pizza Hut delivery man will peer inside, see me alone, and show up after his shift with complimentary breadsticks and an ice pick.

We eat a s.h.i.tload of pizza. We watch TV and we smoke and we drink diet soda. We get in my bed together, some Ricky and Lucy high jinks concerning this: many, many jokes about keeping one foot on the floor and pledges about not taking advantage of one another. I'm still a little buzzed from the caffeine when I hear Bradley's breath begin to rise and fall evenly. Just when I think he's dead asleep, Bradley gets out of bed. I listen to the squeak of his footsteps on the pine-plank hallway. The thick 1970s carpet m.u.f.fles sound in the rest of the house-we had thought of pulling it up, but in the end we just went ahead and stayed with the toxic s.h.a.g. So I don't hear anything at all before there is the aggressive jiggling of the sliding gla.s.s door.

Next, Bradley checks the steel locks on the front door-click click click click-and then I hear his footsteps coming down the hallway again, and he gets back into bed. I have the far-off thought that he will make a good father someday.

Soon, Bradley really is asleep. But my mind is full of parking lots and Alecia Hardaway and the pleasure of having someone in bed next to me. Bradley must use a fruited shampoo, because curled up under the blankets he smells warm, citrusy. I have a sudden sensory memory of an orange Christmas cake my mother used to make. Orange peels next to a blue bowl, ribbons of batter falling from the electric hand beater. And Catherine Bennett. Of course she's there too. Catherine Bennett, Catherine Bennett. I look at the clock on the nightstand: 2:30.

Quietly, I creep out of bed and tiptoe out of my room. In the hall mirror, I wipe the sad-clown mascara smears from beneath my eyes, put my coat on and head into the night: the cold car, the choking ignition, the icy air on my face. It's only because I have someone waiting for me at home that I have the courage to leave the house at this hour. Hear me now, O rapists and muggers and frantic meth heads who will tap my car window at any given intersection: Bradley awaits.

I take the MapQuest directions out of my purse and let the car warm in the driveway while I study my path. And then I light a cigarette, switch on my headlights and drive slowly and carefully through the side streets of my neighborhood.

I speed up as I drive on and on into the heart of the cold and starless night, thinking, Oh, Catherine Bennett, I am coming for you, a nervous pioneer exploring the far-flung suburbs with their replicating tanning salons and Burger Kings and Kwik Shops. When the street names start to sound like cowboy movies, I know I'm getting warm. Here is Trailblazer Avenue, here is Cattleman Court, here is Maverick Lane. And here is my right turn, Ponderosa Lane, where s.h.a.ggy pine trees in the front yards dwarf all the ranch houses. With my heart racing and all my stalkerina impulses on fire, I squint at the pa.s.sing house numbers illuminated by porch lights. I'm expecting revelation, something along the lines of the humiliation and the exaltation and Christ only knows what. When I reach the 1100 block of Ponderosa Lane, I slow down, my foot taking a soft turn on the brake, and there it is, 1207 Ponderosa Lane.

Catherine Bennett lives in a cranberry-colored ranch house with a maple door and shutters. Though it's the first week of January, there's still a life-sized wooden toy soldier-or is it a f.u.c.king nutcracker?-with painted rose-pink cheeks, a modest smile and a tall black hat garlanded with green and red Christmas tinsel.

I think: Why would a woman so efficient and mathematical not have taken down her Christmas decorations?

The front is dark, though there is a lit window at the side of the house, a golden rectangle cheering the side yard. Still, as I drive on, inch by inch past her house, there is a pallor here that I recognize. Catherine Bennett's house has the same doomed whose woods these are/I think I know vibe of my own house. I imagine that Catherine Bennett is in her bedroom. Catherine Bennett is watching a crime show. Maybe Catherine Bennett is dead. Perhaps she slipped on the shower floor and her body is decomposing, because of course there's n.o.body to call the ambulance, the morgue, whatever. Of course there's no one to help her, because she's all alone, isn't she?

I crack my window and throw out my cigarette b.u.t.t. I immediately light up another, the match sparking blue in the darkness. I must consider that Catherine Bennett might not be home at all. Catherine Bennett might be on some grief-limned vacation. With her affinity for paying attention, her expertise at forethought, she's surely bought that special device that I keep meaning to buy, the one that I really, really need, the device that allows lights to click on every night at the same time, a device that makes each and every burglar put finger pensively to chin and think, What light in yonder window breaks? Ah, it must be that the homeowner is inside. Alas, I shall try another house.

But why would I fear someone who merely wants to steal a TV when I am not in my house? So maybe that's not the device I want at all; what I want is the opposite thing, a shield to blacken the house and make it appear that no one is home so that all the big guns-the rapists and killers-will leave me be and move on to a well-lit house of prey.

I circle the block so I can drive past Catherine Bennett's house again, and if I were a person of substance or bravery I would certainly do something. I would perhaps get out of my car and rush the creepy toy soldier/nutcracker; I would fly into him and knock him on his faux-oak a.s.s.

Instead I park on the street directly in front of Catherine Bennett's house: Guess who's here! Catherine Bennett, what light through yonder window breaks? Oh, that's right, it's me. In your words, a girl who will not need algebra if she's just going to get married and have babies. But let's say I'm not going to get married and have babies. In truth, Mrs. Bennett, I am not even dating anyone, so that's not really on the horizon. Let's also say, for the sake of argument, that I'm not going off to college, either. Let's say that without my mother, without our doomed year in Europe, I am completely without a plan. Perhaps I should listen to your colleague Lisa Kaplansky and start applying for grants and loans and scholarships to study art or literature. I shall steer clear of mathematics, Mrs. Bennett! But really? I cannot envision myself living in a dorm with a roommate who drinks herself sick on keg beer every night-some random Caitlin or Anna so glad to be away from her parents' prying eyes!

Hey, Catherine Bennett, do you think what the counselors say is true: that people without a plan are more likely to act upon their impulses? And the night rises up around me, harsh and black-velvet cold, as I smoke and look at Mrs. Bennett's house.

I get my gun out of my glove box; I get out of my car.

I close the car door very quietly, as if trying not to wake a sleeping baby, I randomly coo: "Shhh."

The street is sugared with snow and grit and so I move carefully. I hold my gun up in my coat sleeve and walk, a girl with no hands, across the street. I really should be used to the cold by now.

I step from the street up to the curb, and then I crunch across the front lawn, each step shattering the ice, a crashing storm-trooper stomp that ruins the snowy silence. In a lame movie, a soft-eyed deer would appear leaping under the streetlights-a moment of foreshadowing and throwaway majesty-but in real life there's just the gigantic nutcracker standing sentry in the front yard. And I hadn't seen it from the street, but the side yard features more holiday art: an ancient wooden Santa whose red coat is surely flaking lead paint, waving from his sad sled-a pioneer's wooden cart full of faded boxes. Santa's hand waves jovially at n.o.body. In my own hand, the gun feels like it has adhered to my fingers, like I have an all-new metal palm, because my gloves are mostly for aesthetic purposes-soft navy suede lined with a sateen fabric that makes my fingers feels colder than if I were wearing no gloves at all.

Earlier, on the radio news, I learned that it's official: today is the coldest day since 1987. I flare my nostrils so my snot won't freeze, and when my eyes water, my mascaraed lashes freeze in chunks: my new world is fringed in icy black glitter. It is so quiet that when I hear panting, I expect to turn and see some rottweiller snow monster, icicles dangling from its gaping jaws. But the sound is just me, breathing.

I crunch through the snow to the side of the house, to the lit window. And I thrill a little-my heart hammering in my chest-Catherine Bennett has no idea that I am standing outside her house with a gun. Who's not paying attention now? I press my back to the cold house for a moment and then, step by snow-crashing step, I slither down the side of the house, closer to the window, my gun tucked up in my coat sleeve but there all the same, b.u.mping along the cold siding of Catherine Bennett's house. Mrs. Bennett! Yoo-hoo! Do you know who's standing outside your house right now! Are you paying attention? Do you even know how to pay attention?

At the window frame, I lean forward. There are icicles over my head, some sort of icy horror-show premonition. The window is curtainless, though fogged, perhaps just above the heat vent. I put my hand on the side of the wooden frame, press my body closer and take a look inside.

Gazing though the fogged pane gives me baby kitten eyes, the world wreathed in gauze, but I can see Catherine Bennett. I can see Catherine Bennett sitting on a turquoise couch.

I am holding my breath so I don't hear the monster dog panting. When I finally exhale, my breath is a slow plume that defogs a few inches of the window.

Turquoise.

The turquoise couch looks to be velvety, with a baroque arched maple back. I had envisioned Mrs. Bennett as someone with a drab, neutral couch, nubby and office-beige and possibly sheathed in a vinyl couch condom. I had not imagined her drawn to the fanciful. Or had I? "Alecia, what kind of earrings are those, goodness gracious. Pull back your hair and let me see.... Oh, ponies ..., no, unicorns ... sparkly purple unicorns."

There is a poster-sized photograph of Mrs. Bennett and a man, Mr. Bennett, I'm guessing, on the wall. Catherine Bennett is eating an ice cream bar. She's looking right back at me, as if in a trance. But no, no, she's not looking at me, but just below me, at the TV. The voices are muted, metallic. My head c.o.c.ked at an angle must look large, floating and tilted. I step forward and trip on something, I exhale a snow-star sound, the softest fuuuuuhhck.

I look down and see that beneath the windowsill are two stone lawn ornaments. The angle of the gutters has protected them from a crush of snow. I imagine they get plonked with the occasional icicle. I crouch down-my cold gun at my knee-and see that they are the granite frog and toad from the Frog and Toad books. The soft light from the living room window illuminates their familiar faces: Toad is reading a small stone book; Frog holds one amphibious finger pensively to his lip.

Alecia, what kind of animal is a unicorn?

Alecia, where would a unicorn be found? A zoo? In the wild?

The air is shaded blue from the cold, my wild roaring breath in my ears and my mother's voice in my head, her pseudo psychiatrist voice that annoyed me: Do not turn your depression inward. This is what women do. I'm not being s.e.xist, Sandinista, it's a statistical fact. When you're sad, baby, man up.

I look in at Mrs. Bennett, a sad lumpen toad in a lavender sweat suit. She has the hard-glazed look of someone using TV like gin: a little something to take the edge off when she's home by herself.

I take in a sharp breath that tingles my sore rib.

Alecia, hey, sleepyhead!

Something on TV makes Mrs. Bennett laugh out loud.

I pick up Toad and I take a few steps back and feel a little like Lady Liberty, like the things I am holding are equally weighted, gun in one hand, yard art inspired by children's literature in the other. I step back, taking aim.

And there's no deciding, of course I'm not going to ... of course the gun is a prop. But if I did do it, everyone would understand. Surely my fellow students at Woodrow Wilson High School would remember Alecia's face, first looking out the window with a dreamland expression, her world locked away, but then ... A deep inhale and my teeth sting from the cold as I remember, as I try not to exhale, Mrs. Bennett tiptoeing behind her, splaying her fingers out next to her mouth before leaning down next to Alecia and yelling "Boo!" Alecia gripping the soft roll of her turtleneck sweater with both hands; Alecia letting out a hurt-bird "Whaaaaaat?"

With an awkward underhanded lob, I throw Toad at Catherine Bennett's lit window.

I expect the sweetly lacquered crescendo of gla.s.s crashing on snow. But there is only a large thud, then a slow, sharp sound of a crack in the pane. I'm off and not turning back, the snow making my sprint quicksand slow, and then my heart slamming away as I slip-slide across the street to the safety of my car, the chilling second of Oh my G.o.d where are my keys, but there they are, right in the ignition, and I get into my car and drive out of Catherine Bennett's subdivision with the calm a.s.surance of a suburban mom, a firefighter, a beefy police officer.

As I'm exiting onto the interstate there is the satisfaction of the sirens in the distance, soft, swirling, pleading: Alecia, Alecia. Alecia ...

I crank up the Clash all the way home, my adrenaline harnessed in perfect pitch. My gun is on the pa.s.senger seat and I am Sandinista Jones, motherf.u.c.kers, all the way home.

I let myself into my house quietly, and from the living room I can hear already Bradley snoring. He has slept through this little adventure. I have the feeling of the wife home from meeting the lover, sneaking in quietly next to my sweet cuckold of a husband: Night, honey! His snoring is loud as a French horn, it even has a golden bra.s.sy undertone; I look forward to the day I know him well enough to tease him about this.

I will myself not to sleep so I can enjoy all the scenarios racing though my mind, how Catherine Bennett might say: Officer, I was just sitting here watching TV, minding my own darn business, isn't that the way, and then Toad sailed through the window, and I could have been killed if it hit me at just the right angle in my temple, and oh, Officer, please can you try to find my potential a.s.sailant, and please can you charge them with attempted homicide, and I bought Frog and Toad at a yard sale in 1990 and how will I ever find another Toad? Oh, Officer, my husband, Rupert, is dead, and who will protect a lamb like me? And just think of poor old Frog in the side yard by himself-why, he's just like me: I have become one with Frog. Then, later, Catherine Bennett duct-taping plastic wrap over her window and having a private pity party: Kids these days! And after everything I do for them.

So I can enjoy Bradley next to me, I fight the dragons of coziness, my mind abuzz with drama, with faux-rap-star dialogue: b.i.t.c.h, be glad it was the freaky stone toad and not the gun. I think: Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? And then, sleep.

THURSDAY.