I don’t make friends easily. I never did, and I don’t now, but it doesn’t matter anywhere near the way it mattered in junior high school. New York City or Dorset, when you’re thirteen, you’re not even yourself, you’re a reflection of your friends, there’s nothing to you but your friends. That’s one of the things most people forget—what it was like being out there every day, thirteen. I guess you have to, the same way women forget how much it hurts to have a baby. I used to swear I’d never forget thirteen, but you do. You have to.

Anyway, when I told about Sally and Evan, Jake shook his head so his huge mop of curly red hair flew around everywhere. He said, “Oh boy, oh boy, Evan McDork.” I felt a little guilty when he said it, because I knew that far back that Evan wasn’t any kind of a dork, even if he was wrecking my entire life. But that’s what I called him then, so that’s what Jake and Marta called him, too. Jake said, “So your mom’ll be Mrs. McDork, and you’ll have to be Jenny McDork. We won’t even recognize the name when you write to us.”

“And you’ll have two instant brothers,” Marta put in. “Lucky you.” She and Jake kept looking two tables down, where one of her brothers—I think it was Paco—was glaring at Jake as though he was about to start ripping Marta’s clothes off. Marta’s got four older brothers, and every time you turned your head, in school or anywhere, there’d be some sabertooth Velez keeping a mean eye on her. I don’t know how she stood it. They never used to be like that, not until we started junior high.

“I’m not changing my name, I’ll tell you that much,” I said. “And I’m not going to England either.” I told them how I was going to see Norris right after school and get him to let me move in with him. Jake sneaked another look at Paco and scooted right away from Marta until he was hanging on to the bench with about half his skinny butt. He asked me, “Suppose it doesn’t work out with your father? I mean, let’s just consider the possibility.”