Anyway. We had Introduction to Drama, and it went okay, except for Stacy Altieri and Kevin Bell making their usual dumb jokes about “TB or not TB.” Mr. Hammell stood right by my desk, the same as always, and I could smell his aftershave, like fresh snow, and see that he had a couple of broken black fingernails on one hand, as though he’d caught them in a door or something. Funny to remember that, when I can’t remember my own damn name half the time.

After class, Mr. Hammell was sort of beckoning to me, trying to catch my eye, but I pretended I didn’t see him and just ducked out of there in time to grab a quick hit with Marta in the girls’ john before I caught the bus to go see Norris. Probably I shouldn’t have done that, because all it did was make me jittery, instead of easy and relaxed, the way I wanted to be. I put my head back and breathed huge deep breaths, in and out, and tried really hard to feel that I already lived at Norris’s apartment and was just going home, like always. It helped a little.

He’d moved into a new place just last month, way over east, right on the corner of Third Avenue. An old building, but cleaned up, with a new awning and the number written out in letters, and a doorman wearing a uniform like one of Sally’s tenors in an opera. When I told him I was here to see my father, Mr. Norris Groves, he looked at me for the longest time,just knowing I was actually some sort of damp, squirrelly groupie with an autograph book in one coat pocket and a gun in the other. Then he went to the switchboard and I guess he called Norris in the apartment, because I heard him talking, and then he came back looking like he’d swallowed his cab whistle. But he told me which floor Norris lived on, and which way to turn when I got off the elevator. And he watched me all the way to the elevator, in case I stole the skinny little carpet or something. I remember, I thought, Boy, when I come to live here, I’m going to do something evil to you every day. It’ll be my hobby.