He didn’t make a joke of it. “There’s nothing to pick up, Lynn.”

She suddenly turned. “Look, Jackie, the bus is leaving.” She watched him. He looked angry. “I’ll give you a lift. I brought the car to give you a lift. Murph said-“

“All right. Come on. I’m in a hurry.”

They found her car and she drove.

“Why such a hurry, Jackie?” She kept her eyes on the road.

Jesso lit a cigarette and didn’t answer. At least he was getting a lift.

“Jackie, why always a hurry when I see you?… Jackie? Don’t you remember the way it was?”

He threw the cigarette out of the window and turned to the girl. He looked tired. “Look, Lynn, once more. I remember how it was and it’s not that way any more. And there’s your answer.” He leaned back in the seat, rubbed his hands over his face to make the stiffness go away. “So get off my back, Lynn.” He talked through his hands. “Stop acting as if I was the only man in the world.”

“You were the first,” she said.

He groaned, turned to the window.

They drove without talking for a while and then Lynn got busy with the traffic and that killed some more time without talking. Jesso looked at her from the side. A beautiful profile. A beautiful profile all the way down. Even sitting in the soft seat of the car she looked poised, distant. That’s how she’d looked the first time. She’d been that way. She sounded finishing school and looked North Shore and touching her was like a brash, strong move against the thousand things she had and he had not. That’s how it felt, at first, and then she gave. Even that was good for a while, but then it all turned into putty. There wasn’t a thing that she could give him any more. She came to his side of the tracks, she started clinging, and Lynn was through.