She slowed down and then stopped. More cars zoomed by on Route 4. The gas station attendant looked at them and spread his arms in a what-gives gesture. Myron held up a finger indicating that they needed a minute.

“I’m sorry,” Myron said. “I’m just concerned for your welfare. But you’re right. I made a promise. I’ll keep it.”

Aimee still had her arms crossed. She squinted at him, again as only a teenager can. “Swear?”

“I swear,” he said.

“No more questions?”

“None.”

She trudged back to the car.

Myron followed. He gave the attendant his credit card, and they drove off.

Aimee told him to take Route 17 North. There were so many malls, so many shopping centers, that it almost seemed as though it were one continuous strip. Myron remembered how his father, whenever they would drive past the Livingston Mall, would shake his head and point and moan, “Look at all the cars! If the economy is so bad, why are there so many cars? The lot’s full! Look at them all.”

Myron’s mother and father were currently ensconced in a gated community outside of Boca Raton. Dad had finally sold the warehouse in Newark and now spent his days marveling at what most people had been doing for years: “Myron, have you been to a Staples? My God, they have every kind of pen and paper there. And the price clubs. Don’t even get me started. I bought eighteen screwdrivers for less than ten dollars. We go, we buy so much stuff, I always tell the man at the checkout counter, I say—oh, he laughs at this, Myron—I always say, ‘I just saved so much money, I’m going bankrupt.’ ”

Myron cast a glance at Aimee. He remembered his own teenage years, the war that is adolescence, and thought about how many times he’d deceived his own parents. He’d been a good kid. He never got in trouble, got good grades, was lofted high because of his basketball skills, but he’d hidden stuff from his parents. All kids do. Maybe it was healthy. The kids who are watched all the time, who are under constant parental surveillance—those were the ones who eventually freaked out. You need an outlet. You have to leave kids room to rebel. If not, the pressure just builds until . . .

“Take that exit over there,” Aimee said. “Linwood Avenue West.”

He did as she asked. Myron did not really know this area. New Jersey is a series of hamlets. You only knew yours well. He was an Essex County boy. This was Bergen. He felt out of his element. When they stopped at a traffic light he sighed and leaned back, and used the move to take a good hard look at Aimee.

She looked young and scared and helpless. Myron thought about that last one for a moment. Helpless. She turned and met his eyes, and there was a challenge there. Was helpless a fair assessment? Stupid as it might be to think about it, how much of a role was sexism playing here? Play the chauvinism card for a moment. If Aimee was a guy, a big high school football jock, for example, would he be this worried?

The truth was, he was indeed treating her differently because she was a girl.

Was that right—or was he getting mired in some politically correct nonsense?

“Take the next right, then a left at the end of the road.”

He did. Soon they were deep in the tangle of houses. Ridgewood was an old albeit large village—tree-lined streets, Victorians, curvy roads, hills and valleys. Jersey geography. The suburbs were puzzle pieces, interconnected, parts jammed into other parts, few smooth boundaries or right angles.

She led him up a steep road, down another, a left, then a right, then another right. Myron obeyed on autopilot, his thoughts elsewhere. His mind tried to conjure up the right words to say. Aimee had been crying earlier tonight—he was sure of that. She looked somewhat traumatized, but at her age, isn’t everything a trauma? She probably had a fight with her boyfriend, the basement-mentioned Randy. Maybe ol’ Randy dumped her. Guys did that in high school. They got off on breaking hearts. Made them a big man.

He cleared his throat and aimed for casual: “Are you still dating that Randy?”

Her reply: “Next left.”

He took it.

“The house is over there, on the right.”

“At the end of the cul-de-sac?”

“Yes.”

Myron pulled up to it. The house was hunkered down, totally dark. There were no streetlights. Myron blinked a few times. He was still tired, still more foggy-brained than he should be from the earlier festivities. He flashed to Esperanza for a moment, to how lovely she looked, and, selfish as it sounded, he wondered again how this marriage would change things.

“It doesn’t look like anybody’s home,” he said.

“Stacy’s probably asleep.” Aimee pulled a key out. “Her bedroom is by the back door. I always just let myself in.”

Myron shifted into park and turned off the ignition. “I’ll walk with you.”

“No.”

“How will I know you got in okay?”

“I’ll wave.”

Another car pulled down the street behind them. The headlights hit Myron via the rearview mirror. He shaded his eyes. Odd, he thought, two cars on this road at this time of night.

Aimee snagged his attention. “Myron?”

He looked at her.

“You can’t tell my parents about this. They’ll freak, okay?”

“I won’t tell.”

“Things—” She stopped, looked out the window toward the house. “Things aren’t so great with them right now.”

“With your parents?”

She nodded.

“You know that’s normal, right?”

She nodded again.

He knew that he had to tread gently here. “Can you tell me more?”

“Just . . . this will only strain things more. If you tell, I mean. Just don’t, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Keep your promise.”

And with that, Aimee was out the door. She jogged toward the gate leading to the back. She disappeared behind the house. Myron waited. She came back out to the gate. She smiled now and waved that everything was just fine. But there was something there, something in the wave, something that didn’t quite add up.

Myron was about to get out of the car, but Aimee stopped him with a shake of her head. Then she slipped back into the yard, the night swallowing her whole.

CHAPTER 8

In the days that followed, when Myron looked back at that moment, at the way Aimee smiled and waved and vanished into the dark, he would wonder what he’d felt. Had there been a premonition, an uneasy feeling, a twinge at the base of his subconscious, something warning him, something that he just couldn’t shake?