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“Are you picking up Sara?” she said to Ben as the car crested the hill. Sara had a summer job at the multiplex in town, taking tickets. She had to wear a red vest and complained of the toxic effects of prolonged exposure to morons.

“She says she has a ride,” Ben said. “Some boy.”

Helen turned to stare at him as he made a right into the driveway. “Some boy,” she repeated skeptically. “Driving a car. At eleven o’clock at night.”

Ben sighed. “I think we can trust her to make good decisions when it comes to that stuff,” he said. “But I can go pick her up if you want.”

Good decisions! She was fourteen. Still, the theater was barely a mile from home. And Ben had a fair point about their daughter: it didn’t pay to underestimate her. Consciously or not, the girl had achieved the impossible dream of every child of divorce ever; if she could pull that off, it was hard to think of any other life situation she couldn’t manipulate. Helen laid her hand on Ben’s arm, feeling sorry already for this overmatched boy. Sara was probably inventing her own field sobriety test for him right now.

“Her I trust,” she said gently, “but this anonymous boy, not so much. Boys and cars — you never know. I’d feel better if you went and got her.”

Ben shrugged. “At your service,” he said. They pulled up in front of the garage door; he got out and stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing at the sunlight sieved by the tree line, until Helen had made her way around the car and started up the path ahead of him. “The yard still looks like hell,” she said distractedly as they walked up the steps.

“Sorry,” Ben said. “Tomorrow.” He held the door for her and then let it swing shut behind them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JONATHAN DEE is the author of five novels, most recently The Privileges, which was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize. He is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, a frequent literary critic for Harper’s, and a former senior editor of The Paris Review. He teaches in the graduate writing programs at Columbia University and the New School. He is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation.