"Randy's got nice eyes," Arleen conceded. "But so's Marty, and Jim, and Adam-"
  "Oh stop," said Trudi, with more than a trace of irritation. "You're such a slut."
  "I am not."
  "So stop it with the names. We all know that boys like you. And we all know why."
  Arleen threw her a look which went unread given that all but Carolyn were wearing 
sunglasses. They walked on a few yards in silence.
  "Anyone want a Coke?" Carolyn said. "Or ice cream?" They'd come to the bottom of the 
hill. The Mall was ahead, its air-conditioned stores tempting.
  "Sure," said Trudi, "I'll come with you." She turned to Arleen. "You want something?"
  "Nope."
  "Are you sulking?"
  "Nope."
  "Good," said Trudi. " 'Cause it's too hot to argue." The two girls headed into Marvin's 
Food and Drug, leaving Arleen and Joyce on the street corner.
  "I'm sorry..." Joyce said.
  "What about?"
  "Asking you about Randy. I thought maybe you...you know...maybe it was serious."
  "There's no one in the Grove that's worth two cents," Arleen murmured. "I can't wait to 
get out."
  "Where will you go? Los Angeles?"
  Arleen pulled her sunglasses down her nose and peered at Joyce.
  "Why would I want to do that?" she said. "I've got more sense than to join the line 
there. No. I'm going to New York. It's better to study there. Then work on Broadway. If 
they want me they can come and get me."
  "Who can?"
  "Joyce, " Arleen said, mock-exasperated. "Hollywood."
  "Oh. Yeah. Hollywood."
  She nodded appreciatively at the completedness of Arleen's plan. She had nothing in her 
own head anywhere near so coherent. But it was easy for Arleen. She was California 
Beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed and the envied possessor of a smile that brought the 
opposite sex to their knees. If that weren't advantage enough she had a mother who'd been 
an actress, and already treated her daughter like a Star.
  Joyce had no such blessings. No mother to pave the way, no glamour to get her through 
the bad times. She couldn't even drink a Coke without getting acne. Sensitive skin, 
Doctor Briskman kept saying, you'll grow out of it. But the promised transformation was 
like the end of the world that the Reverend talked about on a Sunday; delayed and delayed.
  With my luck, Joyce thought, the day I lose my zits and get my tits is the day the 
Reverend's right. I'll wake up perfect, open the curtains, and the Grove will be gone. 
I'll never get to kiss Randy Krentzman.
  There, of course, lay the real reason behind her close questioning of Arleen. Randy was 
in Joyce's every thought, or every other, though she'd only met him three times and 
spoken to him twice. She'd been with Arleen during the first encounter, and Randy had 
scarcely looked her way when she was introduced, so she'd said nothing. The second 
occasion she'd not had any competition, but her friendly hello had been greeted with an 
off-hand: "Who are you?" She'd persisted; reminded him; even told him where she lived. On 
the third meeting ("Hello again," she'd said. "Do I know you?" he'd replied), she'd 
recited all her personal details shamelessly; even asked him, in a sudden rush of 
optimism, if he was a Mormon. That, she'd later decided, had been a tactical error. Next 
time she'd use Arleen's approach, and treat the boy as though his presence was barely 
endurable; never look at him; only smile if it was absolutely necessary. Then, when you 
were about to saunter away look straight into his eyes, and purr something vaguely dirty. 
The law of mixed messages. It worked for Arleen, why not for her? And now that the great 
beauty had publicly announced her indifference to Joyce's idol she had some sliver of 
hope. If Arleen had been seriously interested in Randy's affections then Joyce might have 
gone right around to the Reverend Meuse and asked him if he could hurry the Apocalypse up 
a little.
  She took off her glasses and squinted up at the white hot sky, vaguely wondering if it 
was already on its way. The day was strange.
  "Shouldn't do that," Carolyn said, emerging from Marvin's Food and Drug with Trudi 
following, "the sun'll burn out your eyes."
  "It will not."
  "It will so," Carolyn, ever the source of unwanted information, replied, "your retina's 
a lens. Like in a camera. It focuses-"
  "All right," Joyce said, returning her gaze to solid ground. "I believe you." Colors 
cavorted behind her eyes for a few moments, disorienting her.
  "Where now?" said Trudi.
  "I'm going back home," Arleen said. "I'm tired."
  "I'm not," Trudi said brightly. "I'm not going home, either. It's boring."
  "Well it's no use standing in the middle of the Mall," Carolyn said. "That's as boring 
as being at home. And we'll cook in the sun."
  She looked roasted already. The heaviest of the four by twenty pounds or more, and a 
redhead, the combination of her weight, and skin that never tanned, should have driven 
her indoors. But she seemed indifferent to the discomfort, as she was to every other 
physical stimulus but that of taste. The previous November the entire Hotchkiss family 
had been involved in a freeway pile-up. Carolyn had crawled free of the wreckage, 
slightly concussed, and had subsequently been found by the police some way down the 
freeway, with half-chewed Hershey bars in both hands. There was more chocolate on her 
face than blood, and she'd screamed blue murder-or so rumor went-when one of the cops 
attempted to dissuade her from her snack. Only later was it discovered that she'd 
sustained half a dozen cracked ribs.
  "So where?" said Trudi, returning to the burning issue of the day. "In this heat: 
where?"
  "We'll just walk," said Joyce. "Maybe down to the woods. It'll be cooler there." She 
glanced at Arleen. "Are you coming?"
  Arleen made her companions hang on her silence for ten seconds. Finally she agreed.
  "Nowhere better to go," she said.
  
  II
  Most towns, however small, make themselves after the pattern of a city. That is, they 
divide. White from black, straight from gay, wealthy from less wealthy, less wealthy from 
poor. Palomo Grove, the population of which was in that year, 1971, a mere one thousand 
two hundred, was no exception. Built on the flanks of a gently sloping hillside, the town 
had been designed as an embodiment of democratic principles, in which every occupant was 
intended to have equal access to the center of power in the town, the Mall. It lay at the 
bottom of Sunrise Hill, known simply as the Hill, with four villages-Stillbrook, 
Deerdell, Laureltree and Windbluff-radiating from its hub, their feed thoroughfares 
aligned with the compass points. But that was as far as the planners' idealism went. 
Thereafter the subtle differences in the geography of the villages made each quite 
different in character. Wind-bluff, which lay on the southwest flank of the hill, 
commanded the best views, and its properties the highest prices. The top third of the