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about
twenty. Every other girl’s named Emily or Jennifer or Ashley. I
don’t know what the deal is with these parents. Can’t think of
anything original to name their kids.”
    “ Well, this Jenny I’m looking for
has got shortish, dirty blonde hair. Freckles? Never wears
shorts?”
    Adam just stared. “Sorry guy. These Jennys and
Jessicas all look alike to me. It like the school got invaded by
clones.” He faked a smile. “I got a high school phone directory, if
you want to borrow it.”
    “ Um, sure! Can I?”
    I followed him back to his front door and
waited on the stoop until he brought over this photocopied and
stapled listing of students by class.
    I started to thumb through it.
    “ Oh, just take it,” he said. “I’ve
got others. And it’s not like I use them that much.”
    “ Gee, thanks! I’ll bring it back as
soon as I’m done.”
    “ No rush.” He headed back into a dim
lair smelling faintly of microwave popcorn.
    I took the directory home and locked myself in
the bathroom. Unfortunately, it had no pictures, only names and
addresses. And Adam wasn’t kidding. While there weren’t actually
twenty Jennifers at Ft. Pierce High School, there were at least
twelve. And while I knew she couldn’t be a senior, I had no idea
whether she was a junior, a sophomore or even a precocious or held
back freshman.
    I considered calling them all one by
one until I found the right Jenny, but then my finger landed on a
kid named Burke Watkins. I checked the rest of the directory. There
was only one Burke in the entire school. It had to be the Burke—Jenny’s friend.
So I called him.
    A little girl answered.
    “ Hi,” I said. “Is your brother
home?”
    “ Which one?”
    “ Um … Burke?”
    I heard her call. “Burkie!”
    There was a clunking, and then:
“Hullo?”
    “ Hey, uh … Burke. This is James.
From the park?”
    Silence.
    “ The home schooler? The mama’s
boy?”
    “ Ohhhh, right! Hey James. What’s up?
Hey man, it really sucks about your dad. How are you
doin’?”
    “ I’m … getting over it. Hey, listen.
Jenny … she came to the funeral, and I need to call her, but … I
don’t have her number … and I don’t even know her whole name. Would
you—?”
    “ Gallagher,” he said.
    “ What’s that?”
    “ Her last name. It’s
Gallagher.”
    “ Oh. Thanks a bunch!”
    “ Haven’t seen you at the park
lately. Where’ve you been?”
    “ I don’t know. Busy, I
guess.”
    “ Hey man, I know we can be kind of …
uh … brutal sometimes. But we’re just screwing around. You realize
that, right?”
    “ Yeah, sure. I’ll come by
sometimes.”
    I hung up, feeling a bit startled and
flattered by his concern. I could never have guessed they might
feel bad about how they acted around me.
    I found Jenny Gallagher listed under the
sophomores in Adam’s directory. From her address, I could tell that
she lived in a trailer park north of town, way too far to walk. She
probably lived in one of those double wide mobile homes that were
so common along the canals near the airport.
    There was no way I could call her discretely
from home. Even if I took the wireless into the bathroom, we had
too many extensions and I had too many nosy cousins infesting the
place. So I slipped out the back door and started walking to the
bus station.
    I wasn’t even positive they had working pay
phones. If they did, it was probably one of the last places in Ft.
Pierce that did. But I had a pocket full of quarters and they
jingled with every step. As I skipped along, my feet barely touched
the ground.
    Close to three miles I walked, right to the
edge of downtown. I reached the Greyhound terminal just after dark.
As I approached, I saw a bank of pay phones around the corner from
the rest rooms. I went inside, my palms tingling.
    The first phone I tried was out of order. My
quarters fell into the slot and slid straight through into the coin
return. The receiver smelled like a wino’s dying breath. It
probably