Dawn arrives at my front door fifteen minutes later. I'm waiting on the porch when she rides up and tosses Mary Anne's bicycle aside on the grass. It says a lot for me, for my eagerness, because I loathe waiting. Dawn bounds up the steps, her Birkenstocks slapping against the concrete.

"Hey!" she greets me, grinning. She's gotten very tan.

"Hi," I reply, sliding off the porch railing. I hold the front door open for her. "Want something to drink?" I ask, following her inside.

"Sure. Got any juice?"

"Probably not. I don't think Marta went to the supermarket today." I lead her into the kitchen and search through the refrigerator. I drank the last of the orange juice this morning. "Here's a Snapple," I say, pulling the bottle from the back of the refrigerator.

Dawn takes it and reads the nutrition label. She shrugs and unscrews the lid. I grab a pineapple soda and pop the tab. "Let's go upstairs," I suggest, glancing at the clock. Four o' clock. I wonder what time my parents will wander in tonight. Catching me with Dawn would infuriate my mother and prove my father right. I decide not to care.

I shut my bedroom door behind us. I don't know if Marta's been by yet. Sometimes she sneaks in and surprises me.

Dawn settles onto the window seat with her Snapple, kicking off her Birkenstocks. She flips her long hair back over her shoulder. It looks blonder now against her tan. I start to pull out the desk chair, but change my mind and sit on the bed, pulling my legs up so I sit Indian-style. I balance the cold soda can on my bare knee.

"What have you been up to?" Dawn asks. She takes a sip from her bottle.

I shrug. Nothing of much importance.

"You should have come to the water park," Dawn tells me. She did invite me. I outgrew water parks in middle school. Those are for children. "Well, it was a blast," Dawn says. She didn't invite me sailing with Kristy and Abby. She knows better than that.

"It looks like you forgot your sunscreen," I say.

"Yes, but I remembered my tanning oil," Dawn replies and laughs when I roll my eyes. "You could do with a little color yourself."

"Perhaps. However, I could do without the accompanying skin cancer."

Dawn laughs again. "You're a trip," she says and stretches out her legs. "Kristy was asking about you," she shifts the subject.

I don't allow my face to reveal my surprise.

"Why?" I ask.

Dawn shrugs. "I don't know. She wanted to know why I was hanging out with you." Dawn glances over at me. "I mean, no offense."

"I get it. I'm vile."

"I wouldn't use the word vile," replies Dawn. "Anyway, Kristy wanted to know if you were…nicer now. I told her that you're cool."

"Of course I'm cool." Everyone knows that. I drive a Corvette.

"She was just curious."

"I can sleep easier tonight knowing Kristy Thomas thinks I'm cool."

"Well, I don't know that Kristy thinks you're cool," corrects Dawn.

"I don't care what Kristy Thomas thinks," I say. I don't want to talk about Kristy Thomas. I'd prefer to forget her and Abby Stevenson and everyone tangled up with them. "What did your grandmother say?"

"Plenty," Dawn replies. "Have you found anything out?"

"I asked first."

"I know, but I'm exercising your patience."

"You're trying my patience," I correct.

"No, I'm exercising it. It needs practice. So, have you found anything out?"

I consider being difficult, but that won't get us anywhere. I let Dawn win. "I asked my mother if she had a pregnancy before me."

Dawn's eyes sort of bug out. "You did?" she gasps. "Talk about being blunt. What did she say?"

"She seemed genuinely surprised," I answer. I consider what else I can say. "She said no. I told you it wasn't my mother." I don't mention the overheard conversation from this morning. That is for only me.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Then I asked if Aunt Margolo was ever pregnant."

"You aren't playing around. And?"

"She looked at me like I was completely insane. Whatever happened, whatever went on, I think she was totally in the dark. I told you before - she was away at 3333333333Smith. I don't think she had any idea what was happening in Stoneybrook. I don't think she really cared."

"Your mother isn't so dense she'd miss a teen pregnancy."

"My mother isn't dense at all," I snap. "And we already established that no one knew Aunt Margolo was pregnant. Elsa Matheson confirmed that. And yes – " I start because Dawn opens her mouth to protest, to dismiss Elsa Matheson as crazy, "I asked my mother. The stuff Elsa Matheson said about my mother, about the prom and her date, all that was correct. You need to get over the fact that there isn't some love child of Mr. Spier and Aunt Margolo's running around Connecticut. Aunt Margolo had an abortion."

Dawn rolls her eyes. "This is a turnaround by the Queen Bee of First Methodist. So, you've accepted that your grandmother could orchestrate such a thing?"

"Grudgingly."

"I wouldn't expect anything less," says Dawn. "What else?"

I shrug. "That's it," I say. "Except my mother's convinced Gran's filling my head with this 'nonsense' so I'm not allowed over there anymore."

"Are you going to heed that rule?"

"Of course not," I scoff. "I visited Gran this afternoon. I asked about when my grandfather died. She was as unhelpful as always."

Dawn laughs.

"That's funny?"

Dawn laughs again. "No. Well, yes. I mean, you'll understand when I tell you about my conversation with my grandmother."

"Will you tell me already?" I feel my patience has been exercised enough.

"No," Dawn answers. "Because first I want to tell you about a conversation with my mom. When I came back from sailing with Abby and Kristy yesterday, Mom told me to get ready because Richard was taking us out for pizza. Which was so fun, I might add." Dawn rolls her eyes. "Anyway, I went into Mom's room to borrow a pair of earrings. I was looking through her jewelry box and I saw your aunt's ring. Mom was in the bathroom getting dressed and I said, 'hey, Mom, where'd you get this ring?' and she came out of the bathroom and looked sort of surprised when she saw me with the ring. Her voice got really weird, kind of flustered, and she said she didn't remember." Dawn pauses to roll her eyes again. "So, I said, 'Why does it say 'For Margolo' on the band?'"

I chuckle.

Dawn smiles, slyly. "Right, I know?" she says. "And Mom just stared at me for a few seconds and then she said, 'oh, yeah…I bought that at a garage sale.'"

"My grandmother would never have a garage sale!"

"I figured," says Dawn. "But I pretended like I believed her. I said, 'It's really pretty. Can I keep it?' and she said, 'No'. Just flat out. Didn't even think about it. She made me put it back. Then later, after we came back from Pizza Express and she and Richard were downstairs yelling at each other, I went into her room again. The ring was gone. She moved it." Dawn cocks an eyebrow at me. "Like I was going to come back and steal it!"

"Isn't that what you were doing?"

"Well, yeah, but it's still kind of insulting."

I twist the tab on my soda can. "Hm," I say, thinking. "Maybe your mom stole the ring."

Dawn shrugs. "Maybe," she agrees.

I raise my eyebrows at her.

"I'm agreeing with you, why are you looking at me like that?" she demands. "I allow that it is a possibility. I'm sure Mom was plenty pissed off when her best friend got knocked up by her boyfriend. I can excuse a little petty thievery."

"I suppose she wouldn't admit to stealing it," I say, snapping off the tab. I toss it into the wastebasket. "All right, what else do you have?"

"This is like a debriefing," comments Dawn. "I saw your grandmother this morning, too," she tells me, switching to the new line of topic effortlessly. "It was really perfect timing. Granny and Pop-Pop took me out to breakfast and when we got back to their house, we were getting out of the car and there was your grandmother, walking down the street with that annoying dog of hers. She ignored us, so I guess she was in one of those moods. But anyway, when Granny and I went inside, I said, 'What's the deal with Mrs. McCracken?'"

"What's the deal with her?" I repeat.

Dawn waves me off. "Can I finish please?" she asks. "And Granny said, 'what do you mean?' and I said, 'is she kind of crazy?'" Dawn pauses and waits for me to yell at her.

"You asked me to let you finish," I point out.

"Thank you," replies Dawn. "So, I asked if your grandmother is crazy and Granny looked at me awhile and then asked, 'what did Allison say to you?' and I told her nothing, that I just think your grandmother's a great big weirdo. Then I reminded her that she once warned me not to cross your grandmother. I asked her why she said that. Granny looked at me again and then asked, 'did you upset Allison?' and I said no that really I just want to know why not to cross her for future reference. And Granny didn't really look like she believed me, but she said, 'honestly, Dawn, it was so long ago…' and then she stopped and made me promise to not repeat anything to you or your grandmother. Granny doesn't want any hurt feelings."

"You can hurt my feelings all you like," I tell her. She certainly is dragging it out long enough. "You are going to tell me, right?"

"I promised I wouldn't, but obviously, I rushed right over."

"Carry on then."

Dawn smiles, slightly, then turns serious, back to the task at hand. "So, I lied to Granny and promised not to tell. Granny was very reluctant about the whole thing. I think she felt like a gossip. Granny said again that it was very long ago and she can't recall exactly what happened. But it was when Mom and your aunt were in high school and there was a beauty pageant at that racist country club of theirs, Miss Greenvale or something." Dawn stops to roll her eyes. "Beauty pageants are so sexist and out-dated."

"It was the sixties, get over it."

"Stop interrupting," Dawn snaps. "Anyway…where was I? Granny couldn't remember exactly what was said, just that there was some…unpleasantness. That's the word Granny used. She said it was quite shocking and no one looked at your grandmother the same way again. She wasn't exactly popular to begin with, Granny said, and had always been pretty unfriendly. She became the club pariah, Granny said, and stopped coming to the club altogether. Granny said that for several years a lot of people called her the Dragon Lady." Dawn pauses to frown at me, sort of apologetically. "It was so long ago, though, Granny thinks everyone else has forgotten it ever happened, but she also thinks the only reason your grandmother continues her membership at the club is out of spite."

"That's it?" I ask Dawn. "But what did she do? Did she stuff the ballot box? Did she dump pig's blood on someone's head?"

"I don't think she did anything. From the way Granny talked, it sounded like she said something – or maybe she did do something – really nasty to your aunt. I mean, it's not that hard to believe. We've both seen her lose her temper."

I shift uncomfortably on the bed. "Yeah…" I agree. "But it's rather anti-climatic."

Dawn sort of purses her lips and beats the Snapple bottle against the palm of her hand.

"What?" I ask. "Are you holding out on me?"

"No!" Dawn cries. She purses her lips again. "It's nothing important. It's just…something else Granny said. About your grandmother." Dawn waits a beat. "Granny said…she said she never imagined your grandmother could be so wicked and that she's spent the last thirty years avoiding bringing that out in her again."

"Oh," I say. Over the last few years, I've thought Mrs. Porter behaved a little oddly around Gran. I assumed Mrs. Porter was the weird one.

"I'm sorry," Dawn says and holds out her hands, like she's offering up nothing. "It doesn't really help us. It's rather disappointing." Dawn sighs.

"Words can be more powerful than any terrible thing a person can actually do," I point out. I think of Aunt Corinne telling me that my parents never wanted me. I think of my mother saying I'm gullible. I think of my father calling me a weirdo freak. I remember Gran in the attic.

"I guess," Dawn agrees. She looks disappointed. I am and I am not. I'm sort of relieved more than anything that my grandmother doesn't have some vicious act to add to her newfound list of sins.

"That's all then?"

Dawn shrugs again. "About that, basically. Granny did some backpedaling then. Like I said, I think she felt like a gossip. She just said that she likes your grandmother and that Mrs. McCracken's always been a very conscientious neighbor. She said that in the fifty years they've lived on Bertrand, she and Pop-Pop have never had better neighbors than the McCrackens." Dawn gives me a half-smile. "So, I said, 'was Mr. McCracken crazy, too?'"

I smile back approvingly, even though she just implied – once more – that Gran is crazy. Which she isn't.

"Granny said no, that he was pretty nice and he was really popular around town and at the country club. Granny thought he was a bit too nice. It figures Granny could see through his act. He sounds like a complete asshole. Then Granny said that your grandparents never seemed to like each other very much and when your grandfather died, your grandmother actually seemed happy about it. Which I'm sure she was. Granny said she went to see Mrs. McCracken after the funeral and your grandmother had already boxed up all your grandfather's things and she and your mother were hauling it all out to the driveway. The Goodwill truck came the next morning. Granny thought it was appalling."

"I don't."

"Me either," Dawn says. "She said she wasn't so surprised by your grandmother, who'd been acting like the Merry Widow of Stoneybrook since the ambulance arrived, but she was by your mother. She said your grandfather adored your mother and spoiled her rotten. He bragged about her all the time – she was so smart, she was so athletic, she could do anything. He called her something – his bright star or his shooting star. Granny couldn't remember."

"That's news to me," I say. "She never talks about him. She told me he used to beat Gran."

Dawn shrugs. "That doesn't mean he didn't like her. And I wouldn't be too crazy about a man who hit and humiliated my mother either. No matter how I felt about her," Dawn points out. "So, I figured I was on a roll, so I asked about Aunt Margolo. Granny didn't want to talk about her though. She said the whole thing was too sad." Dawn sighs. "I pressed a little, asked why she and Mom stopped being friends. Granny claims she doesn't know. I asked why Mom denies having been her best friend. Granny said Mom has unresolved guilt, but again, claims she doesn't know why." Dawn rolls her eyes. "Granny did say she always felt sorry for Margolo. Your mother was your grandfather's favorite, Corinne was your grandmother's favorite, and Margolo was everyone's whipping boy. I don't know what that means."

"It means that when anything went wrong, everyone blamed Aunt Margolo."

"Oh. Huh," says Dawn. "Granny shut me down after that. She didn't want to talk about your family anymore."

"Thanks for trying," I tell her, even though now all we have are more questions. There are never enough answers. "Maybe next you can ask your grandfather how Aunt Margolo got his gun."

Dawn makes a face. "You have to bring that up?" she asks, like she hasn't just told me a hundred horrible things about my family. "You read the article in the newspaper. He doesn't know. I did ask him, after Granny clammed up, if he thinks your grandmother's crazy and he said yes. He said she once ran across the street to yell at him for using the wrong kind of fertilizer on his rose bushes."

I roll my eyes. "Do you think that after today you could stop tossing around the word 'crazy' in reference to my grandmother?"

"Sure, but it's part of my interview technique."

"Find a new technique."

Dawn raises her shoulders. "Okay," she says. "What are we supposed to do next? We keep running into dead ends. Who do we question now?"

I shrug. "Your stepdad?" I suggest.

"No way!" Dawn exclaims. "What would I say? 'Pardon me, Richard, had any illegitimate children lately?'"

"Aunt Margolo had an abortion. We've established that."

"Maybe you have, not me," argues Dawn. She shakes her Snapple bottle, the remaining liquid sloshing up and down. She thinks. "Your dad?"

"No," I reply, flatly. I'm not speaking to him.

"How about those friends of your mom's? Erica's mom and that other lady?"

I wrinkle my nose. "I can't stand Katie Shea. She's such a snoot. I bet her mom's just like her. And Mrs. Blumberg, she'd probably call up my mom and tell her that we're snooping around. They're still friendly," I tell Dawn. I remember when I was little, before I started kindergarten, on the weekends, my mother and I would sometimes walk to the playground at Stoneybrook Elementary to meet Erica and her mother. Or we would drive to Bradford Court, where Erica used to live, in the Toyota my mother used to drive before she drove it into a telephone pole. And Cokie, Erica, Lauren Hoffman, and I were a group for a while in kindergarten and first grade until Emily Bernstein tattled on us to her mother (for painting her hair or hiding her lunch or something silly like that) and Mrs. Bernstein telephoned Mrs. Blumberg and gave her an earful. Mrs. Blumberg was furious. Erica wouldn't even look at Cokie and me after that, let alone play with us. And even though she and Mrs. Blumberg weren't really friends anymore, my mother seemed disappointed that Erica and I weren't either.

"Would you just call your Aunt Corinne already?"

"Absolutely not."

Dawn starts to laugh. "I just remembered, Granny did say something else. She said that for years she thought your Aunt Corinne was mentally handicapped."

"Aunt Corinne is not mentally handicapped," I snap.

Dawn continues to laugh. "Well, yeah, Granny knows that now. I'm just saying."

"Why is that funny?" I demand.

Dawn stops laughing. "I don't know. I guess it's not," she says.

I draw my mouth into a thin line and don't say anything.

"Now you're going to be like that?" Dawn chides me. She doesn't seem apologetic. "You aren't in a very happy mood," she observes. "Is something bothering you?"

I raise my eyebrows at her.

Dawn sweeps an arm through the air. "Besides everything I just told you."

"No."

"Sure?"

"Everything's fine."

"You're difficult," says Dawn.

I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that.

Dawn watches me a moment, then says, "Where do you think they did illegal abortions in the sixties?"

"You're on board with that theory now?"

"I didn't say that. I'm brainstorming."

I shrug. "I can find out," I tell her.

Dawn cocks an eyebrow at me. "Really? You?"

"I'll take care of it," I promise.

Dawn looks a bit perplexed. "You're telling me everything, right? You're not holding out on me?"

"Of course not. We're partners. I'll tell you everything."

Dawn nods. "Okay. Ditto."

"You're not going to make me pinky swear, right?"

Dawn chuckles.

"That just seems very baby-sitters club to me."

Dawn grins and chuckles again. "Do you want to go swimming?" she asks.

"I don't feel like swimming."

"Oh. Do you want to go downtown then? We could go to Argo's or Uncle Ed's. I won't make you go to the Rosebud."

"I don't feel like going out."

Dawn tilts her head. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asks.

"Certainly. I've just had a long day."

"I didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm not upset."

Dawn doesn't appear convinced. She continues to gaze at me with that same expression, sort of a mixture of bewilderment and concern. "We haven't really been able to hang out the last few days," she says. "Maybe we can do something tomorrow?"

"Of course," I agree. I turn myself on and smile. I don't want her to think I'm jealous – jealous of her mother or her brother or Kristy or Heaven forbid, Abby Stevenson. "Gran wants me to come over tomorrow. I'm going to pump her for some more information. Gently," I tell Dawn. I consider it. "My mother, too, maybe. She's been acting kind of suspicious since I asked about the pregnancy thing. She doesn't want me seeing Gran anymore. She says Gran's filling my head with nonsense." I may ask Mom. It depends on if I decide to be mad at her when she comes home.

"Let's do something in the morning," suggests Dawn, brightening. "Pick me up at nine."

"Nine?" I repeat.

"Okay. Ten," Dawn relents. "Let's take the night to think about everything. By the morning, we each have to come up with one new theory. We'll share them over breakfast."

"I eat breakfast a lot earlier than ten o' clock," I inform her. I'm usually swimming laps at ten. I've already been out for my run.

"Grace…" Dawn says.

"All right, ten it is," I finally agree.

Dawn checks her watch. "I should go, I guess. I didn't leave a note for Mom and Richard. They're probably looking for me." Dawn stands and stretches.

I walk her downstairs to the front door. I follow her onto the porch. I'm sort of sorry that I'm running her out of here. Dawn picks up Mary Anne's tossed-aside bike and stands it up. She turns back to me.

"I think your mother's lying," she says.

"My mother doesn't lie to me."

Dawn regards me, then hops on Mary Anne's bike. She rides away with a wave. She turns left at the end of the driveway and heads down Locust Avenue. It's perfect timing. Just as she goes left, my parents' black Lexus turns the corner to my right.