The Voice on the Radio

When you were steadily dating a boy, as she was Reeve, and this was known to everybody, it freed you up to be friends with boys.

Brian was only thirteen. He was asleep by one A.M.

Janie and Jodie looked at him as if he were an out-of-date computer chip.

Barbies are warm and tan and always the same, thought Janie, but real people are not always the same.

Last time she had been here, the room had been pastel, romantic and soft. Now it was icily white. It was urban, out of a slick magazine, as if some cold, successful woman lived here with two possessions and an empty refrigerator.

Every time he calls, I nag him to study.” “I hear that boys don’t like to be nagged.” “Me too, but it’s irresistible. You always want to take the boy and mold him into something better.