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and the person it’s about is sick or bleeding, and I think,
Hey, you with the camera! Put that down and do something!
” Then she takes a deep breath, runs both hands through her hair, and says, “Well, before we both give up our budding careers, tell me your all-time top-of-the-list number-one totally adored favorite movie.”
    “Just one?”
    “Just one.”
    I think for a few seconds. “
Ghost World,
maybe.”
    “Oh, my God. Talk about alienated youth. Scarlett Johansson was so good in that.”
    I tilt my cup in her direction. “Your turn.”
    She looks down at the initials of people like B.K. and L.M., who loved each other so much, one of them carved up a table. “I’m embarrassed. Don’t tell anybody, okay?”
    “Don’t worry.”
    “It’s
The Searchers.
”
    “Sure. John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Natalie Wood.”
    “I think about John Wayne looking for Natalie Wood for five years, and I just want to cry.”
    Then she blushes. I try to remember if I’ve ever seen Colleen blush. Colleen. Man, I think about her all the time. I don’t want to, but I can’t help it.
    I tell A.J., “If I went missing, Grandma would just call up the chief of police. She knows everybody.”
    “That was her at the gallery, right? Really elegant lady. There’s everybody else all in black looking like they’re trying to absorb as much radiation as possible, and there she is in pastel cashmere separates.”
    “She pretty much totally took care of me after my dad died. Got killed, actually.”
    “What about your mom?”
    I waggle one hand — the good one — in that back-and-forth, who-really-knows-I’m-not-sure-I-want-to-talk-about-it way. “Just out of the picture.”
    Then we watch the traffic for a while. Bicyclists pull up in those Cirque du Soleil spandex outfits. A dog on a leash angles toward A.J., who pets him.
    Finally she says, “Well, look at us get all serious.” She glances at her iPhone. “I should go. You know the YouTube drill, right?”
    “I think so, yeah.”
    “And we’re gonna e-mail, okay? Talk on the phone. You go to the movies at the Rialto, right?”
    “All the time.”
    “We could do that. Everybody I know loves the Rialto.”
    She’s on her feet then, one hand out. I struggle a little but not too much. She holds on to my hand. “
Ghost World.
Good for you.” Then a quick little kiss on the cheek like she probably does to everybody, and she’s gone.
    I sit down again. The first thing I think is —
nice.
She seems really nice. I’ll e-mail her. I’ll talk to her on the phone. I’ll go to the Rialto with her and her friends, but I’ll sit by her. I can’t depend on Colleen. I never could.
    After dinner I doze off watching Robert Mitchum in
The Friends of Eddie Coyle,
so when the phone rings, I paw for the receiver like a cop who already knows there’s another body down by the river. I don’t even get to say hello before I hear, “Where’s Granny?”
    I sit up straight. “Colleen?”
    “Is she home?”
    “She’s at a fund-raiser.”
    “Start taking your clothes off.”
    “Where’ve you been, anyway? Why didn’t you call me?”
    “You don’t get to ask those questions. All you get to do is kiss me all over. Deal or no deal?”
    “I’m already in my pajamas.”
    “All buttoned up, too, I’ll bet. Well, you do your one-handed best with those buttons, Quasimodo, and I’ll get the rest. Now shut up and get to work. We’re wasting time.”
    Thirty minutes later, Colleen is sprawled beside me. One hand, her left, mouses around — playing with my hair, pinching me, tickling. The sheets are tangled and damp. And I can’t help but think,
Tangled sheets. Wow. I’ve seen that in a hundred movies!
    The blinds are half open, and the moonlight looks extra-fragile.
    “I wish we could sleep,” Colleen says. “I’m so sleepy.”
    I glance at the clock, then get out of bed and pick up my new camera. “You can sleep for twenty minutes if I can shoot some film.”
    She starts to