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okay?”
    “Cash,” Sunny says smoothly. “We prefer cash.”
    Like she’s going to take a check from him. Like he’s gonna use his real checkbook.
    Okay, so maybe he would. Who knows?
    He fumbles out a wallet — and the art book.
    You have an inspired moment and say, “You might want to make sure you haven’t forgotten any other books you were interested in buying.”
    He jumps. His hand goes to the other side of his coat.
    You hope this guy doesn’t make a living doing this. Apart from the illegality thing, the ripping-people-off-who-are-trying-to-make-a-living-themselves thing, he’s gonna starve.
    He’s really bad at his job.
    He ends up paying for three paperbacks, but not the art book. Not enough of the folding green stuff.
    And Sunny tells him, with deeply insincere regret, that the credit card machine is not working.
    Just in case his credit cards are faux. Smooth Sunny.
    The shoplifter bolts with his purchases.
    You and Sunny face each other.
    CUT TO:
    Sunny: You were cool, Ducky. I mean, I was totally freaked and there you were.
    D: Hey [there’s that word again], if you hadn’t stepped in front of him, he would’ve been so gone.
    S: Yeah, but after I did that, I didn’t know what to do.
    D: That line about book people being absentminded? Brilliant.
    S [modestly]: Thank you. My hero.
    D: My hero.
    Sunny laughs. You laugh.
    “We’re a good team,” Sunny says.
    “Yeah,” you say. “We are.”
    Aug. 16
    Okay. You’re a sixteen-year-old boy and you like to go shopping. You just spent the day shopping.
    With a girl.
    Who is thirteen.
    (But not just any girl. Sunny.)
    Does this make you strange?
    Answer: No. You are already strange.
    Besides, who cares? It’s not like anyone saw you. And even if they did, WHY DO YOU
    CARE?
    And besides again, even if THEY (whoever they are) saw you, they’d just think you were
    hanging out with a cute girl.
    Anyway, it wasn’t your idea to go shopping. Sunny and you were hanging at the mall and it just
    … happened.
    One minute you were watching the little kids throw pennies in the fountain (standing, of course, right next to the sign that said, “Please don’t throw pennies in the fountain”). The next minute, you found yourself giving face time to window displays. Nodding when Sunny said, “Puh-lease, the colors are unnatural. In a bad way.”
    Remarking on, for example, your need, someday, for something in cashmere.
    “I wouldn’t have to wear it,” you say. “Just keep it around and pet it. A cashmere pet. Soft.
    Color-coordinated. House-trained.”
    Sunny is laughing.
    And then wham, bam, you’re in a store.
    Actually, you go willingly into your favorite try-on-and-spend emporium. Lots of retro stuff.
    Sunny has a sunglasses vision (that’s what she calls it) and you end up with a pair of either extremely geeky or over-the-edge-cool old sunglasses that she insists you wear even though you are indoors.
    “It’s a very bright mall,” she says.
    “Tell me before I walk into, say, a display. Or a store window,” you reply.
    You drift into a wig place. You’re a little creeped out by it. All those loose scalps on all those severed heads.
    But Sunny dives right in, trying on wigs like they’re hats.
    A black Cher number with bangs — not Sunny’s best look.
    Not yours either.
    Even with the dark glasses.
    The “wig consultant” has been offering advice to another “client.” She makes the sale, the client bags the hair, and then the consultant turns to you and Sunny.
    Sunny is now in a Little Orphan Annie number: red curls going SPROING!
    The consultant gives her a mouthful of smile. “May I help you?” she says.
    Unspoken words: “Like, out of my store? Now?”
    “No thanks.” Sunny picks up a mirror to get a better peek at the back of her head.
    “Orphan Annie isn’t your style,” you say and want to BITE OFF YOUR TONGUE since it has
    been — what? — only a few months since Mrs. Winslow died.
    “Half an orphan might be,” Sunny