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Yulia had her head in his lap, and Walt was tracing the curve of her eyebrow.

This was normal for them, Hollis insisted, but Walt was in wonder by it.

Annie brought her lunch from home, and the smell of noodle soup was chasing out the grease in the air from Yulia’s and Hollis’s food. Yulia tapped Annie’s knee to the sound of the music.

Walt was thinking loud enough for Hollis to catch some snatches of words.

Feedback loop , fragile , soft, and wish were the loudest.

What does this mean to you? Hollis asked.

Walt paused, thinking quieter before answering.

This is the sort of thing I would do with my sisters. Just lying on the floor together after church.

Listening to the radio? Hollis fished for information.

He felt Walt’s amusement inside like a sprinkle of rain.

Sometimes. It’s not a thing to do with people you aren’t related to. Single gals most of all. Boys though, sometimes. If the mood was right.

There was a story there. More important though, the radio had been invented when Walt was young and it was old enough for him to have one in his home. So the preindustrial option was canceled.

Yulia reached up and fingered Hollis’s bangs.

“You should keep it like this, after everything settles,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

Tell her thank you normally.

“Thanks. I didn’t know people would care so much.”

Ugh.

Yulia closed her eyes and smiled. “I did this too, when I first came here. It’s a part of me now, but I thought really hard about what I wanted people to think of me and then went shopping.”

“It’s hard to imagine you any less glamorous,” Annie said. She touched the very tip of her pointer finger to Yulia’s, and Yulia scrunched up her nose.

“What do you think of it? The hair and everything,” Hollis forced Walt to ask Annie.

Annie looked at him hard. Her pink curls fluttering in the wind, bright and brilliant.

“I think that they don’t know you like we do,” she said.

Hollis felt a stab of pain and a wave of revulsion from Walt so abrupt that Walt lost control over his face. Hollis took over and stopped them from vomiting on Yulia’s head from pure horrified reflex.

It was only for a second, and Walt seized back control immediately.

“I just meant that whatever they’re seeing in you now, they should have seen in you before!” Annie cried.

Hollis hadn’t been fast enough, Annie looked very worried.

Walt laughed for them and it settled rancid in their throat. “It’s nothing. I think maybe something I ate just didn’t settle right. I think I’ve got heartburn.”

“TUMS in the glove compartment,” Yulia said, eyes still closed.

Annie dug them out for him.

What happens if we eat those for no reason?

Walt didn’t answer him and popped one into his mouth.

“Thanks.”

Annie laughed nervously. “Anyway, I’m sure they’ll adjust. We only have a semester of school left.”

“Yeah,” Walt said. “It shouldn’t be a big deal.”