Bridge of Sighs

had a point. Gullibility and innocence, unmitigated by even a smidgen of healthy cynicism, might not represent everything that was wrong with America, but it
was
a grotesque combination.
    He tossed his laundry bag in the back of the Lynch station wagon and climbed in front with his friend, who put the key in the ignition and then just sat there. After a moment he broke into his goofiest grin. “Remember how we used to surf my dad’s truck?”
    God, Noonan thought. Gullibility, innocence
and
nostalgia. “I remember breaking my wrist.”
    Lucy nodded seriously, embarrassed by this part of the story. “I should have called the turn.” Then, after a moment: “Things were simple back then, huh?”
    Before girls? Is that what he was getting at? Or something else?
    “Don’t you ever wish things just stayed the same?” Lucy said. “That we didn’t all have to go off to college and—”
    “I can’t wait, actually,” he answered, trying to cut this off.
    “What if it means we never come back? What if we forget?”
    “Forget
what
?”
    “All of it.”
    “I imagine we’ll remember the important stuff.”
    “What if it’s all important?”
    “And there’s a quiz?”
    He meant this as a joke, of course, and Lucy did grin sheepishly, as if at his own foolishness. But Noonan couldn’t shake the feeling that his friend was serious and, for reasons he himself couldn’t begin to imagine, had concluded that every single detail of their lives so far was of vast importance. That there would, in fact, be a quiz.
             
     
    W HEN THEY PULLED UP in front of Ikey’s, Nan and Sarah got into the backseat, and Lucy drove slowly downtown. The snow was already halfway up the wheels. Nan was calmer now, her hiccups having subsided, and she suggested they all go out for pizza, but Lucy said the station wagon wasn’t all that good in snow, and he didn’t want to get stuck. Noonan said pizza sounded good to him, which cheered Nan up a little. When they pulled up in front of the Rexall, he trotted upstairs with his laundry while the others waited in the car, though Sarah, looking worried, was waiting on the landing when he came back down.
    She took his hand as she had that night he’d given her a lift home on the Indian. “Be nice to her tonight.”
    “I thought I was supposed to break up with her. Tell her we should just be friends.”
    “Not tonight.”
    “When?”
    “I don’t know, Bobby. Just not tonight.”
    Was it because her hand was in his that he leaned forward and kissed her? Or because it was dark there on the landing, the single bare bulb meant to light the stairs having burned out months earlier? Or because Lucy had just shared his profound wish that things would never change.
There,
Noonan thought when his lips touched Sarah’s,
they just did.
Or was it because he’d been wanting to for so long? He couldn’t say, but one thing was certain. The kiss surprised him a lot more than it did Sarah, who now gave him a maddening smile.
    “God,” he said, stepping back. “I’m sorry.”
    “Why?”
    He had no ready answer for that, since he wasn’t, of course, sorry at all.
    “Actually,” she said, “you’ve been working up to that for a while.”
    “I have?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why didn’t you stop me?”
    “Because I’m a girl. It was nice.”
    “But—”
    “Go take care of Nan. She needs you.” She was pushing him down the steps now, toward the street. “And don’t look like you did something terrible. It was just a kiss.”
             
     
    B Y THE TIME Lucy dropped Nan and Noonan at the Cayoga Diner and then drove on to take Sarah home, the snow was already up to the top of their boots. They’d stopped first at Angelo’s, where there was a handwritten sign taped to the door: CLOSED FOR BLIZZERD . Indeed, the only restaurant open was the diner, and to Noonan’s astonishment Nan had never been there, though that made sense once he thought about it. This was the domain of rough, disgruntled men her father had laid off, who blamed him for poisoning their water and causing the cancer that ran through their diminished lives. “My mother would be furious if I went there,” Nan said, forgetting for a moment that she hated her, but then her face brightened. “Let’s go!”
    They had the place to themselves, so they slid into the corner booth where they could watch the street fill up with snow. “Yuck,” Nan said when she saw the big plate of greasy fries drenched in