What I Loved

the door for me, and I looked through the foyer into a vast apartment that seemed to have been decorated almost entirely in powder blue with gold accents. Teenie appeared from behind a door that led to a hallway, took a few steps in my direction, stopped, and looked down at the floor. The expensive ugliness seemed to swallow her up, as if she were too small for the space.
    "Susie," Teenie said, turning to the woman who had opened the door. "This is Mark's uncle."
    "Nice boy," Susie said. "Very sweet boy."
    Without looking up, Teenie said, "Come on. We'll talk in my room."
    Teenie's room was small and messy. Except for the yellow silk curtains on the window, her sanctuary had little in common with the rest of the apartment. Shirts, dresses, T-shirts, and underwear were strewn over an upholstered chair, and behind it I saw her wings partially crushed by a pile of magazines that had been thrown on top of them. Jars, bottles, and small cases of makeup littered her desk, along with lotions, creams, and a few schoolbooks. When I looked at a shelf, I noticed a small new box of Legos, still in its plastic covering, exactly like the one I had come across in Mark's room.
    Teenie sat down on the edge of her bed and examined her knees as she pushed her bare feet into the carpeting.
    "I'm not sure why you wanted to talk to me, Teenie," I said.
    In a small, high voice, she said, "It's because you were nice to me that time when I fell."
    "I see. We're worried about Mark, you know. Lazlo found out he might be in Los Angeles."
    "I heard it was Houston."
    "Houston?" I said.
    Teenie continued to examine her knees. "I was in love with him," she said.
    "Mark?"
    She nodded vigorously and sniffed. "I thought so, anyway. He told me all kinds of things that made me feel all wild and free and crazy-like. It was good for a while. I really thought he loved me, you know?" She eyed me for half a second and then looked down again.
    "What happened?" I said.
    "It's over."
    "But it's been over for quite some time, hasn't it?"
    "We've been really tight on and off for two whole years."
    I thought of Lisa. That was when Mark was seeing Lisa. "But we haven't seen you," I said.
    "Mark said his parents wouldn't let me visit."
    "That wasn't true. He was grounded, but friends could visit him."
    Teenie shook her head back and forth, and I saw a big tear roll down her right cheek. Teenie must have shaken her head for twenty seconds while I encouraged her to speak. Finally, she said, "It started out like a game. I was going to get a tattoo on my stomach that said "The Mark." Teddy was joking around and he said he'd do it for me, but then..." Teenie lifted up her shirt and I saw two small scars that formed an M and a W, one on top of the other, so the bottom of the M met the top of the W to form a single character.
    "Giles did that to you?"
    She nodded.
    "And Mark? Was Mark there?"
    "He helped. I was screaming, but he held me down."
    "My God," I said.
    Tears ran down her face as she reached for a stuffed rabbit on her bed and began to stroke its ears. "He isn't what you think. He was so sweet to me in the beginning, but then he started to change. I gave him this book called Psycholand. It's about this rich guy who flies all over the world in his private plane, and in every city he kills somebody. Mark read it about twenty times."
    "I saw some reviews of that book. I understood that it was a kind of parody, a social satire."
    Teenie raised her eyes momentarily to give me a blank look. "Yeah, well," she continued, "it started to creep me out, you know, and sometimes when he spent the night here, he'd start talking to me in this really weird voice. It wasn't his regular voice, you know, but a put-on voice. He'd just go on and on, and I'd tell him to stop, but he wouldn't, and I'd put my hand over his mouth, and still he wouldn't stop. And then he got me into all this trouble with my parents 'cause he stole my dad's codeine pills, the ones he takes for his bad shoulder, and they thought it was me, and I didn't dare tell them it was Mark, 'cause by then I was afraid of him. He kept saying he didn't take them, but I know he did, and kids are saying that him and Teddy go out at night and rob people just for fun. Sometimes they take money, but other times they just take something stupid, like their tie or scarf or belt or something." Teenie shuddered through her tears. "I thought I was in love with him."
    "Do you think the rumors about the robberies are true?"
    Teenie