Dottie's father was a pediatrician, and she'd torn a note from his excuse pad and written herself a reason to stay home for the next few days. Pink eye.

She waited under a shade tree across the street from the high school and watched her best friend go in. Carola threw Dottie a look over her shoulder, waved behind her head as she walked up the stairs to first period. For a second, Dottie worried that now she would get pink eye, that the lie might turn into the truth, but what she wanted was what she was doing.

Len would pick Dottie up in his Chevy truck and she'd help him work. He had a store front on Water Street where he sold vintage jeans, and twice a week he rushed to St. Vincent's Thrift before it opened so he'd have first pick.

He screeched into a parking spot and Dottie jumped in. They met in the middle and kissed. Her book bag was heavy and she dumped it on the floor. In the cup holder were two hot coffees. The jerky movements of him switching gears made the liquid jump, so Dottie held the Styrofoam cups in her hands and let her arms absorb the shock. She had never drunk coffee and was learning the taste. "Cultivating your palate," is what her mother called it, but Dottie figured it was more like tricking the brain.

Len dispatched her to the other side of the thrift store. They dug through the stacks of soiled and smelly clothes and pulled out the denim. Back at his studio, she'd help him work over the fabric, rub the knees with rocks, take a razor to the fly and belt loops to distress the smooth edges, then wash them over and over like forgiveness.

Len had jagged bangs that hung in his face and he dressed in layers - T-shirt, buttoned-down shirt, vest, jacket. His thighs were thinner than hers. This morning while she dressed she'd imagined his eyes on her, a reverse strip-tease. Pink bra and panties, faded Levis, green sweater, black boots. His shoes were Australian and fastened with Velcro.

"We struck gold," he said. They carried the jeans out in boxes and put them in the bed of the truck.

He drove fast, like tag without the touch, ran under two yellow lights, waited until the last minute to put on the brakes.

"Whoa, Nellie," Dottie said, pressing her feet into the floor. The boxes were sliding in the back. She didn't have on a seatbelt because he didn't. "Most accidents happen close to where you live," Dottie said.

"You learn that in driver's ed?" he said.

Last week her father had picked glass out of a child's face because his mother had been holding him on her lap. Dottie wanted to move back over to her side and strap in, but didn't want to hurt Len's feelings.

"Ever been in a wreck?" she said.

The red mini-van that ran the stop sign hit her side square on, the small leg of a cross. Dottie was covered by tiny bits of glass, sparkly, and drapey white bag sat in her lap. Her door had been bent and there was a tear in the arm of her sweater.

A young woman asked Len if they were okay. "I think so," he said. "I saw the whole thing," she said, "if you need a witness."

Dottie's face felt sunburned, and she patiently watched two men with shoulder patches pry open her door with a crowbar. Metal screeched. The EMTs had come so quickly, like they'd been waiting for this all morning. She wondered if any part of her was hurt.