“Sorry for the surprise,” says Janie. “I won’t be here long.”

Things have calmed down now. JR stopped barking and went back into eek-a-person mode as soon as she made it in the door. He doesn’t retreat back into the living room, though. He sticks around. It reminds me of that first night, when I fell and he barked at me, except this time, it’s my legs he’s hiding behind instead of Mom’s.

Janie kneels down and holds her hand low to the ground, palm up. I’m not really sure what she’s doing, but JR seems to know, because he takes a few steps toward her.

“You have to be careful with him,” I say. “He’s a rescue and —”

And then he makes a liar out of me by sniffing Janie’s hand. She takes her time and lets him. Then, just like that, she brings her other hand up and pets him.

“He’s not so bad,” she says. She’s looking at him when she says it and she draws the word bad out like baby talk for his benefit.

“I think it’s mostly men he has a problem with,” I say.

“I know how he feels,” she says, standing up.

Walked right into that one. Mom ducks her head into the hallway just long enough to say hi to Janie. When Mom leaves, she takes JR back with her.

Once it’s just Janie and me, the mood changes a little. The temperature drops, basically. She was friendly enough at the door, but it’s pretty clear this is going to be a Serious Talk. I know I have it coming, but I hate these on principle. I sit down on the couch and I’m sort of hoping she will, too, but she sits in the creaky, old chair next to it.

“How’s the garden store?” I say.

“Not too bad,” she says. “Today was my last day. You’re lucky you didn’t catch me when you didn’t.”

“It take you all day to think of that?” I say.

“Actually,” she says, “I thought of it while you were walking back across the parking lot.”

“Yeah, I forgot something over there.”

“What’s that?” she asks.

“My pride.”

“Don’t joke,” she says. I put my hands up like, OK, OK, but she started it.

“Did you mostly work inside, or outside with the plants and flowers and stuff?” I say.

“Little of both. It wasn’t bad on nice days. Not exactly a dream job, but whatever.”

“Yeah.”

“So how was your summer?” she asks. I expected it, but somehow it still catches me off guard.

“Uh,” I start, but she shoots me a look like: whatever comes out of your mouth better be the truth. So I shut my mouth again, because that way, at least it’s not not the truth.

“Uh-huh,” she says.

I’m about to try again, but I hear JR trotting back down the hall. I guess he slipped through Mom’s defenses. I think he’s going to come in and sort of let me off the hook, but all he does is poke his ginormous head in the room, look at us for a second, and then turn around and head back down the hallway.

“Just checking in,” I say.

“I like your dog,” she says.

“It’s not true, you know. With Mars.”

“I figured,” she says.

“I mean, he did bite him, but Mars was a total dick and basically made him.”

“Yeah,” she says. “That sounds about right.”

“And now he’s making all kinds —”

“Listen!” she says, and I shut up. “We still need to talk, all right? Like, a real talk? And it’s pretty clear that’s still way too much to ask for, which is completely ridiculous, but whatever, I don’t know what I even expected. We’re back to school tomorrow, and people are going to be asking me what’s going on, and I don’t even know what to tell them. And that sucks.”

It’s all true, but I’m not sure which part to respond to first, or how. It amounts to me saying nothing for a little too long, which basically proves her point. She exhales in that let-down way, picks up Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and says, “You read it?”

I shake my head no.

“I read another one today,” I say. “Hiroshima.”

She makes a face, maybe because she didn’t like the book or maybe just because it was so gruesome. I’m glad we have the same reading list, though. It means we’ve got the same English teacher. If we have him the same period, it could either be really good or a full year’s worth of incredible awkwardness. I’m willing to take that chance.

“I found the movie on demand,” I say. “I was thinking of watching it….”

“Sounds like entertainment gold,” she says.

She stands up, so I do, too.

“And anyway,” she says, tossing the book back down on the table. “I’ve read it.”

Of course she has. She’s always been a better student than me.

“They give you the hybrid?” I say as she heads toward the door.

“Made me buy it for five hundred bucks,” she says. “Paid them last month.”

“That’s a good deal,” I say, like an idiot. “I always liked that car.”

“Good,” she says. “Then you can watch it drive away.”

And I do. I stand there at the door, watch the headlights come on, and watch her back out and drive away. After that, I head back to the couch to order Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Turns out it’s a miniseries — 240 minutes long! I make it through the first episode and half of the second — only two and a half to go — but I still have pretty much no idea what’s going on. The actors are trying to out-British one another, and I was thinking about what Janie said the entire time.

I don’t mind her taking a few shots at me like that. I deserve it, and if I could fix this just by taking enough abuse, it’d be no problem. I’m good at that. But I can’t fix things that way. I’ve got to talk, like she said, really talk.

That’s the problem. I’m not as good at that. I’m not good at it at all. But I have to try. I know that. I just don’t know how.