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By Root 993 0

festivals on far-flung farms, Jude and his sister, Prudence, trailing behind her with baskets of pipes over their arms. Her studio didn’t need a sign—people knew where to find her, just as they knew where to find the guy they called Hippie, who cruised town on his ten-speed bike and sold pot out of his fanny pack. They’d knock on the greenhouse door and she’d remove her safety glasses and happily make her exchange. Harriet Horn, the Glass Lady. “She can handblow me anytime,” Delph had said more than once, not because Harriet was all that fetching but because she was, to other people—especially to Teddy—cool. Now the word fumbled in Jude’s head—handblow, glandbow, land ho! He was vaguely dyslexic, messed up his letters even when he wasn’t high.

“I don’t have any money, birthday boy,” Harriet said. She removed her glasses—enormous, tortoiseshell, spotted with fingerprints—and let them hang on their chain of plastic beads. With the tobacco-stained fingers of her wool gloves, she dog-eared her place in the book and placed it on her lap. Jude felt his buzz die a quick and common death.

“You haven’t made any money today?” Teddy asked, sympathizing. He picked up a salad bowl and smoothed his palm over the inside of it. “This is really cold.”

“Not enough money,” Harriet said, gently taking the bowl back from Teddy. She was protective of her glass.

“Ma, not even like ten bucks?”

“And what do I get? A hug?”

When Jude refused, Teddy leaned cooperatively into Harriet’s coat. For this, Harriet produced two wrinkled dollar bills from her apron pocket. Jude paddled his skateboard over to the table and covered up the G and L of the sign so it said HANDBLOWN ASS. “Look, Ted.”

Teddy looked and nodded. He’d seen Jude do it before.

“You take your medicine, Jude?” Harriet asked.

“You mean pot? Yeah, but we need more.”

“Jude. You didn’t take it?”

“I did,” Jude said, although he hadn’t. For several weeks he’d been selling his Ritalin pills for a dollar a pop to a kid in his homeroom named Frederick Watt, who liked to take them before tests. A few times Jude and Teddy had taken a bunch at once and wigged out a little, but it was no fun doing drugs you were supposed to do. Jude was too old for Ritalin. He preferred mellower means of controlling his temperament, and his fingers itched for a joint. “Come on, Ma, I need more than two dollars.”

“I believe you already got your birthday gift, fella.”

“Yeah, well, something happened to it already.”

Teddy shot Jude a look.

“What happened to it?” Harriet asked.

“Nothing,” Teddy said. “He just lent it to someone.”

“Who’d you lend it to?”

“We’ll get it back,” Teddy said. Quickly he and Jude exchanged a silent, reflexive pact. “It’s just temporary.”

“It better be,” Harriet said, picking up her burning cigarette, which she’d propped in one of the ashtrays. “I spent a long time on that.” She expelled a lungful of smoke and shook her cigarette at him, remembering something. “Your father called again. Eliza will be here at six-oh-five. She’s taking a different train. Still staying till midnight, I think.”

“Who’s Eliza?” Teddy asked.

Jude thwacked him on the sleeve. “Eliza? The chick who’s hanging out with us tonight?”

“His father’s girlfriend’s daughter,” said Harriet, crossing her legs. “Eliza Urbanski.”

In the seven years since Les had left their family, Jude and Prudence hadn’t laid eyes on him. His calls and cards came once or twice a year, cash less, although not because, as far as Jude knew, he didn’t have it—he paid his child support on time, regular as rent. The last birthday gift Les had bestowed on Jude was for his thirteenth: subscriptions to Playboy, Barely Legal, and Juggs—the excess and range signifying both an uncertainty of the boy’s tastes and what Jude considered a boastful display of financial prowess.

But on Christmas night, when he called to wish his children a happy holiday, he had announced that his girlfriend’s daughter would be in town, skiing with her friends in Stowe for winter break—would Jude and Pru like to show her around? “She’s about your guys’s age,” said