Tom Perrotta: Nine Inches

“Thank you so much for coming,” she said, rising from her chair with a wan but sincere smile. She looked washed-out, as if she hadn’t slept for days. “You’re my hero.”

“Not a problem.” Liz leaned across the table for a quick hug and kiss. “How’s it going?”

“Great.”

Sally glanced at Hammer for confirmation, and he responded with a grudging nod. He was an unpleasantly handsome man with a mustache he couldn’t keep his fingers off.

“Kids are having a blast,” he admitted.

With the indifference of a clerk at the DMV, Hammer slid a blank name tag and a Sharpie in Liz’s direction. After a moment’s hesitation, she scrawled her married name — LIZ MERCATTO — and affixed the white rectangle to her shirt. At least this way everyone would know she was Dana’s mom, instead of some random adult who’d wandered in off the street.

“Ready?” Sally circled the table and took Liz by the arm. “They’re waiting for you at the Chilling Station.”

“The what?”

“It’s a place to relax and hang out, kind of away from it all. You know, if the kids need a little downtime. I think you’ll like it.”

They set off toward the distant clamor of the party, turning right at the library, heading down a long hallway paved with a galaxy of construction-paper stars, each one bearing the name of a graduate.

“This is our Walk of Fame,” Sally explained. “We stayed up until two-thirty cutting out the stars and writing the names. And then it took us all afternoon to arrange them on the floor.”

“How many are there?”

“Two hundred forty-three.” Liz could hear the pride in Sally’s voice. “But who’s counting, right?”

They veered apart, making way for a pack of pretty girls charging by in short skirts and high heels, each one taller and skinnier than the next, glammed up as if they were heading to a nightclub. Not a single member of the posse bothered to glance at Liz or Sally as they passed, let alone say, Hi or Excuse me.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” Sally watched with a wistful expression as the girls clattered down the hallway, talking in loud, theatrical voices. “They have no idea how beautiful they are.”

Oh, they know, Liz thought. The world only reminds them every day.

“They probably think their butts are too big or their boobs are too small,” Sally continued. “That’s how I felt when I was their age. Like I could never measure up.”

“Me, too.” Liz decided not to mention that the feeling had never gone away. “All through high school I tried to be the last person out of the classroom after the bell rang. I didn’t want any boys walking behind me, snickering at my ass.”

The girls stopped midway down the hall to take cell-phone pictures of a star that must have belonged to one of them, or maybe to a boy they liked.

“They’re probably on some ridiculous carrot-stick diet,” Sally said. “But they’re perfect just the way they are, you know? That’s what I keep telling Jamie, but I can’t seem to get through to her.”

Liz nodded, not quite sure how they’d segued from the high-heeled hotties to the entirely different subject of Jamie, an Amazonian three-sport athlete who only ever seemed at home in sweats or a team uniform. Tony always referred to her as a “bruiser,” insisting that he meant it as a compliment.

“It’s hard being a girl,” Liz observed. “Doesn’t matter what you look like.”

“What about Dana? She have any issues like that? You know, body image or whatever?”

“Not really.” Liz flinched as two boys barreled past, one of them trying to bash the other in the head with a pink flotation noodle. They looked sweaty and slightly crazed. “She’s been lucky like that. Never had to worry about her weight or her complexion, none of it.”

Sally nodded, as if she’d figured as much. “She’s always been such a pretty girl. Ever since she was little.”

“It’s a fluke.” Liz added the obligatory disclaimer: “God knows she didn’t get it from her mother.”

They stopped to peek into the cafeteria, half of which had been cleared to make a dance floor. A mob of kids were out there, most of them moving with a confidence Liz could only have dreamed about at their age. A few looked like trained professionals, or at least like they’d spent a lot of time practicing in front of their bedroom mirror.

“I’m glad it’s finally picking up,” Sally said. “When the DJ started, the boys were hiding out in the gym, shooting hoops and beating up on one another. The girls had to drag them over here.”

“Well, it looks like they’re having fun.”

Liz would have liked to stick around, but Sally was in no mood to linger. Her shift was over; she just wanted to get Liz settled, then go home and get some sleep.

“I saw Dana’s prom pictures on Facebook,” Sally said, as they rounded the corner onto a corridor lined with cardboard cutouts of Hollywood stars, Meryl Streep sandwiched by Dirty Harry and Homer Simpson, Jeff Bridges with an eyepatch. “She and Chris looked really happy together. Such a perfect couple.”

“I guess,” Liz agreed without enthusiasm. “I just wish they weren’t so serious.”

“They’ve been together for a while, right?”

“Ever since freshman year.”

Sally hesitated, shooting Liz an apologetic sidelong glance before venturing the inevitable question.

“I know it’s none of my business, but are they… ?”

Liz shrugged, trying to hide her discomfort. It was weird how many other parents felt that it was okay to inquire about her daughter’s sex life just because she’d been dating the same boy for the past couple of years.

“I don’t know,” she said. “We don’t really talk about it.”

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, this wasn’t a lie. The one time Liz had asked her daughter straight out if she and Chris had gone all the way, Dana just rolled her eyes and said, Mom, I’m really not comfortable with this conversation, and that was where they’d left it.

Of course, this exchange had taken place over a year ago, and a lot had happened since then. But what was Liz supposed to do? Tell Sally the truth, which was that Chris sometimes spent the night in Dana’s bedroom and, in fact, was doing so that very night? Because Liz knew exactly how that would go. Sally would pretend not to be shocked and then say, Really? And you’re all right with that? And then Liz would either have to lie and say yes or admit that she hated the situation, but felt powerless to change it.

It was a fait accompli, she would have had to explain. Nobody asked my permission.

Ever since freshman year, Dana had been spending the occasional weekend with Chris’s family at their vacation house in Vermont. It was a lovely second home, by all accounts, just twenty minutes from Killington, and Chris’s parents were lovely people. The dad, Warren, was a financial guy, and the mom, Jodie, a working artist with her own studio and a gallery in Boston, the kind of limber, fresh-faced woman who could let herself go gray and seem all the more youthful and attractive as a result. Both parents thought the world of Dana, repeatedly telling Liz what a pleasure it was to have her as a houseguest, such a polite girl, always helping with the dishes — something she rarely did at home, Liz always wanted to interject, though she never did — and so beautiful, too, such a graceful, fearless skier.

This past winter, Jodie had phoned Liz after Presidents’ Day weekend. She started by reciting the usual compliments, but then her tone changed, turned solemn and careful.

“I thought you should know,” she said. “The kids have been sharing a bedroom. At the ski house.”