“My mom doesn’t let me go by myself.”

Ray shrugged; Mom wasn’t there with us. “You’re ten,” he said, as though the implication was self-evident.

My mother had been right: seduction was easy. It’s what we all depend on: other people’s enthusiasms, their inexhaustible desires.

I nodded. “All right.”

So Ray took the pink popcorn balls and turned left down the parade route; I went in the other direction.

My mother, of course, had warned me about crowds: their fickle-mindedness and their capacity for small acts of violence. Stolen nickels, a hastily pinched rump. But it was surprisingly easy, I found, to make my way through them. I was small and quick, and not afraid to hustle. Before the parade, the streets surged with people, anticipatory and bored. They wanted distraction. And they were thrilled by the novelty of it all: up early on a weekend morning, sitting on the cold nubs of sidewalk, waiting for the spectacle to come rolling by. I watched their starry faces; and I found ways of tempting them: a delicately extended hand, a carefully raised eyebrow. Inviting, encouraging. My mother had been right: seduction was easy. It’s what we all depend on: other people’s enthusiasms, their inexhaustible desires.

“What were you thinking?!” My mother demanded afterward. “Leaving her out there alone?”

Ray stood with all of his weight pushed onto one leg, a hand pressed to his eyes against the sun. He looked, I thought, quite a lot like a movie star: a mild-mannered James Dean, or John Travolta. My Uncle Ray was always so easy to adore.

“Mac,” he told her. “There’s hundreds of people out there. It’s completely safe.”

“What would you know?” Mom snarled. “You’re not a woman.”

I was just back from the parade, paused at the side of the van, barely visible. The apron I wore was heavy now, keeping my center of gravity low around my hips. As I pushed past the van, it jangled mildly. “Mom!” I called. “I’m okay!”

“Oh, Theresa!” She came at me fierce, grabbing me around the middle and pulling me to her. “Are you all right?” Her face wore a shocked expression; but I was used to this kind of drama. It would, I knew, wear off quickly. “Oh baby, I’m so sorry,” she moaned. “It won’t happen again.”

“See now, Mac? The girl’s all right.” Ray scuffed the heel of his boot along the cement. But my mother was devoted to her brother; we all knew that there wasn’t a thing in the world that could have made her stop loving him.