… She was almost a teen, and I was on the cusp of too old for a babysitter—a sophisticated nine. She went to public school, but was studious, upright, arriving with an armful of books. She didn’t wear a backpack, she carried her books in a pile, bound in a strap. We sat on the couch and talked. She and her friends were beginning to have parties—so-and-so liked so-and-so and she liked so-and-so and at such-and-such party so-and-so and so-and-so made out. She practiced kissing on me; I was cooperative. …