Like I said before, Ellen changed everything. She was tall, thin, beautiful, funny, brainy, grown up, uninhibited, full of energy and driven to succeed. She wore strange leather necklaces and bracelets and had a Chinese letter tattooed on her shoulder. When she smiled at Simon, he acted like he won an award—an award he was happy to show off to everyone else. Ellen played a killer squash game, threw a baseball like a guy, wore men’s skates, and played left wing on an all-girls hockey team made up of mostly lesbian students. She ran every day and always looked and smelled like she had just showered. Every time she came over, she brought apples, pears, plums or peaches, three of each, throwing one to Simon, which he caught, and one to me, which I let hit the floor.
Inside the apartment, she
