It wasn’t so much that Eugene and I liked each other, or that there was any possibility of romance between us. It was more that we both despised Franconia, the suburb where we were doomed to live. In Franconia, no one’s imagination was working overtime, that much was evident from the moment you first walked through town, where you could find the Franconia High School, the Franconia Mall, the Franconia Diner, and, for special occasions— proms, for instance, or extramarital trysts—the Franconia Steak House, which Eugene and I called Marie’s, not only because Marie Fortuna’s husband caught her there, eating antipasto with her boyfriend, who happened to be the soccer coach at the high school, but because we couldn’t stand to hear the word Franconia used one more time. Eugene and I were in business together, earning money for our escape from town by selling term papers, and June was our busiest time of the year. By the end of the month, however, we were no longer doing our best work.
