Wait. He knows who this is.

Ah yes. It’s what’s-her-name. Ariana. He’s seen her at Best Buds back when he used to take meals to Marnie when she was working late. Marnie says she’s the leader of a group of teenage girls who do stuff, who aren’t afraid of anything. She’s the one who takes videos. And please God, don’t let that be a suitcase she’s holding.

Great. Just what he needs: another fearless female standing at his front door with a suitcase. He’s all full up just now on women who seem to be striding forward into his life, asking loudly for what they want, especially when their desires include a year of him raising their kid, the proper kind of cheese on the macaroni . . . and a baby. And what is this one going to be asking of him? Something, he is sure.

His phone dings, and he glances down at it.

Patrick. Ariana is going to be showing up at our house. She’s got some parent trouble. So I said she could stay with us for a while. Will you show her down to the basement apartment and give her a key? #PatrickSheNeedsUs #YouWillLikeHerIPromise.

I am sorry, he writes. You have obviously typed this to the wrong number. There is no one named Patrick at this number. I have never even heard of the name Patrick. Very weird name.

LOL. Patrick. She’s a kid. And it’s just for a little while. You remember what it’s like being a kid trying to work things out. Temporary insanity. Also, she knows Common Core math, which will keep US from having to learn it. #BrightSide

Marnie. She’s at the door. #sigh #WhatIsHappening #LifelongInsanity And when should I expect the school’s homeless family to move in? Will I get more of a heads-up on that one?

He wishes immediately he didn’t write that last bit. She might just take it that it would be okay with him to invite Laramie’s family in. He wouldn’t put it past her.

CHAPTER TWENTY

MARNIE

Having Ariana live with us turns out to be great.

Fritzie and I help her fix up the basement apartment, with baskets and pillows and candles and bedspreads. And in the evenings, now that Patrick is working on his paintings in the studio, she comes upstairs, and the three of us make dinner and do homework and dance around the kitchen like wild women. We talk about love spells and the joys of videotaping people and the right way to do a math problem and how fun it is when dogs wear T-shirts.

We all have our things. Fritzie does cartwheels and draws us pictures. My contribution is that I know how to cook and also I have a million stories about life and matchmaking, and Ariana knows a hundred ways to tie scarves. She also has a skincare product that makes your face look shiny and glittery called—unbelievably—Unicorn Snot. She has no fewer than four different packages of hair chalk in primary colors, which I am so far avoiding using, but the time may be coming close when I succumb. What’s a little light purple hair chalk among friends, after all?

“How is it you live in Brooklyn and don’t know about all these products?” she asked me one night. We were standing in front of the bathroom mirror while she curled my straight hair into little ringlets of joy, and then she helped me massage some gelatinous sparkly gunk into my cheeks. “To bring out your inner unicorn,” she said.

I tried to explain, that in my nerdish circle of friends growing up, we didn’t have inner unicorns; we wanted to look natural. “Even admitting you put on lotion could be construed as trying too hard,” I told her. It was important to look plain and unvarnished. Sometimes you could put on a little bit of mascara to enhance yourself, but you would go to your grave rather than admit you had done so.

“Trying too hard is wonderful!” she said breathlessly. “You think plain and unvarnished is going to bring you any real joy?”

And that is what I love about having Ariana here. She reminds me of everything I truly believe.

This is especially good for me now that I don’t have Patrick around so much. I know he’s doing what he needs to be doing. I know that the art show will be the very best thing for him. At night I love when he finally leaves the studio and sleeps next to me, even though we’re not talking then.

I miss his texts and his jokes and his funny little dances.

My sister calls me one evening while I’m making red curry for dinner. As I’m sautéing the chicken breasts and onion, Ariana is helping Fritzie with what seems to be step twenty-seven of a routine math problem. And then there’s Natalie on the phone.

“Mom’s gone mad,” she says without preamble.

Let me just say that Natalie and I don’t talk so much on the phone anymore. She’s busy with her two kids, our parents (who live in her neighborhood), her job as a very important scientist, her husband, Brian, and her obsession with housecleaning, blah blah blah—and I live in the North, a place where no self-respecting Southerner would have dared to venture, in Natalie’s private opinion. According to the plan she had, Natalie and I were supposed to be having babies together and living a block or so apart, but then I inherited this house and came here.

But sometimes she calls. Rarely.

“Oh dear. What’s she doing?” I say.

“Well, for one thing, she’s let herself go. She’s not getting her hair done anymore.”

“Uh-huh.” I put my hand over the phone so I won’t laugh. I decide to go the impersonating-a-police-officer way. “Yes, ma’am, we’re writing this down. Not. Getting. Hair. Done. Anymore. Anything worse than that, ma’am, before we arm an officer and send him over to the house?”

“Stop it! You see how you are? That is a big deal, believe me. Mom’s been going to see Drena since forever.”

“I always thought Drena was too heavy-handed with the hairspray, to tell you the truth.”

My sister is silent, and I can tell she’s seething. When she can regain her composure, she says, “Would you listen to me, please? This is serious. I think not getting her hair done is a sign of depression in a woman her age. She also won’t even commit to coming to my house for Thanksgiving—when she knows how important that is to me, to have traditions for my kids. And she says Dad doesn’t talk to her anymore, but honestly, she’s so crabby I don’t blame him. And last week when I asked her why she’s acting this way, she said I didn’t understand what it’s like to turn sixty.”

“Huh. So maybe this is just her version of a midlife crisis.”

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? Sixty is hardly midlife unless you’re going to live to be one hundred twenty.”

“Yeah, but she missed the one you’re supposed to have at forty. She was too busy driving us places.”

“Do you ever even talk to her? I notice you don’t call me anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

And I am sorry. A little bit. It’s just that life is so much more interesting than Natalie could ever guess. Sweeter and messier, both.

Then I have to hang up, because the doorbell is ringing. Lola and William have arrived for dinner, with Charmaine and Justin and Mookie coming up right behind them. They’re here to see Ariana—but teenagers are always hungry, and I’ve got plenty of red curry, so I invite them to stay. I love how they troop inside, laughing and joking and teasing each other. Mookie lifts Fritzie in the air and spins her around, and then she teaches him one of those clapping games that only third graders know.