So I go, and Lola is standing there, wearing her marvelous red sneakers and a gray sweatshirt, carrying coffees in a cardboard holder and a bag of something that I’m thinking could possibly be scones. Or doughnuts. She looks up at me with a huge grin.

“Wow, are you the coffee fairy?” I say. “And does this mean that today I don’t have to vanquish the evil spirit that lives in that coffee press? Please, please, come in!”

“Are you sure, dear, because I don’t want to interrupt your privacy,” she says. “But today I just couldn’t help myself. I used to come over and eat breakfast every morning with Blix and Houndy, and I—well, I just feel like this is where I’m supposed to be.” She shrugs. “I know that’s not right, this isn’t my house, and Blix isn’t here anymore, but—”

“Stop! Come in! I’ve been wanting to see you.”

“Well, if you’re sure . . .” She steps in and looks around, and once again it’s like she’s drinking in the surroundings, gaining strength simply from being in Blix’s house. Then she turns her eyes to me and says quietly, “Also, I need to talk to you about love if you have some time.”

“Love? Sure, I have time. Who doesn’t have time to talk about love?”

Then, wouldn’t you know, Noah comes charging out of the kitchen as though the word love summoned him, juggling his coffee cup while he shrugs his way into his backpack, and I see her eyes widen just slightly at the sight of him. Of us. Even though we’re not an us, I know we look like it.

“Hi, Lola,” he says. “Off to school. Marnie, see you later.”

“Fine,” I say, embarrassed.

He looks for a moment like he’s going to come over and kiss me good-bye, but then he just says, “Keep it real, ladies.” And he’s gone, slamming the door behind him so hard that the glass rattles. I look over at Lola and her knowing little smile.

“Yep, he’s still here,” I say. “It’s weird.”

“Well,” she says. “It’s certainly on topic.”

“Noah is not about love. Noah is about the convenience of living here because he’s taking classes.”

“Oh,” she says. “You forget that I’ve learned a few things from Blix.”

We go upstairs to the kitchen, and just as she’s gotten settled in the rocking chair by the window, there’s the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Sammy bangs his scooter into the kitchen door, like he does every morning, and I hear Jessica saying, “You’ve got to stop doing that. Marnie isn’t Blix, and she might be sleeping,” and he says, “She isn’t sleeping. And I just want to say good morning to her!”

Lola claps her hands. “Oh, I’ve missed this so much! Sammy heading for school! Ah! It’s been way too long!”

I open the door, and Sammy runs into my arms. Jessica told me that I’ve inherited him along with the house. Then he goes over and hugs Lola, too, and Jessica dabs at her eyes and blows kisses, and once we’re all hugged and they’re on their way, Lola looks at me and says, “So do you think you love him?”

At first I think she means Sammy, but then I know what she really means.

“Who? Noah? No. You can’t be serious! No!”

“It’s okay if you do,” she says. “Love is so complicated, isn’t it? You probably had him figured out and filed away, and then look what happened: Blix gave you this house, and railroaded you right back with your ex! Damnedest thing in the world. Unintended consequences, I call it.”

“But I don’t love him.”

“No, but you’re sleeping with him,” she says. “So there’s that.”

“Oh God. You can tell?”

She nods. “So, if I may ask, what happened to the guy back home?”

I groan. “He’s still hanging in there. Listen, I’m just bad, I tell you. I was always the good girl who did everything she was supposed to. And now every day I tell myself that I’m not going to have anything to do with Noah again, and then at night . . . I don’t know . . .”

She smiles at me. “I get it. You’re just having that year of life when you’re like a magnet. Sweetie, you’re attracting everything to you. Situations and lovers and life—you’re pulling stuff in all over the place! It’s my theory that everybody gets one of those years. It passes, don’t worry.”

“It’s not dangerous? Because it feels kind of awful.”

“Well. If you stop at one year, then it’s not dangerous. How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Perfect! See? You’re going to be fine. It’ll run its course, trust me,” she says. “And just so you know, I think Blix approves of this.”

I look at her closely while I’m stirring cream and sugar into my coffee. “So . . . am I allowed to ask about the man who comes and picks you up? The man with the New Jersey plates? Is that the love you wanted to talk to me about?”

She scowls at me. “Well, yes. But first you need to know that he’s not anywhere close to being somebody I could ever love.”

“No?”

“Marnie, he was my husband’s best friend.”

“So . . . ?”

She purses her lips. “Can’t you see what’s wrong with that? I can’t believe you matchmaking people! Do you have any scruples?”

“Clearly I don’t. But I don’t see why this—”

“Okay, I’ll explain it all to you. Blix sent him to me. She told me as much. With all her little tricks and sending out vibes into the universe. Whatever. She said she was going to work on finding me a man to love, even though I said I didn’t need one, and time passes, and one day, out of the blue, I get a call from William Sullivan. William Sullivan, my husband’s best friend! Wants to see me. Catch up. Old times. You know. Has no idea that he’s the subject of any kind of vibe being sent out! He just shows up.”

I look at her blankly. “And . . . ?”

“And, Marnie, this is never going to work because I can’t be romantically involved with William! He was like a brother to my husband! Walter and I used to go on family picnics with him and his kids and his wife!”

“He has a wife?”

“Had. He’s a widower. Patricia, her name was. Perfectly lovely woman. And I am not going to kiss her husband.”

“Does he want kissing? Maybe he wants a nice friendship, too.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes we’ll be sitting in his car, and at a certain point I can feel his hand start to crawl along the back of the seat—in a very suggestive way.”

“Wait. It crawls?” I am fascinated with everything about this story, and also intrigued with Lola’s animated face, turning pinker and pinker, and then the spirals of sparkles distracting me by going off behind her head.

“You know how they do,” she says. “How a man will just snake his hand along the back of the seat, thinking he’s being so innocent, but clearly he’s intending to put his arm around you. To pull you in! And he gets this shy, sort of sly look on his face. It’s awful. Just awful. I’m embarrassed for him really.”

I burst out laughing. “Lola, really? Snakes? And his crawling hand? Do you hear yourself? It sounds to me like it might be lovely, talking to somebody who knew you from before. He’s safe. He knows you. He likes you.” She is glaring at me, so I say, “But if you don’t want him, then why are we spending so much time talking about him?”

“Because I saw you looking the other day when he came to pick me up, and I know you’re like Blix, and I want you to stop thinking everything you’re thinking about William and me. Just stop it. Blix thinks everybody should be like her and Houndy. If you’ve lost your partner, get another one. As if everybody’s replaceable.”

“Huh,” I say.

She looks at me. “I was happily married for forty-two years and that chapter of my life is over. Who needs it? Who needs the bother of it? I’ve got my television programs and my bridge club ladies and the neighbors who come by, and the people at church—and do I really need to take a chance on some other man? Right now I’ve got everything just the way I like it. I told Blix I don’t need another man. Somebody with opinions I’d have to pay attention to.”

“Soooo . . . I take it this didn’t sit too well with her?”

She shakes her finger at me, and there’s an explosion of sparks all around her. “Let me tell you something about Blix. Blix the adventurer! I’m quite sure she still thinks that someday she and Houndy and this man, William Sullivan, and I are going to be frolicking around together in the afterlife—and we are so not, because when I’m in the afterlife, I’m going to be over in Walter’s corner, sipping tea with him and not having to explain to him that I have a second husband who happens to be his old friend.”

For a moment my mind is boggled with this view of the afterlife, in which we’re all traipsing around between little bistro tables where our old friends and lovers are drinking their tea and noticing who we’re talking to more than them. It sounds so much like eighth grade.