“It’s supposed to be cream sauce. I was going to make creamed beef on toast.”

Portia turned off the heat, set the spoon aside, and walked over to sit next to her sisters. “Creamed beef?”

“Daddy’s favorite,” Cordelia said, the words quiet.

“Oh my God!” Olivia laughed. “That awful stuff?”

“You didn’t love it?” Cordelia asked.

“Seriously? Toasted bread slathered in creamed beef? No one loved that meal. Not even Daddy.”

Portia joined in, smiling as she remembered. “No, Daddy didn’t love anything about creamed beef on toast. But he loved Mama, and I swear she never knew that he barely choked every bite down.” She looked at the scratched linoleum. “What I’d give to have even half the love that Daddy felt for Mama.”

The sisters were quiet then. Portia knew they were lost in their own thoughts, their own memories of their parents. Then all of a sudden, Olivia leaped up.

“No dancing!” Portia said automatically. “And no singing!”

“Ha! Do I look that predictable? No. Let’s play Spit!”

Another of Daddy’s favorites.

Olivia raced into living room, and Portia heard her rummaging around in one of Aunt Evie’s cabinets.

“I am not playing Spit,” Cordelia stated.

Portia felt a trickle of relief. Cordelia was sounding more like her normal self again.

“Don’t be a stick in the mud,” Olivia teased with a wry twist of lips when she returned with a deck of ancient playing cards.

When they were growing up, their father had loved teaching his girls the rough-and-oh-so-impolite game called Spit, a game completely at odds with their mother’s book on manners. How many times had Daddy teased Mama about turning his girls into sissies, making Mama laugh until they ended up in the back of the trailer, the laughter shifting into something that pushed the girls out the door into the hardscrabble yard?

“You only want to play because you always won,” Portia said, smiling, grabbing up cards the minute Olivia handed her a pack.

Olivia and Portia played a quick hand, Cordelia looking on with a jaundiced eye.

“I win! And I’m starving!” Olivia said, as she started separating the cards.

Portia whipped up a quick meal for her sisters to eat from the few things left in the refrigerator. Sandwiches and a grapefruit and avocado salad topped with poppy seed dressing. The two sisters played and ate, while Cordelia only ate.

“You might win,” Cordelia said, finally picking up her deck of cards “but only because you always cheat.” With a put-upon sigh, she set up to play without having to be reminded how.

“I did not cheat,” Olivia said, then cried out, “Spit!” to start the game just before Cordelia was ready.

“See! Cheating,” Cordelia yelped, her fingers stumbling as Portia and Olivia started working their cards.

Portia lost herself in the game, worry fading away, laughing, as she slid a 2 onto a 3 just before Olivia got her own card there.

“Rats!” Olivia cried, slapping down a King, Queen, Jack, and a 10 with rapid-fire quickness, then threw up her hands. “I win!”

Portia was just a few cards behind. But Olivia leaped up and cheered. “I won! I won! You guys are turtles!”

Cordelia took a deep breath, then set her cards down. “Sorry about the mess, Portia. And sorry about lunch. But I better get home.” She ate her last bite of poppy seed–covered avocado, took off the apron, and smoothed back her hair before gathering her handbag. She walked to the kitchen doorway, then abruptly turned back. “Oh, and I probably should mention, it looks like James is going to be indicted.”

Fifteen

THE NEXT DAY, Ariel walked into the town house after school.

She loved asking questions, though she wasn’t big on answering them, as the Shrink had learned. But what was weird was that the Shrink didn’t even seem to know what the right questions were, much less know to ask them. Her mom died over a year ago now, but he kept asking her to tell him what she felt. Hello, lousy.

She wanted him to tell her something massively smart that would make her feel better, like: “Given the trajectory of matter over time, the miasma of your mind will not stay stagnant, therefore your sorrow will morph and change, making you feel more hopeful soon.” Or: “Given how incredibly smart you are, Ariel—a genius, really—your astounding brain is sifting through the data and soon it will make sense out of the senseless occasion of your mother’s death, and then you’ll start feeling better.” Even a lame: “Everything is going to be okay” would do in a pinch. But nope, he never spoke a word that made her feel anything other than that he really was a quack.

Whatever. Plus, what did it matter? Her mom was dead. Dead. She wasn’t coming back. How did that ever get better?

It didn’t.

But right then, Ariel had other problems. The report on her dysfunctional family, or what was left of it.

Yesterday she had roughed out a few pages, mainly in her journal. But that just made her realize she didn’t know anything about her family. It was like some sort of twisted nursery rhyme. Her mom was dead. Her dad made money. Her uncle was sort of sleazy. And her grandmother … Ariel hardly knew what to say about her. Nana was bizarre. The woman didn’t seem anything like a grandmother, or even a mother.

And then there was Miranda, who could be summed up as completely nuts. Or, maybe, nympho.

Just that morning she was muttering in her cell phone the way she always did, but Ariel managed to overhear her anyway. She was talking about a dare. With a boy.

Which meant it was time to raid the journal again, because someone had to look out for the family, now that Mom was gone. And poor Dad was just too clueless when it came to Miranda.

Ariel dropped her bag in the foyer, checked around the house, then snuck into Miranda’s room and found her journal.

A big, boldly written DARE blazed on top of a new page.

“Bingo,” Ariel whispered.

Tuesday, October 1

I don’t totally hate school anymore. I met some girls who are pretty nice. Not as nice as my old friends back in Jersey, but they’ll have to do. One way or another, I am going to get back to NJ. God, I miss our old house and Kasey just down the block. My new friend Becky lives on the Upper East Side, and her mom is a total stay-at-home type who is always there, or at least someone is always there. I’m the only girl I’ve met so far who doesn’t go home to someone. Actually, though, I’m lucky because I can do stuff and they can’t. Becky dared me to ask Dustin Bradford over after school. DARE. No question Dad would go Dark Side if he found out.

The sound of the front door opening took a second to register. Ariel slapped the journal shut and shoved it under the mattress. She was just shutting the door when Miranda rounded the bend in the staircase.

Her sister stopped short. “Were you in my room?”

Ariel scoffed. “No.”

“Then why are you standing in front of my door?”

“I heard you coming up the stairs.”

Miranda’s eyes narrowed; then she waved Ariel away like she wasn’t important enough to spend another second dealing with. “You are never allowed in my room.”

“Like there is anything in there that I’d want.” Nympho, she added silently.

She ran down the stairs and surprised Portia in the kitchen, unpacking groceries. “Hey, Ariel.”

“Hey? Is that a Texas thing, too?”

Portia laughed. “I take it you don’t say hey.”

“Nah. I pretty much stick to hi or the occasional how do you do—you know, when I want to throw off an adult.”

“Throw off an adult, huh?” Portia pulled a chicken from the bag. Next came onions and celery, carrots and brown rice.

“Most adults are clueless.”

“I’m an adult.”

“The jury’s still out on you.”

Portia laughed. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

The woman definitely wasn’t easy to peg.

Ariel stood there a bit longer until Portia glanced over at her. “What?”

“I’ve been at school. All day. I’m a kid.”

“And?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me whether I have homework to do? Or whether I was bullied in gym? Or whether I threw up?”

“You don’t really look like the throw-up type.”

She had her there.

Miranda practically danced into the kitchen.

Portia glanced over her shoulder. “Hey, you.”

Miranda didn’t say a word. She walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of VitaminWater, then circled back to lean against the stainless-steel door and sighed, a weird smile on her face.

“What’s wrong with you?” Ariel asked.

“Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s great.”

Portia turned back to the sink. “She’s in love.”

Miranda’s eyes went wide. Then she did an even bigger sigh, tons of dreamy slathered on. It made Ariel want to gag.

“Maybe a little.” She giggled.

Portia kept working on dinner, washing the chicken, putting it in a pot.

“So who is it?” Ariel asked.

“Like you’d know him,” Miranda scoffed.

Portia still didn’t say a word, but then Miranda went off like a racehorse.

“His name is Dustin. He’s the cutest boy in school. Becky says so.”

Uh-oh. Dustin was coming to fruition.

“He’s in my algebra class.” Miranda said. “I hate algebra. Sooooo, I asked him to come over and help me! Not that he’s any better at it than I am, but he’s going to come over.” She glared at Ariel just as Portia walked into the pantry. “No telling Dad,” she hissed. “I told an adult I have someone coming over. I told her.” She nodded toward the pantry.