“She has the baby,” said Annabel, who was teetering between wanting to be a kid and wanting to be a teenager, sometimes cycling back and forth many times a day. “You could take the baby.” She looked up at him hopefully. He looked at Lili, who looked at Clare.

Clare looked back at them. “Give me the baby, I’ll keep her busy.”

In the end Lili gave Edward the baby and took Clare off to get her face painted, which didn’t seem to be what Annabel had had in mind, but she accepted it. The baby was asleep, anyway, despite the sonic wall of toddler meltdowns.

Laura was sitting near Annabel and unexpectedly glimpsed Bob between the crowds of kids and parents. He was talking to a tall, beautiful woman who was holding his hands and smiling at him with a great deal of affection. Who was this chick? Not that it mattered, or was any of her business.

Taking a breath and exercising restraint, Laura looked over at the baby. “How old is she?”

“Six weeks,” said Edward, smiling down at the oblivious baby. “Her name is Tess. She smiled the other day.” He looked at Annabel, who looked up at him. “She smiled at you, didn’t she, Bel?”

Annabel looked at Laura and Nina, who was also sitting there.

“She had gas,” she said, and returned to her book.

•   •   •

Eventually Clare and Lili reappeared, and Nina got bossy about leaving.

“You don’t understand,” she said to Laura. “One minute it’s all adorable empty streets except for really little kids who will be going to bed shortly, and ten minutes later it’s Mardi Gras without the drunken girls showing their tits.”

“Is it unsafe?”

Nina looked surprised. “Oh, no! It’s totally safe, it’s just solid people from one side of the street to the other, which is literally the backdrop to my nightmares.”

“Really?” said Laura. “My nightmares are always about my accident, or a giant multiheaded spider who wants to wrap me up and suck my juices.”

Everyone stared at her.

“Dude,” said Clare, melted chocolate on her chin, “that’s some dark thoughts right there.”

Edward and Lili were heading to a local family restaurant that had fed more plain pasta and cheese to the children of Larchmont and the surrounding areas than you could ever imagine, and invited the three friends to join them.

Lili, bouncing up and down like you do when you have a baby in a carrier, explained, “We like to pretend we’re feeding the kids so they won’t eat too much candy, but we’re actually having a glass of wine to fortify ourselves before hitting the streets.”

“I can’t,” said Polly regretfully. “I have three parties to go to, and I want to hit the middle one during a very particular window.”

Nina also shook her head. “Can’t. I need to get inside before the screaming teens arrive.”