“Is there, like, some Most Irritated Dad contest going on we don’t know about?” Paul asked.

“I didn’t get home till five,” I said.

Paul, putting on his concerned face and adopting his mock-parent voice, said, “Maybe if you got to bed in good time, you wouldn’t be so grumpy in the morning.”

I ignored that and walked through the kitchen to the small alcove by the back door, where we keep the blue plastic baskets that hold glass and cans and newspapers for the recycling pickup. I dropped the Snapple container into the one reserved for bottles and cans, making it the only item there.

Sarah was coming into the kitchen as I returned, and Paul was bringing her up to speed. “Angie has a stalker.”

Sarah said, “Huh?”

“The thing is,” Paul said, “I think Angie actually likes him. He’s mysterious.”

“Fuck you,” Angie said to her brother.

“Hey,” I said. “Come on.”

Sarah let out a breath. “You got coffee going?” she asked me. I pointed.

Paul said, “And Dad’s in training for the Irritable Olympics. Those are our main headlines this morning.”

“Two days ago,” Angie said, “I run into him at Starbucks. I’m there with my friends, we’re getting ready to go, and he walks in, like he’s my best friend, and he’s Mr. Oh-So-Perfect Gentleman, helping me on with my coat, handing me my purse.”

“Who are we talking about?” Sarah asked. Good question, I thought. I might have gotten around to it eventually. A trained journalist, that’s me.

“Trevor Wylie,” she said. The name didn’t register with me immediately. Switching gears, Angie said, “Am I going to be able to get a car tonight?”

After waiting in line behind Sarah, I poured myself a cup of coffee, added some cream, spooned in two sugars. Sarah already had that morning’s Metropolitan in her hand and was scanning the front-page headlines, looking to see whether any of the stories she’d promoted at the newsroom’s budget meeting the night before had made it to the front page.

“I don’t believe it,” she said. “They didn’t put the dead skateboarder on front. How many sixty-year-old skateboarders are there? He was sixty. That’s what makes it news. Assholes.”

“Hello?” Angie said. “I need a car tonight? Is anyone there?”

Sarah looked over her paper at me, and I looked at her. Without actually saying anything, we had entered consultation mode. We were asking each other, Do you need a car? And are we going to let her have a car?

“Why do you need a car?” Sarah asked.

Angie sighed, the I-told-you-this-before sigh, and said, “Remember, I’ve got all these evening lectures, and it’s a lot easier, and safer, coming home if I’ve got the car instead of taking the subway.”

“Oh yeah,” said Sarah.