“I’m being Hansel and Gretel,” she says.

Lara doesn’t know what that is.

When Chris comes back, he says, “When are you going to let me take you out?”

She doesn’t have a babysitter. She’s never been on a date.

“Never?” His smile is somehow both dazzling and shy.

“I’ll tell him to leave you alone,” Jimmy says after Chris leaves. “Next time he comes round.”

Jimmy reminds Lara sometimes of her father, the way he has made the nursery his kingdom, as the paper is for Baba. His crown is his thick black hair, barely graying despite his age, maybe five years younger than her father.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she says. “I can handle him.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Jimmy says.

Jimmy knows what he’s talking about. The next time she sees Chris it’s on Main Street again, and he’s walking toward the drugstore. His hair curls against his shoulders and his clean-shaven face reminds her of velvet. He sees her and she is overcome by a feeling of want. She’s never been surer of anything.

“Everything OK?” he says.

She straightens her spine and her lips, offering him an almost-smile. She and Emma have been arguing about sleepovers. Emma has to explain this tradition to her; it is not something Lara grew up with. And Emma won’t take no for an answer.

Lara asks Chris what he thinks. Emma rolls her eyes, pulls one foot out of its flip-flop, and drags her toes back and forth along the sidewalk.

“Put your shoe back on,” Lara says.

“I can’t quite place your accent,” Chris says.

“We’re from Ohio,” Emma says. Exactly what Lara has told her to say.

Chris’s laugh pulls Lara closer to him. “Well, OK,” he says. “Let her go to the sleepover.”

Emma steps so close to him her fingers nearly touch his arm. “Listen to Chris, Mommy,” she says.

It’s like they’re both taking sides with him, when they barely know him.

She wishes they hadn’t left the hippies, who would have agreed to watch Emma for an evening. They would have been pleased to hear Lara was going on a date, would have said, “That’s great,” as though she’d done something worthy of congratulations. Who else can she ask but Jimmy? She lies and says she’s going out with “girlfriends.”

“No problem,” Jimmy says.