“I offered for you to babysit Ted Little tonight, but his dad turned me down. Obviously he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for his son, who might be a tiny pyro, to hang out with a big pyro like you. He told me he already had a sitter, but I could tell he didn’t. Anyway, you can get your own dinner. I’m going out. Your dad has his music group tonight. I expect you to be in bed when I get home.”

“Okay,” Liam said, refusing to engage. It wasn’t like he didn’t feel bad. He’d confessed. He’d told her he felt bad. But she thought he needed to feel worse. “See you later, Mom.”

“Nice meeting you,” Ryan mumbled as they shuffled past her to put away the cleaning cart.

Peaches noticed the handwritten sign in the window of Monte that morning when she stopped by on her way to work: KARAOKE TONIGHT. 8 P.M.–.

Elizabeth was back.

She’d left a typically cryptic note for Peaches on the bar: Please invite friends and open up by 8. I’ll do the rest.

Dutifully, Peaches took a picture of the sign and sent it in separate texts to Stuart Little, Roy Clarke, and Dr. Conway.

Dr. Conway was the first to respond.

Fun! Let me know if you want me to bring anything ; )

Roy replied with a series of dollar signs, ampersands, and hashtags. Peaches wasn’t sure if he was trying to indicate expletives, as in, “Holy fucking shit!” or if he just didn’t know how to use his phone.

When his phone bleeped on the subway, Stuart took a screenshot of Peaches’ sign and texted it to Mandy. Mandy loved karaoke—not the singing so much, but watching other people make asses out of themselves. If Stuart got drunk enough, he would sing and make an ass out of himself too, which she especially enjoyed.

Mandy texted back a thumbs-up emoji and the words, if you can get Ted a sitter!

Stuart was just happy she was up for it. Mandy had crazy amounts of energy lately.

Almost immediately Peaches texted him with, Liam is available to babysit if you need him.

Stuart knew she meant well, but he couldn’t accept. Liam was a bad influence on Ted. Thanks, he texted back. Sitter situation already taken care of.

And for the rest of the day, he couldn’t concentrate on the cat food commercial he was composing for. He really wanted to go out tonight, and there were so many teenagers in the neighborhood. Surely one of them could hang out in the house while Ted—who was no trouble—ate chicken nuggets, played a game on the iPad, and went to bed.

He left work early to pick up Ted from the after-school program in the school gym. On their way home, he saw her.