Shy returned to the bedroom and handed him a glass of milk. “Drink it all up so you don’t spill on our cool game.” She sat down with her milk and examined the insane drawings and various crayon-scribbled Post-its all over the round table. “So how do we play? Do we need dice or something?”

Ted chugged his milk and set the glass down on the floor. “You’re a better babysitter than my parents,” he said, and burped loudly.

Shy picked up a sheep Post-it and stuck it to a window on one of the houses she’d drawn, just for fun. “Yeah, well, they are paying me. No one pays them.”

Ted seemed to consider this as he arranged his Post-its. He removed Shy’s sheep Post-it from the house window and handed it to her. “Okay. Let’s play.”

Roy knew the minute he laid eyes on Elizabeth—a towering blonde wearing paint-spattered white painter’s overalls over a black bikini and silver high-top sneakers—that he would never be able to sing in front of her. He was afraid to even introduce himself.

“Love shack, baby,” Peaches purred hyperactively in his ear as she dragged him toward the microphone stand set up in front of the drums. She seemed to have lost her sense of decorum.

Elizabeth glanced in Roy’s direction as she fiddled with the dials on the karaoke machine and smiled. Her teeth were yellow and her mouth was downturned, like a tortoise’s.

She rose to her full, monumental height and addressed him. “You’re Roy Clarke.”

“Hello.” Roy nodded at her because she hadn’t offered him her hand. “Thank you for having us. It’s quite grand of you. Oh, and Tupper and I are old chums. He showed me round his studio.” When Roy was nervous, he became more British.

“Bully for you,” Elizabeth replied.

“Smashing,” Roy said.

“Love shack, love shack, love shack!” Peaches squealed.

Roy stood on tiptoe to search for Wendy. She was nibbling on something, offering plates of food around. Roy waved at her over the sea of drinking heads. He waved again, with both arms.

She held up what looked like a mini hot dog. “Hungry?” she mouthed.

He nodded vigorously, counting on the fact that she would march straight over with a plate of food.

“Any chance I could pick the song?” he asked Peaches and Elizabeth together, because it was now unclear which of them was in charge.

“Not feeling the shack?” Peaches asked. She was beginning to get on his nerves. “Come on—”

“Course you can,” Elizabeth interrupted her. “Isn’t that the point? Or don’t sing at all.”

“Do you sing?” Roy asked curiously. She didn’t look like she sang.