Peaches dragged the comb through a section of hair. Conditioner piled up and oozed off the comb, dropping onto his shoulders in clumps, like wet snow. She swiped at them with a paper towel. “Sorry. Told you it was messy.”

“Probably should’ve gone with a professional lice lady,” Stuart joked.

Peaches snorted. Emboldened, she drew the comb through another section of hair, letting the excess conditioner ooze down the back of Stuart’s neck, over the slope of his bare shoulder blades, and onto the floor.

She frowned as she combed through another section. “I’m not finding anything. Maybe they’re all hiding in one spot, or maybe you only had the one. Or maybe I was just seeing things before and you never had any at all.”

“Keep going,” Stuart murmured. “It actually feels good.”

Peaches smiled and shook her head. Why had she not thought to prop her iPhone in the corner and video this? Not that she wanted to post it on social media or anything, but for her own personal use.

“You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?” she said. “Some kid is going to come down here with a fever, wanting to go home, and I’m going to be up to my elbows in conditioner.” And you with your shirt off, she almost added, but didn’t, because it had just occurred to her that maybe what they were doing was against school policy. It was very possible that she was breaking some code of staff conduct listed in a booklet she’d been given on her first day of work but had never read.

“It smells great.” Stuart rocked the swivel chair gently from side to side. He felt like he was on vacation.

The first sign of Mandy’s condition was back in late June. They were watching Saturday Night Live and she said, “My legs have felt weird all day, like my feet aren’t connected right. They keep falling asleep.” Stuart forgot all about it until the next weekend, when he’d planned to bike around Governors Island with Teddy on his new BMX bike. Mandy said she couldn’t because she was tired. Then on Monday she said she couldn’t walk Teddy to his first day at Little Mushrooms day camp. She went back to bed and stayed there. A week later she went to the doctor, and after that it was like she had a new job, but her job was taking vitamins and sleeping. Even when she was awake, she rarely got out of bed.

Realistically, though, it wasn’t that much of a change. Mandy had always been beautiful, but lazy. She had always preferred watching television in sweatpants to getting dressed and going out. Now she had the perfect excuse not to go anywhere or do anything. She was sick.