The fire was enormous. The whole garden was alight. There was Streko, the bum, asleep in the grass. And there was Wendy, talking to a dapper silver-haired gentleman in expensive leather shoes. Wendy looked a bit undone, her eyes drooping at half-mast, her hair wild. She’d been partying like a teenager, but she deserved it.

Elizabeth lit the red one. It shot up into the night sky as she strode toward the house.

“Loo’s just through the kitchen,” Roy called after her. He looked up at the sky as Tupper set off another one. Shy was missing the fireworks. Maybe Isabel, Ceran, and Bettina could see them from Mars. And maybe he’d throw out this draft—or most of it anyway—and start again.

Fireworks exploded in the sky. Mandy slid down the tunnel so that her head stuck out the bottom. There were red ones that burst into spinning red stars, blue ones that made trippy, slow-falling streaks, white ones that rocketed straight up and burst into perfect circles that sparkled slowly down.

“Whoa,” she breathed. “Hope Stu got Ted outside to see this.”

She’d asked Wendy to tell Stu to bring Ted home when he was ready. She was operating under the assumption that Ted was in a room somewhere, watching TV.

“Fireworks were invented in medieval China,” she said. “To scare away the evil spirits.” She’d learned that from Ted.

“Where’d they get these anyway?” Peaches marveled. Greg would be covering his ears right about now. He hated fireworks. “They must have cost a fortune. And I thought they were illegal to buy in New York State.”

What the fuck was with the fucking fireworks? Bruce wondered as he peddled furiously up Degraw Street. No one was going to hear him now.

“Fire!”

He felt like fucking Paul Revere.

“Fire!”

“Roy,” Wendy called out hoarsely. “Come meet Dr. Conway.” It was such a relief to have told Roy what an immense disappointment she was. But Roy and Tupper were busy lighting more fireworks. The fireworks Wendy had retrieved from that Staten Island madman were magnificent, surely stolen from some special display for the Olympics or the coronation of a queen. It was all very professional. Manfred and Gabby would have been impressed. The Windsors would be jealous.

“That’s our friend Tupper Paulsen,” she explained to the doctor. “He and his wife are very creative. He just won a MacArthur. And she went to prison,” she added in a whisper.

“Nothing beats fireworks,” Dr. Conway observed, gazing up at the sky. His skin was almost opalescent. He reminded Wendy of the flawless male vampires in the movie Twilight, which she and Gabby had just watched in their office one recent afternoon, lying on yoga mats while sampling gelato.