Maybe there was some kind of skinny weed, weed that would give her energy instead of Frito cravings, weed that would get her out of bed. Stu would love that. Teddy would love that.

Stuart brought the jar over to the bed and sad down beside her. He held it out for her to sniff.

“Whoa. It’s so strong.”

“The nurse said you can make butter with it if you don’t want to smoke it.”

“What nurse?”

It might be wise not to reveal that Ted’s school nurse had been the one to procure the pot. “Oh, just someone Robbie hooked me up with. You know Robbie.” Stuart sniffed the jar again. “I’ll smoke it with you,” he offered. “After Ted goes to bed.”

The idea of getting stoned together like teenagers was pretty cute. They could sit on the stoop—if she could make it to the stoop—and have their own little private party. Let the neighbors gossip. Worst thing that could happen: she’d get super paranoid and admit her lie. Which would actually be a huge relief.

“Sure. Okay. I’ll try it,” she said bravely.

Late afternoon light filtered prettily through the linen library curtains. Roy licked the toast crumbs from his upper lip and stared at his laptop screen, hating himself. What in bloody sweet hell was he going on about? Teenagers living on bloody Mars under surveillance with rationed ice cream. Everything he knew about space came from watching Battlestar Galactica back in 1979. His own teen years were a smelly, distant riot of drinking too much lager, smoking too many cigarettes, pissing in the rain, and unrequited crushes on beautiful older girls. But for some reason, ever since he’d begun Gold or Red or whatever bloody title the damned book was going to have, he kept coming up with teenagers. The girl hiding the family gold in the sand with a shovel, and now this space dust–induced spark between a boy and a girl with annoying names—Ceran and Bettina—and no acne because there was no humidity or bacteria or pollution on Mars, which he absolutely did not know for a fact, he was just guessing. What was he thinking? That as he typed all this gibberish into his laptop something brilliant would begin to blossom, like one of Einstein’s theories or da Vinci’s drawings? It might seem crazy and farfetched now, but once he got to the very end, four hundred or so pages later, it would all be so hilariously clear he’d wonder why he’d ever doubted himself?

Perhaps he was having a midlife crisis. Instead of buying a Porsche or having an affair with his personal trainer he was writing an insane, unreadable novel.