I looked at Beau’s drawing again; he’d made an instinctive effort at perspective, narrowing the lines at the top of the page and emphasizing those at the bottom. The word Granada had been underlined multiple times, with an exclamation point added for good measure. What the hell: Declan had planned this to be a surprise, but the hope in Beau’s voice was too much to defer. “Well, guess where Declan is going to take you and Rorie while Mommy meets her friends?” I lifted the seat divider, pulling his compact body into the crook of my arm.

“Where? Where?”

“You’re going to see the Alhambra. Then later we’ll all meet up and go to Morocco.”

Beau was in the process of exploding with joy when his sister interrupted. “I don’t wanna go,” she said coolly. “I’ll stay in Seville.”

I gawked at her. Why would Rorie, a fourteen-year-old, think I would ever agree to let her stay on her own? I’m big on allowing children independence, but even I wouldn’t allow my young teenager that much rope.

Rorie, correctly gauging the look on my face, offered a faux-innocent glance. “I could stay with Pilar.”

I tried and failed to retrieve “Pilar” from my mental contact list. Pilar was a feminine name, yes? Not the name of a . . . boy.

“Pilar Cabrera,” offered Rorie. “From those soccer fields where Declan plays.”

“And what,” I asked, “would you be planning to do all weekend with Pilar Cabrera from the soccer fields?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like a very attractive plan,” I pointed out. “So you can go with Declan and Beau to Granada.”

“Pilar said I could hang out with them.”

“Them who?”

“Her and her friends.”

So at least Pilar wasn’t a fourteen-year-old boy, or, worse, a sixteen-year-old boy. Whew. Still: I couldn’t leave my young teenager alone in a city with people I didn’t know to participate in indeterminate activities. This was a no-brainer.

“You’ll go with Declan,” I said. I’d already begun to transfer my attention back to the article I was reading when a rude snort sounded at my right ear.

“No.”

“No?” I couldn’t remember Rorie ever defying me with such calm.

“First of all,” she said, “the Alhambra sounds dumb.”

“Dumb?”

Rorie batted back before I could launch into a defense. “Yes, dumb,” she said, with the kind of confident scorn you find only in the very young and in people who believe vaccines are a form of government mind control. “I’ve seen plenty of buildings. I don’t need to see more.”

My mouth opened and closed, uselessly, like a cartoon fish. After a drawn-out moment I identified the unfamiliar sensation I felt twanging in my chest: a burst of pain that a child of mine could say something so moronic.

“Another thing,” she said. “I don’t want to hang out with Declan.”