Amber puffed up with outrage. “She’s thinking about going, and you know he’ll tell her she has to have sex with him to keep her job.”

“Probably.” Jen ripped open the doughnut lid and pulled out a Bismarck.

Piper yawned. “Timezit?”

“Eight o’clock,” Amber said, “and you’re always awake at this time.”

“Not when I’ve been up most of the night!”

Just then, Logan rolled over, and the part of him that wasn’t already on the floor slid there. But he still didn’t wake up.

“That’s Logan Stray!” Jen exclaimed. And then, after a long pause, “Is he alive?”

Piper slouched back into the chair. “I guess.”

“If you killed him, we’ll help you hide the body.”

“I know who Logan Stray is!” Amber sounded as if she’d come up with the answer to Final Jeopardy.

Someone else knocked on the door.

“Will everybody leave me the hell alone?” Piper shouted.

But Jen had already opened the door, and Berni stormed in. Her short hair erupted in an orange geyser around her face, and a pair of pink sweatpants poked out from under another of Howard’s old cardigans. “I knew it! You all came here so you could talk about me behind my back!” She spotted Logan on the floor. “Isn’t he a little young for you, Piper?”

Piper buried her face in her hands. “Will somebody please kill me?”

Berni rounded on Amber. “You’re behind this secret meeting. You think I’m too old to know what I saw with my own eyes. Next thing you’ll try to get me hauled off to a nursing home.”

Piper lunged for the coffee.

“Calm down, Berni,” Jen said. “Stop being so mean to Amber.”

“Me?! Why don’t you tell her to stop being so hateful to me?”

Maybe it was the coffee or the sugar from the doughnuts, but Amber, like Tosca about to hurl herself from the battlement, reared up to her full height and advanced. “I have never been hateful to you, but from the day we met, you’ve either acted as if I didn’t exist or been outright—”

“You called me Mrs.Berkovitz!”

“—or you’ve been outright rude. I was brought up to be respectful of my elders, but—”

“There!” Berni pointed an accusing finger at all of them. “Did you hear what she said? Did you hear what she called me?”

Mild-mannered Amber’s anger was a sight to behold. “Regardless of your age, there’s no excuse for racial prejudice!”

Berni puffed up. “What racial prejudice? Stop trying to change the subject. And how can you talk about respect after the way you’ve treated me?”

Jen was still looking dumbfounded, but Piper was starting to get the drift.

“I’ve treated you with nothing but respect!” Amber exclaimed.