Let’s give the girl in line in the hotel lobby a name. Everybody gets a name, even fetal pigs. (I call mine Alfred.) Of course it isn’t like FarAway. I don’t get to choose my name. If I did, it wouldn’t be Billie Faggart. That ring any bells? No, I didn’t think it would. Since fourth grade, which is when I farted while I was coming down the playground slide, everyone at school has called me Smelly Fagfart. That’s because Billie Faggart is a funny name, right? Except girls like Billie Faggart don’t have much of a sense of humor.

There’s another girl at school, Jennifer Groendyke. Everyone makes jokes about us. About how we’ll move to California and marry each other. You’d think we’d be friends, right? But we’re not. I’m not good at the friends thing. I’m the human equivalent of one of those baby birds that falls out of a nest and then some nice person picks the baby bird up and puts it back. Except that now the baby bird smells all wrong. I think I smell wrong.

If you’re wondering who Melinda Bowles is—the thirty-two-year-old woman you met in FarAway—no, you’ve never really met her. Melinda Bowles has never sent late-night e-mails to Paul Zell, not ever. Melinda Bowles would never catch a bus to New York City to meet Paul Zell, because she doesn’t know Paul Zell exists.

Melinda Bowles has never been to FarAway.

Melinda Bowles has no idea who the Enchantress Magic EightBall is. She’s never hung out online with the Master Thief Boggle. I don’t think she knows what an MMORPG is.

Melinda Bowles has never played a game of living chess in King Nermal’s Chamber in the Endless Caverns under the Loathsome Rock. Melinda Bowles doesn’t know a rook from a writing desk. A pawn from a pwn.

Here are some things you know about Melinda Bowles that are true. She used to be married, but she got a divorce. She lives in her parents’ house. She teaches high school. I used her name when I signed up for an account on FarAway. More about my sister, Melinda, later.

Anyway. Girl-liar Billie says to desk-clerk Aliss, “No message? No envelope? Mr. Zell, Paul Zell?” (That’s you. In case you’ve forgotten.) “He’s a guest here? He said he was leaving something for me at the front desk.”

“I’ll look again if you want,” Aliss says. But she does nothing. Just stands there staring malevolently past Billie as if she hates the world and everyone in it.