“Just one last thing before we go,” I insist. “I would like a dead mackerel, please.”

He conjures a dead mackerel. It has plastic googly eyes and is glued to a plaque, but close enough.

“I want you to put this in Ally Whitcross’s pillowcase.”

“The woman from the Beverly Hillbillies revival?”

“She’s got it coming. We were best friends until she started leaking all my personal stuff to the press.” Before he can interrupt, I add, “Make my wish come true.”

I think it was a success, because he gags a little. “Reverse Apple Jacks taste so bad.”

“Here.” I hand him my thermos of orange juice (it’s mostly absinthe). He takes a deep swig before spraying it out of his nose.

Hall is using a child-size box of Yoo-hoo as a neti pot when my mother texts to ask how far away from my grandparents’ house I am. I bet she thinks I missed my flight and I’ll be the last to show up, as always. To be frank, I have had it up to here with everybody treating me like I’m a flake with no sense of responsibility.

My sense of responsibility throws me a gloomy, end-of-the-world look over his shoulder. He’s standing at an easel, painting a portrait of Lacey Chabert (who, he’s told me on three separate occasions, has starred in more made-for-TV Christmas movies than any other All My Children alum). Not being punctual is one of the many (many, many) things about me that gives him a queasy stomach. It’s not that I’m stalling. (It’s only a little bit that I’m stalling.) It’s mostly that after getting a taste of revenge, I don’t know how to stop. I’ve got a long list of people who need their comeuppance. Ally Whitcross, Niall Horan, and Kelly Frederick were only the beginning. My ex-boyfriend, Lucas Dormer, has hell on his horizon.

“It’s four forty-five,” he reports forlornly. “We’re going to be late, and your family will hate me, and I won’t be able to live with myself, and I’ll melt into a puddle—”

I hold up my hands. “We’re going! We’re going. We can do more dead-fish stuff later.”

He spins around, emerging from a Hall tornado in a sweater that has a fireplace on it with fiber-optic lights, which somehow smells like gooey chocolate chip cookies. “This is so exciting! I’ve watched all of your grandmother’s films.”

“Really? Wow. Even I haven’t seen all of them.”

“She’s the best actor who ever lived.”

“Please don’t tell her that.”

“Does she like green bean casserole? Does she have a subscription to Discovery Plus? I should know as much about your family as possible, since I’m supposed to be your boyfriend.” It’s the only rationale for bringing Hall along that makes sense. He trips over the word boyfriend as he says it, unable to meet my eyes.

“It doesn’t have to be weird, Hall. Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m not making it weird! I’m just . . . thinking.” I step in front of him, but he doggedly won’t look at me. What is eye contact? Hall doesn’t know her.