I spread my arms, smacking Hall in the face. Behold! I am both fashionably late and making a hell of an entrance, which means I’ve won.

“Sweetheart!” Grandpa cries. “Love it! What a show!”

“What are you doing to my lawn?” Grandma hollers. “You can’t just park that thing here! What if it blows into the house?”

“What if it blows down the mountain?” Felix adds. He elbows Kaia. “Or right into town. Punctured on the tower of Town Hall like the giant peach from that movie.”

In spite of her incredible voice, Kaia is the quietest of the Hughes siblings, which has the effect of making her seem more intelligent. Her approval therefore matters more than Athena’s or Felix’s. She appraises me narrowly from under the brim of her hat, clothes hanging from her waifish frame. Minimalist floral tattoos swim up and down her arms. Her low, smoky-voiced verdict: “I think it’s cool.”

I preen.

But then she tacks on: “Did you fly that here all the way from Los Angeles? Did you have to make a stop nearby for the special purpose of getting in a hot-air balloon?” and I wish she’d be quiet again and stop considering logistics. She does go silent, but only because she can’t go more than a minute without vaping.

“Where’d you even get one of those?” Dad wants to know. “Who let you fly that by yourself? Don’t you need an instructor?”

Mom, who started this process being delighted, clutches his arm. “Oh, Jim, this looks dangerous. Help her get out of there.”

I lower my megaphone, confidence wavering. “No! Because . . . I’m licensed! Frankly, this isn’t the reception I was hoping for. I’m in a goddamn hot-air balloon! Why aren’t you people clapping?”

“Who’s that?” Felix asks, pointing at Hall.

Hall points at himself, grinning.

“My boyfriend,” I reply soulfully. We bounce a bit along the ground, not stable yet. Hall conjures some sandbags on the floor of the basket, weighing us down properly. The flame in the balloon dies out. If I weren’t me, I would throw myself upon the earth in a withered ball of envy, and then perish. Of envy.

While Grandpa claps me on the back and slips me twenty dollars, Athena smirks and murmurs, “Another boyfriend?” I don’t know how she’s still standing right now, when she should be perishing of envy.

“My long-term boyfriend,” I add, with emphasis. “We’ve been keeping it under wraps, like mature adults. He’s loyal and devoted and we are serious.”

“Of course you are,” Athena replies sardonically.

She and her husband exchange smug, self-satisfied looks. A child whose name is either Terracotta or Ricotta rolls her eyes. Target once paid her fifteen grand to do that in a commercial, so now she keeps doing it. I glare at her. She isn’t better than me.

“I proposed to my second wife in a hot-air balloon,” Felix adds with an expression of distaste, banishing hot-air balloons to the Realm of Old News.