The boys used to come over a lot back when she and Owen were still together. Lulu and O would make out in the grass while everyone else kicked a soccer ball around the backyard.

“I really need to shower before they get here, though,” Lulu says.

Bea is looking at her phone again. “Rich wants to know if you’re the kind of Jews who eat bacon.”

They are in theory, but Lulu knows her stepmom’s shopping habits and her dad’s cholesterol. There’s no way there’s any bacon in the house right now.

“Tell Rich that beggars can’t be choosers,” she advises. “But he’s welcome to bring his own.”

The boys take up so much space. Jules had to go home, but Patrick comes with, so it’s him, Rich, and Owen in the kitchen, sitting on the countertops and heckling Bea while she scrambles more eggs, these ones with their yolks.

Lulu swats Patrick’s calf and says, “Get down.”

“What, are your parents home?” he asks.

When have her parents ever been home? “They’re probably at Olivia’s soccer game,” Lulu says, which, now that she thinks about it can’t be true, because it’s a Sunday, but whatever.

“It’s so weird that you have a sister who’s twenty-one and a sister who’s five,” Patrick says. God, he has no tact.

“Six,” Lulu says, and then, “Half sister,” like either of these things matters to anyone but her. As if to prove her point, Patrick’s already turned away, in the process of doing something weird and violent to Rich’s upper thigh.

So she’s surprised to hear Owen pick up that piece of the conversation after her. “Half sister, Patrick,” he repeats. “You know that.”

Patrick nods. “Right,” he says. “Half sister. And your stepmom is hot.”

“Isn’t that the point of stepmoms?” Lulu asks.

Bea turns around from the stove. “You want to make more OJ, Lu?” she asks.

Lulu hates that Bea can tell she needs an out.

“I can get it,” Rich says. He’s moved so he’s standing next to Bea at the stove, like she might need his help scrambling eggs. It would be sweet if Lulu were in a better mood.

“We have to pick more oranges,” Lulu explains to him. “I’ve got it. I’ll be right back.”

It’s early afternoon already, and outside, the sun is warm through her clothes. Lulu thinks of stepping out of the car at The Hotel last night in her impractical outfit—a thin dress, no jacket—and the bite of the air against her skin. The way she felt exposed to some darker kind of night. Now the world seems tender again, offering up soft ground, green grass, sweet fruit.