“No,” she says finally, her chin raising. “He spoke out of turn. I was so embarrassed he acted that way in front of you. Not just . . . you know, what he said about me. But also his—” She breaks off, presses her lips together.

“His really bad quote idea?” I supply, sending a smile her way.

She raises a hand to her hairline, wincing and then breathing out an exasperated laugh. “I don’t know where he gets this stuff. Every time I get close to finalizing an idea for the house, he comes up with something so . . . so disruptive.”

My own smile fades. He’s doing it to control you, I’m thinking. He’s doing it to make you feel unsure of yourself.

“I hope you push back on that,” I say, and this time, I don’t put any cheer at all in my voice. “I hope you don’t think of yourself as a . . . a lightweight.”

“I don’t,” she says, and the quickness and confidence of her answer reassure me somewhat. Then she lowers her head again, looks down at her clasped hands. “But I’m pretty lost here. In New York, I mean. The truth is, I’d really only just gotten used to LA.”

“It’s pretty different, I imagine.”

She looks up, gives me a sardonic, closemouthed smile. You have no idea, this smile says.

“I had more people there, you know? We moved here, and I—he’s the one person.”

I give a soft laugh. “Believe me. I relate.”

“You moved here for a guy?”

“No, I moved here to . . . to start over. But when I came, I only knew one person.” My eyes trace over to the boxes dotting the space of this much-loved, much-memoried apartment, and I try to press down another inconvenient feeling of urgency.

“At first,” I say, “I really only saw the city through her. It took me awhile to find my own way.” I don’t tell her that I’m one hundred percent sure Sibby has better eyes to see the city through than Cameron does.

“It does get easier, once you get out there,” I add.

She nods, but her expression is distant. I think about everything I know about Lark: how she seems to think fitting in here means wearing head-to-toe black. How she thinks anyone in Brooklyn would really care if she went into a coffee shop. How she somehow thinks Cameron—a man who wears a shark-tooth necklace!—is more qualified to make it here than she is.

“You know,” I say, keeping my voice light, the right kind of light for this, its own kind of confrontation. “I know this city pretty well. Anytime you want to get out, you should let me know.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“That’s really nice, Meg. Especially after the way I acted. I’m so sorry for that.”