She cracked open a can of LaCroix, drank half, and rolled up her sleeves. “This,” she said, “is salvageable.”

She took over the kitchen while I worked on the living room, gathering all the trash into a bag, throwing shoes into the foyer, piling Touchstone’s sides and stacking them on the spiral staircase. In my frenzy I pierced my lower back on the corner of a slat of the staircase, which was so extremely painful I wondered temporarily if I had pierced a kidney. I pushed the chairs into a circle and formed a makeshift dining room table by pushing the antique trunk and coffee table together and draping it with a frog blanket for the tablecloth. I set seven places: seven pink wineglasses, seven knives, seven forks, seven napkins, seven plates.

“Was Snow White just constantly drenched in sweat?” I said, fanning myself with one of the pillows from the couch. “I know she had her animal friends helping her, but it’s not like they had opposable thumbs.”

Phoebe laughed. She never ceased to amaze me: In the time it’d taken me to overhaul the living room, she’d managed to scrape volcanic edges off the piecrust so it resembled something actually edible; chop the carrots and the rest of the onions for the risotto (without the aid of goggles, mind you); put shrimp into a bowl of cool water to defrost; and arrange slices of prosciutto like little rose blossoms on a cutting board. She was sponging down the countertops as she went; the kitchen looked tidier and more organized than it had the day we arrived.

“Phoebe. How did you do this?”

“I like cooking,” she said. “My mom and I do it a lot. During the year I work in her restaurant after school.”

“Is there anything you can’t do? You’re a literal goddess.”

“Oh, I know. Go shower and get ready if you want. I can get the rice started—honestly, this much will probably take a while to cook.”

“No, no—it’s not your job—look, I’ll call Ros and Touch—”

“Celia. Go, before you develop heat rash.”

Under the thin stream of water, I tried my best to relax. I pictured the end of the night, tried to see it in my mind’s eye, like an episode of Power Jam. Ros would take a bite of their pie—the key lime pie, a labor of love I’d baked mostly for Oliver and only a little bit for them—and suddenly, in candlelight, they would see me in a new way, in a Cinderella dress that revealed all my curves and felt a lot like revenge and just a little bit like hope. Maybe, just maybe, if everything went according to plan, they would leave with their head spinning, wondering why they hadn’t gone for me when they had the chance.

Time worked in a funny way at Jess Orlando’s house.