The mid-1990s were an interesting time on Santa Claus Lane. Nervous Alta Vista families fearing the aftershocks of the LA riots moved out to new exurbs built around shopping malls beyond the county line. New people moved in—Latinos, Armenians and Koreatown transplants who wanted nothing to do with the free-floating anger that had permeated many parts of the city. Mary-Sue suddenly became one of the longest-standing residents of the neighborhood, a grande dame. She realized how easy it was to gain currency as an old hand in California; she’d been in her house 15 years but it might as well have been 150. The new people came to her for advice on everything from how to take care of camellias to where to get their cat spayed. With her salt-and-pepper hair and accentless speech, she must have seemed to them positively patrician, and this amused her no end. Kate, however, had no interest in these strangers who kept coming to their door with stupid questions, least of all the Korean pastor who once stared at her funny because she hadn’t worn a bra.

Mary-Sue felt an instant empathy for Mr. Park, the Korean pastor, and his young family. They seemed completely overwhelmed from the moment they moved in across the street. Soda bottles, toilet rolls and tins of baby formula would fall out of their overstuffed shopping bags and tumble down the driveway. Rosebushes would go unwatered and burn. The lawn would remain unmowed until Vector Control monitors came by to warn them that their tall grasses were harboring mosquito larvae.

Once, Mary-Sue entered their home while helping them with some shopping and saw that the inside of their house was mostly bare. The Parks had sunk all their money into acquiring the property; there was none left for furniture, not even a crib for the second little girl that the pretty young wife was about to have.

“We really have to help them,” Mary-Sue told Kate.

With Kate’s help, Mary-Sue placed her blue pull-out couch on a set of wheels and rolled it across the street to the Park’s. No one would mourn its absence from their den but in the Korean family’s house, maybe it’d make an extra bed.

Mr. Park received the kind gesture with a lot of nodding and a minimum of words. He was too proud to accept their charity, and too proud at the same time to say no. Little would Mary-Sue have guessed that as soon as she left his door, the blue sofa would be moved from Mr. Park’s living room to the edge of his overgrown, disheveled backyard.