“I hate this story.” I let the stacked plates fall onto the table with a clang. “What’s wrong with flowers? For fuck’s sake! It was nice, he was being nice!”

Everyone stared at me—even Dad, who looked like he’d just arrived from Alpha Centauri. “You want some flowers, Rooster?”

Win covered his mouth with his fist, a snort bursting through.

Oscar started to stand, the careless smile he’d been wearing dropping away.

I gathered the plates and hurried into the kitchen, blinking away my anger as I kicked open the dishwasher.

The air behind me shifted.

“Let me do that,” Oscar said softly.

“No, I’m . . .” I looked up at him. “I’m good.”

“What’s next, then? Dessert?”

A new smile hovered—an unasked question.

Was he asking me to prepare dessert for everybody? Or if I wanted to go out for dessert? Or did “dessert” have a double meaning?

Through the doorway, I could see Alice and Win pretending not to spy, waiting for the next joke they could regale near-strangers with. Remember that night fifty-four years ago when Rooster was too awkward to talk to Dad’s composition student? We cry from the laughing! Haha—!

“Dessert. Let’s do it.”

“Pastries?” He offered me his arm.

I took it. “Pastries.”

We crossed the living room, wind in our sails. I grabbed my bag from the rack, gave a cursory wave, and shut the door behind us, drowning out Win’s “Um . . . good-bye?” with a satisfying clunk.

7.

oscar waited on the sidewalk while I adjusted my sandal with a clumsy hop, so unruffled that my own mental wrinkles started to smooth. “I feel like we just had dinner in front of a live studio audience.”

I winced. “I should have warned you.”

“It’s the same at my house. But our show is . . .” He smiled slowly. “Maybe on a different network.”

“There is no demographic interested in my family.”

We started down the street.

Oscar laughed. “If you go to the library, there are, what? Six biographies about your dad?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“I have to admit—it’s weird.” Oscar stuck his hands in his pockets. “Meeting them. I had this idea of what the Chertok family would be and . . .” He went quiet.

“What?” I nearly whapped him, but stopped myself.

“I was wrong! You’re all . . . human.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“You know what I mean.”

I did. And I liked it. And there was something about that one word, human, that leveled us out. I only wished it were that easy.

Oscar’s phone rang from his pocket—a classical piece I didn’t recognize, overloaded with strings. Instead of answering the call, he texted with his thumb while we walked.

“What was that ringtone?” I asked, the safest question.

“Oh.” He glanced up, looking embarrassed. “It’s . . . um . . . Farzone?”

I blinked. “Is that a composer?”