For a few years, towards the end of their twenties, they’d tried to look different. When they’d first moved to the new city, Greta had a short blonde crop and Peggy had long, dark hair with a blunt fringe. She swung it up in pigtails sometimes, then wound and wound it so she had two buns. Then they turned thirty-three and Heidi, more and more, would joke that maybe they needed to tone it down a bit. Heidi was a real-estate agent. Greta once told her she looked about fifty when she was in her work clothes. It was jealousy, really. Heidi’s life had opened up since she’d got away from Dell. As Heidi had settled herself into being alone and learnt how to make people feel less and less awkward or angry around her, opportunities had opened up. But she was never fully free. Since Peggy and Greta first met them, Heidi and Dell had been at war with each other. For years it had confused and infuriated Peggy and Greta, but now that Heidi was here and Dell was there it was slowly becoming easier to see that from the beginning Heidi had wanted to be alone and Dell had wanted to be with Heidi. Peggy and Greta watched it and talked about it. ‘Why doesn’t she just stop calling her?’ ‘Why doesn’t she just move up here?’ But when they had mentioned it – ‘Why don’t you just stop calling her?’ – Heidi had reacted badly, and they saw it was even more impossible because they were each other, so underneath the thrust of their opposing objectives a part of Heidi wanted to be with Dell and a part of Dell wanted to be alone. Neither of them could win. They were never at rest. They could never let the other rest. But maybe this was better. Maybe if one of them just dropped out, they could find some common ground, and maybe it could be Heidi because she was so much more together than Dell seemed to be. When Peggy and Greta suggested this to Heidi she reacted with even more venom and Peggy and Greta would never be sure if this was because they had been wrong or because they were right. Dell was working cash jobs and most of the time she kept the money at her house but every now and then someone would pay Dell’s money into their account and Heidi would call her – ostensibly to tell her to leave her alone but subconsciously to hear her voice. Heidi saw her own neediness walking around in Dell and Dell, they were sure, could see her underlying selfishness writ large in Heidi.