‘Did you put it there?’ Peggy said. Now Peggy wanted to look around.

‘No,’ Heidi said. ‘I didn’t know it was there until I put my card back after I’d paid for the coffee.’

The Game & Watch was still beeping, but Peggy wasn’t playing it anymore, and she lost and lost and lost and the console made the noise of the game being over.

‘Did you put it in your bag?’ Greta asked.

‘No,’ Heidi said.

They sat in silence for a moment.

‘Dell must have,’ Heidi said.

‘Was she here?’ Peggy said, starting the question loud then pulling it back under her breath.

‘I came home last week,’ Heidi said, ‘and a few things had been moved around and some money was missing and now I’ve found this, so I figure it must have been her.’

‘But you didn’t see her?’ Greta asked.

Heidi shook her head.

‘She’s like the invisible man,’ Greta said through a mouthful of cake. ‘Disappearing into thin air. Poof,’ she added, making an exploding motion with her hand. Peggy and Greta hadn’t talked to Dell since Heidi had come to the new city.

‘Maybe we should talk to her?’ Peggy said.

‘Nah.’ Heidi sipped from her coffee which looked like it was still too hot to drink. ‘It’s all fucking games.’

‘And you’re not playing?’ Peggy said.

‘No,’ Heidi said.

‘But shouldn’t you?’ Greta said, still eating cake.

‘She needs your help,’ Peggy said. The conversation was derailing. Peggy and Greta were doing their best, but this wasn’t the conversation they’d prepped for. They’d thought it was going to be a casual coffee. They knew how to do a casual coffee in public. They hadn’t seen many conversations like this, and they were overthinking things.

Since she’d been by herself, Heidi had become natural and almost seamless in public. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Well, I’m not playing the way she wants me to.’

What made it harder was that Peggy and Greta knew they couldn’t say anything about how maybe, deep down, Heidi cared about Dell and wanted to be back with her or maybe Dell just wanted to be left alone and that’s why she had snuck in and out and left the game. To Heidi, the situation read simply because she was invested in the roles they’d been assigned: needy Dell had left her the Game & Play to stop Heidi from living her best independent life, and now Dell was in trouble and Heidi was implicated.

‘But. What would you do if she got arrested?’ Peggy said.

‘Yeah.’ Heidi stared at them. ‘That’s kind of my fucking point.’

‘Yeah,’ Greta and Peggy said together.

‘So, you should help her,’ Peggy said. ‘Like for yourself.’

‘I’ve got my own strategy,’ Heidi said.

‘But you could team up,’ Greta said.