I didn’t know what to say to that. We hadn’t been talking about money. Though maybe, in a way, we had.

Sitting up straight, she put both forearms on the table and smoothed the yellow place mat with her hands. “I want in,” she said.

“What?”

“I want in. I want to try it. What do you think? Can two be company?”

My face must have betrayed my horror, because she put her hands up and backtracked. “Hey, sorry. I just thought, you know, it might be fun.”

I was speechless. Though an idea was forming.

My term as Jack Tripper was coming to a close. In a couple of weeks I would move on to my next iteration, but which one?

I had decided, months before the storm, before Rita, that I would be Mr. Roper next.

I told her this slowly, the idea gaining power as I spoke the words, but she caught on right away. “Yes! I’ll be Mrs. Roper!”

“But you have to commit completely,” I said. My voice was so stern that it didn’t betray my manic heart that beat NoNoNo into my ears as I spoke. “You can’t laugh at the premise of it, not even once. You wouldn’t be acting, you would be living as Mrs. Roper. So you can’t go in and out of it like it’s all an act, because it’s not.”

Her face became serious. She said, “Hey, cross my heart.”

Down in Apartment 101, I began the preparations for moving. There was very little to do in the way of actual moving—all the clothes had been waiting for me all this time, hung in the Ropers’ closets in vacuum-sealed bags, and the food could easily be carried down from upstairs in an hour. Otherwise, everything that was needed to become the Ropers was there, down to the toothpaste in the bathroom.

I tried calling Bernie to reinstate the food deliveries. After the storm interruption I’d discovered enough canned food to last for several months, but to be on the safe side I figured I would resume deliveries. Nobody picked up when I called Bernie’s phone, so I went through the backup list. No answer, no answer.

Finally, I called Mr. Larwin’s private line. He picked up on the first ring. “Miss Lincoln!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you! I even thought about coming to see you, but”—his voice lowered—“it was against the contract, and you explicitly stated to stay away, no matter what . . .”

I assured him I was fine, relieved to hear his voice, my only arm to the outside world. I instructed him, however, to ask Bernie to return, to pay him whatever it took to get him back. “If his family needs money after the storm, see that he’s taken care of. And tell him not to come find me again.”

Larwin sounded surprised but said, “Oh yes, oh yes, that can be arranged. No problem at all! Now, Miss Lincoln, I just want to make sure you’re all right . . .”