“Liza, you been staring at that phone for two hours. Stretch your body out. It will do you some good,” Bev said. “Y’all take a walk.” Liza rolled her eyes. Bev was always trying to orchestrate something with Colin, and Liza was over it. She got out of the van and slammed the door behind her, leaving Colin to talk with Bev. If she loved him so much, let her get wrapped in one of his endlessly self-referential conversations. When Liza got to their door, she saw a small brown paper package with her name scrawled in calligraphy.

LeDeya’s eyes rounded. “WIC is so sweet. What is it?”

“It’s for me.” Liza snatched the box. It was cold. Inside, when she finally neatly cut away all the packaging, she saw the gold rim of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream. It was one of her answers to the thirty-six questions. She’d told Dorsey about the time she had spent with her father in Texas and the taste of Blue Bell ice cream. Liza blinked back hot tears.

Deya was unimpressed. “Why would WIC get you off-brand ice cream?”

Liza’s voice was thick. “It’s not from WIC and it’s not off-brand.”

Colin cleared his throat. Lest anyone forget for a second that he was here. “Liza, I’m sorry if this dessert is making you so emotional, but”—he let out a shaky breath, then nodded at Bev—“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”

BROWN, BUT NOT TOO DARK

I’m back in the saddle, DC! Thank you all for checking me out on my live feed. I want to apologize for losing it a few days ago, but Philly was tougher than I thought. Let’s talk about the way we treat each other online. The messages I got and the pictures I received were just relentless.” She pressed the answer button.

“Can I offer you a word of advice, Liza B.?” an older voice asked.

“The whole country is giving me advice, so go ahead,” Liza said with a sigh.

“You’ll never find me defending the rich, but that boy, the one with you in the photos, doesn’t deserve all of that garbage people are spewing about him either. We don’t want to win that way. You two should work together! Yeah, and build something better for Merrytown! He’s actually the person with the resources to fix it.” The caller’s excitement was palpable. Working with Dorsey was impossible. Right? He simply wanted to take his profit and go. He didn’t want collaboration. Besides, the way her body acted around him—all of that breathing and eye contact. She wouldn’t last an hour without passing out.

“The community can help itself too. We don’t have to wait for manna from heaven. There are a lot of good people behind the scenes who are working on this problem.”