My father doesn’t like sleepovers. He says no proper girl would ever spend the night away, or even want to for that matter. As punishment, he sits me down with a date book. “High school’s next year and every minute counts.” Six to seven—swim practice. Seven to eight—breakfast with flashcards. After school, violin lessons from four to five. Five to six—French tutor. Six to seven—dinner. Seven to nine—homework. Nine to ten—relax. “You’re scheduling in a relax hour?”

“When else would you do it?” he asks. He picks up the remote. Three’s Company is on tonight. It’s his favorite show. He laughs along with the laugh track. Stan calls it a laugh trap.

Stan slams the trunk and its tinny echo slices through the warmth of the night. When he approaches I can still hear the music play. It’s muffled but I can tell it’s Aretha singing, “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

Stan catches my eye and says, “Hey silver girl.”

Phoebe says, “If she’s silver girl, who am I?”

He says, “You’re gold.”

My father once told me about the ancient Kingdom of Angkor Wat. How the royal family sprinkled gold dust on themselves. How they were seen by their public only one night of the year, on the eve of the harvest moon. Their naked bodies glowed beneath firelight and when the embers died, they vanished. The villagers thought they were gods. I wondered what it was like for them the rest of the year. My father is filled with these tidbits on history and religion. He used to be a philosophy professor back in Vietnam. Now he says, “Lofty ideas are a luxury of the rich.”

Phoebe glances at the paper bag cradled in Stan’s arm and asks, “What took so long?” He hops up and sits on top of the wall. We copy him and climb on too, me on one side, Phoebe on the other. Our legs hang over the ledge. I know my father wouldn’t approve. He says teasing death is only fun when you don’t know what it smells like.

The tree tops below our feet look like baby broccoli heads. I ask, “Did you pack sandwiches in there?” We haven’t had dinner yet.

Stan sets his brown bag down. He says, “I’m not hungry. But we can get food on the way back.” He flicks his cigarette butt. When I kick it the red ashes spray.

He says, “What d’ya know, those are practically fluorescent in the moonlight.”

Phoebe says, “Her dad polishes her sneakers. And guess who did her hair?”

I say, “It’s just because I can’t reach the back by myself.”

Phoebe says, “Dad, you’ve never helped me curl my hair.”

“You’ve never asked.”

“No,” she says, “it’s because when Kristen was around I wasn’t allowed more than fifteen minutes in the bathroom.”

The first night Stan met Phoebe’s soon-to-be step mom, he came home craving his deceased mother’s puttanesca. It didn’t matter that it was around midnight and he had to wake us up. I chopped tomatoes. Phoebe diced onions. And while Stan minced the anchovy fillets this was the story he told.