The Tuesday Molly insisted Cate come to New York turns out to be Christmas Eve, and the important meeting turns out to be drinks with her and Lauren at a bar in the Village. Nothing gets discussed that couldn’t have been handled over the phone or through email, but it’s not until Cate is back in her hotel room that she realizes the meeting was really just a command performance. A reminder that Cate is in their service.

In an unexpected way this summons turns out to be a blessing. Instead of heading back to Chicago right away, she lies to Maureen that she needs to stay through the holiday to do some complicated measuring while the theater is dark. What she actually does with her Christmas is sleep through the morning, then scour Yelp for a restaurant that’s open and has a turkey-dinner special. From there she walks south through the short afternoon, and through a lower Manhattan that’s on pause. This allows her to be a rare sort of alone. She’s purchased a bit of freedom from everything that’s just happened and whatever complications might be rolling in.

auld acquaintance

A middle-aged guy dressed as a New Year’s baby is walking up Halsted in a sash and a diaper under an open down coat. It’s not even 5 p.m.

“No problem,” Cate says.

Paint cans and pans rattle in the back as they drive. They pass an antiabortion billboard on Ashland that says AT 9 WEEKS BABIES HAVE FINGERPRINTS.

“Doesn’t that seem a little early to worry about that?” Neale says. “I mean, considering they can’t really get out to commit crimes.”

She and Neale and Sailor are planning to use the long, last night of the year to obliterate the current version of Neale’s kitchen. They are painting it red and yellow and blue. These are the colors of Frida Kahlo’s kitchen in Mexico City. Neale saw a feature in a decorating magazine and kept the pages.

They’ll have the house to themselves for the project. Joe is on a three-day family Caribbean cruise with Kiera and her parents. This is their present to him, distracting scenery and all. Neale resisted at first; it seemed too lavish a gift, but when they told her how cheap the cruise was, she caved.

“Apparently it’s almost cheaper to be on a cruise now than to live your regular life at home,” she tells Cate. “The boat putters around the Caribbean for four days from one formatted fun place to another, beaches set up for snorkeling and parasailing. At night, the disco has teen dances. Although Joe pretended he was too cool for that sort of thing, I could tell he was really pretty psyched.”