“What do you think of him?” She holds the phone out toward Cate at the next red light.

“He looks like Conan O’Brien. I mean, the exact hair thing.”

“Which would be okay, unless he’s deliberately trying to look like Conan O’Brien. That would be a problem.”

They’re running errands. They enjoy driving around together, which they’ve been doing since they got their driver’s licenses in high school. Today they start out at Cermak, a global supermarket with extremely cheap vegetables.

“If we knew what these were, we could save a lot of money by eating them.” Neale takes a picture with her phone of a hairy, dark brown root that’s on special. Cate gets bok choy and head lettuce, cherries, then lingers in the Indian aisle picking out a frightening jar of mango pickle for Graham, who’s a hot-pepper addict. They drop off a pair of Neale’s boots for new heels at the shoemaker on Damen, then head down to Costco for paper towels and laundry soap. Dog food. Small vats of yogurt. By midafternoon they are smug with thrift.

Neale doesn’t exactly know how much more crucial the penny-pinching is for Cate, doesn’t know that Cate routinely takes cash advances from her viable credit card, while another carrying scarily high interest is maxed out. Financial management that’s barely a step up from going through the couch cushions for loose change. If Cate didn’t have the adjunct position, with its benefits, she wouldn’t even be able to dangle where she is, off the edge of the middle class. If she weren’t subsidized by her parents, she would only be living in one of the higher echelons of poor.

For her pride’s sake, it’s especially important that her parents not realize how crucial their support is, how cheese-paring her personal economy is. So today at Costco Cate splurged on a shrimp cocktail platter as her contribution to her mother’s Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. As soon as they’ve left the store, she regrets the purchase. Instead of retro-glamorous, Ricky will see it as outdated, a sad attempt at irony.

Neale says, “Thanksgiving seems antithetical to everything about your mother. I mean first of all, Ricky doesn’t really eat. And I’ve never seen her particularly thankful for anything. Whatever she has, she got it herself, with her bare hands. Hands and claws. And I have to say, she has never seemed particularly sympathetic to Native Americans. Or Pilgrims, for that matter. Holidays are just shit, aren’t they? But look. All you have to do is make an appearance. You’ve got your shrimp, your expectations are low. You’re good to go.”

“No. I can already hear the force field of her disappointment, waiting up there. Buzzing.”