“Okay, I’ve got another one,” I say, feeling bolder now. “What’s with the leotard? Are you a gymnast or something?”

She laughs and then frames her face with her hands. “It’s part of the package.”

“What package?”

“I’m going to be a star, Lily-slash-Ellie. A country music star. But I’ve got to be a triple threat—sing, act, and dance.”

She hops up and does a backbend and then falls into the splits. She winks up at me with her hands on her hips. She’s like one of those balloons at the county fair that can be twisted into any shape in the world. And I want to laugh so bad it hurts, but I don’t because I can tell she is dead serious and I know what it is to want something big for yourself.

“I’m staying here with Dane and Susie while my mom ‘gets herself straightened out’ ”—her turn to use quotes—“back home in Tulsa. I hear you’re here to help out with your grandpa. He has old-timer’s, right?”

“Alzheimer’s, yeah.” I hate even saying it out loud. But word travels fast around here, so there’s no use keeping it a secret. Although I guess there’s no secret to keep if you crash your car into a grocery store and almost burn down the church. I want to ask about Coralee’s mom. What would it be like to be left behind, waiting for her to come back? Life at a bus stop. Is it better or worse than my mom always being too close?

“My turn again. What’s with the cooking?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, nobody makes stuff like this around here. Where’d you learn to do it? Some fancy-pants cooking school back in Nashville?”

I start to talk and then stop about three times. Why is this harder to explain than the CP? “No, I taught myself. Am teaching myself. It’s just something I like to do. I’ve been at it ever since I could reach the countertops.”

“Well,” Coralee says, “I think it’s amazing.” She stands and pops her back with a loud crack before falling onto the bed. “And you can be a famous baker and I will be a famous singer and we can tour the world!”

And that’s the thing I couldn’t explain. Baking is not just something I “like” to do. I love it and I’m good at it. But I want to be the best.

When everybody else was playing soccer or taking dance classes, I did this. I hunted down recipes or made them up from whatever we had in the house, and then I’d make something that didn’t exist before. Not everyone can do that—make something from nothing.