I think about the pie contest in May. Just once I want to be known for something other than my chair. I think Coralee gets it. I think she knows what it’s like to want something different from everybody else. I think we’re kindreds in the way people can be even when they’ve just met.

That night after Coralee rolls me home and Mom helps me take a bath, because according to her, I “smell like an ashtray and your friend can come play over here from now on,” I think about what my life looked like just five days ago.

I don’t have my own room. Or my own bed.

I can’t take a bath or use the bathroom alone.

I have no idea what my new school will be like.

But Coralee will be there, and Mom and Mema and Grandpa will be here when I get home.

It’s finally not just me and Mom anymore.

I’ve got people now.

6 Appointments

Dear Editors and Chefs of the New York Times,

I made your Linzer Cookies with Orange Marmalade for my family over the holidays, and they came out perfect. Thank you for the detailed instructions, especially what you said about the chill time. I am thankful we had the four to six hours on Christmas Day to chill (ha, ha).

The thing that I wanted to say, and this is probably my fault, not yours, but nobody really liked them like I thought they would. I guess because you said these cookies would be an “instant crowd favorite,” I thought they’d be gone in a flash, but it’s going on three days now, and we’ve still got almost the entire batch left, apart from what the cockatoos ate.

So I do have a question, but it’s not about the recipe. It’s about the people you make the recipe for. How do know what they’ll like? How do you know what to feed your “crowd”?

Sincerely,

Ellie Cowan

Despite everything Mom said about the smoke, I’m still over at Coralee’s every afternoon between Christmas and New Year’s. She comes over here, too, but I never know how Grandpa’s going to be that day. Coralee has starting calling his dark moods “Al.”

She’ll text, Ur place or mine?

And I’ll say Mine if Grandpa wakes up and showers and comes out whistling.

But if he’s talking to himself and still in his pajamas at ten, I’ll say, Al’s here. Uber me.

And she’ll come over and wheel me to her place.

On New Year’s Day, though, he seems good, and so Coralee and Dane and Susie all come over to eat black-eyed peas and greens and corn bread.