As the woman fires up the espresso machine, which is decorated with tinsel and fake holly, Miranda leans against a pillar. Fifty feet away, she recognizes Parker’s bright blond curls. Her stomach does a twist. After what happened a few weeks ago, she doesn’t want to have to talk to him. To see the look in his eyes. Luckily, he has his back to her. He’s with a couple of other guys from the wrestling team. They’re getting up from a table, making no attempt to clean the mess of half-eaten food they’re leaving behind.

Theatrically, Parker raises a napkin over his head, gives it a little shake, and then lets it fall to the floor. His audience is not only his buddies but a brown-skinned guy in a green apron. Parker’s friends laugh. The busboy just looks down at the floor and grips his cart. Miranda sees his jaw clench. In case Parker turns around, she moves to the other side of the pillar and leans against it, ignoring how the Ace bandage digs into her waist.

The move puts her closer to the bell ringer from Salvation Army, who is standing next to a red kettle bearing a slogan that reads like a bumper sticker: TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. The old woman would certainly make a difference if she would just stop her incessant ding, ding, dinging. The noise pings around inside Miranda’s aching head.

At a table about twenty feet away, a mother and daughter are both eating apples. It’s weird to see such healthy food when everyone around them is consuming stuff that’s deep fried, covered with melted cheese, or both.

The two look like twins separated by twenty-five years: both with dark eyes and long brown hair parted in the middle. The girl’s hair is held back with a white headband, while her mother’s hangs loose. They’re even dressed alike, in jeans and button-down shirts. Miranda squints. The girl’s right hip has a long pale logo below the waistband as well as an embroidered white tab on the back pocket. Even though she’s too far away to read the logo, Miranda knows what it says: Stella McCartney. If you’re going to pay five hundred dollars for a pair of jeans, you want to make sure everyone knows it.

They lean toward each other, both of them smiling, trading words back and forth, gesturing with their long-fingered hands. What would it be like to be that close to your mom, Miranda wonders. And would she like it?