When someone touched Lauren’s arm, she jumped guiltily. “Sorry!” a voice said. “I just— What you said to the director’s assistant back there, about being her son? I asked her the same thing.”

Lauren turned to the blond woman speaking. She had a delicate nose, high cheekbones, and kind eyes that were a bright, shimmering blue.

“I’m Andrea,” the woman said. She offered a hand with pink nails squared off at the ends.

Lauren introduced herself, too. Then she added, “Now, what were you saying about the assistant?”

They both eyed Carson Dillard. He was still standing subtly behind Piper with his hands folded at his waist like he was some kind of consigliere.

“I asked if he was her son, too,” Andrea whispered. “Sometimes, my son stands behind me in just the same way. Like he’s waiting to see what move I’m going to make before doing anything himself.”

“And when you asked it, did they look at you like you were from another planet?”

“Well, they were looking at me like that anyway.” Andrea gestured to her body with a shrug. “It’s my first time out. I mean, not out, not out as this”—again she pointed to her chest, which had a hint of a bosom. “I mean out in this community, as a mom. I’m new. God, sorry, I’m so nervous. Don’t mind me.”

“Ah,” Lauren said. “It’s okay. We’re new, too. Moved here this past winter, right when my baby was due.”

Andrea took a big drink of her coffee, then cast Lauren a guilty look. “Do I smell like Baileys? I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I had to spike my drink.”

“Do you have any more?” Lauren blurted, her eyes sparkling.

Andrea paused a moment as though shocked, but then whipped out an airplane bottle and glugged some into Lauren’s coffee cup. Both of them sipped and smiled conspiratorially.

“So how old’s your son?” Lauren asked, after mentioning that her seven-month-old was in the nursery.

“Four. In pre-K. With Miss Barnes.”

“Miss Barnes?” Ronnie Stuckey, overhearing, came toward Lauren and Andrea tentatively. “The fours? My daughter has her, too.”

“Oh!” Andrea said, and more introductions were made between her, Ronnie, and Lauren. “So what do you think of her?”

“Miss Barnes? She seems great.” Then Ronnie looked around the loft in the same way Audrey Hepburn’s character did the first time she walked into Tiffany’s in that movie. “This is all great, you know? Like, insanely great. Although . . .” She glanced at Andrea with trepidation. “Does your son know how to read yet?” she whispered. “Because I just ran into another mom who has a kid in Miss Barnes’s class, too, and she said that her kid breezed through every unit on the Hooked on Phonics app, and now she reads at the third-grade level.”