“I just wanted you to know, I'm getting closure. Or roots. Or mental health—whatever. I drove to New Haven yesterday. I drove a car, Howie. I called this uncle of mine—actually, he's my great-uncle—and I did what you've always told me to do, I asked a billion questions about Mother and her mother and my family and I got a lot of answers. They lived in this great old house, Uncle Paulie took me to see it, and we had the best pizza—in the old days they never put mozzarella on pizza, I never knew that—and he told me about Lu and this boy—well, actually he was my grandfather …”

“Carrie—”

“You and Zoe were right. I need to know this stuff. I'm going to call a man who used to be Lu's conductor. Can you believe that, Howie? My grandmother had enough power to demand her own conductor when she did a show. Uncle Paulie says this George person can tell me—”

“Carrie, what time is it?”

“It's after seven. In the AM, slacker. If you weren't awake, you should have been. Want to make yourself some coffee? I'll wait.”

“Uh … the thing is…this isn't a good time.”

That was when she heard the murmuring. Female murmuring. “Oh,” Carrie said, wishing she were the kind of woman who could come up with a snappy comeback at moments like this. Not that she ever wanted to have another moment like this. That was what was so surprising—how bad this felt. “Oh,” she repeated. And just to prove that she couldn't come up with even a half-assed comment, she added, “Well, all righty I'll let you go then.” And hung up.

THE SECOND PHONE call of the morning was not one she instigated. After the Howie debacle, Carrie did not dial Zoe's number to vent. Howie hadn't done anything wrong, so Carrie had no reason to vent. She told herself she got points for realizing that. She did raid her stash of sour-cream-and-cheddar potato chips, but she didn't cry—for which she was pretty sure she got more points—and when the phone rang a few minutes after eight, it was Zoe who was calling her.

“How are you?” Zoe asked.

“No, how are you?” Carrie shot back. Maybe she could get the hang of the snappy-repartee comeback thing after all. “Let's talk about you. What's your day been like?”

“I just dipped six dozen rosewater truffles. What happened yesterday in New Haven?”

“Six dozen truffles? Wow! You must be going through cocoa powder by the ton!”

“Yeah, and the weather is swell. Why are we doing bullshit party talk? What's wrong?”

“You are not going to play Rhoda to my Mary. Or Ethel to my Lucy. Or Vicki Lawrence to my Carol Burnett…”

“You really need to stop watching Nick at Night.”