Grammy drops another cheese curl in her mouth. Then she holds the bag toward us. “You want a nibble?”

“No thank you,” Tressa says, like she’s caught a whiff of rotten meat.

“Well, you all run along,” Grammy says. “I’m goin’ to watch the final round here and see if this box of tulips can take home any money.” She laughs as she picks up the remote control. “Be a good girl and get me another root beer, will ya, baby?”

Brandy and Tressa follow me into the kitchen. “What’s a ‘box of tulips’?” Tressa asks.

“That means he looks good but he isn’t very smart.”

She laughs but not like she thinks it’s funny.

I lead them to my room. Tressa draws her finger along the wall, leaving an off-white line. Her fingertip is the color of charcoal. She stares at it.

“That’s just the soot from the winter,” I tell her.

“Soot?” Her eyes expand.

“Yeah. Something about the furnace. It comes up with the heat or something.”

Her mouth moves the slightest bit. Like it’s trying to decide what to say.

Tressa wipes the soot from her finger right onto my bedspread.

There is a chirp behind us.

“Birdie!” I call, and run to the cage where my parakeet dances back and forth.

“Hey, Birdie. How have you been?” Brandy asks. She leans in. “Why is his nose black?”

I pause. “I guess it’s the soot.”

Looking at Birdie, it’s the first time I really notice the soot. We all breathe it in, and that can’t be good. Tressa asks what time it is—a polite way of saying she has to leave.

“Brandy? You want to hang out?” I ask.

Her eyes dart to Tressa and back to me. “Naw. I think I’ll go, too.”

Their entire visit lasted less than fifteen minutes.

• • •

The tide has shifted. At least Brandy has.

Grammy’s laughter over a big win calls me downstairs, and I plop down on the couch next to her and rest my cheek against her pillowy arm.

She pats my cheek a few times before plunging her hand into her bag of cheese curls. “What’s the matter with my girl?”

I sigh. “Nothing.”

“Oh, if you say nothing, it’s always something. Now spill it for your ole grammy.”

I want to say that I am a rock crab and Tressa is a seagull, but I know Grammy would say I am being dramatic.

“I’m just sad, I guess.”

“Now, don’t let yourself go to the sad place for too long. Folks sometimes plop themselves right in the middle of it and get real comfortable.”

“Well, it’s not like I have a choice.”

“Course you do. You gotta make a deal with yourself to not do that. You’ve got to put your arm around happiness and invite it inside.” Grammy pauses and looks at me. “But I suspect those girls are making it hard to do that, huh?”

I nod.

“Well, you just push those two out of your head. They don’t deserve one more iota of your attention.”