“Yes, and don’t call her that,” Stevie said automatically, even though I could tell she was trying not to smile. “Joy’s not so bad.” I made a hrm noise that meant oh really, but Stevie continued on. “When my dad called to make sure I was free, before getting the reservation, he said that he wanted it to be just the two of us. So that he could ‘see me off on the path to adulthood.’ ”

“Well, I’m glad you’re getting to celebrate with him,” I said, giving her a smile, even though it pained me to see how her whole face had lit up. I exchanged a glance with Teri, who shot me a look that clearly said we’ll see.

Ever since the divorce, Mr. Sinclair had a habit of flaking on Stevie that filled me with an incandescent rage. In moments where I could manage to give him the benefit of the doubt, I could see he wasn’t being cruel on purpose. But he would invariably get busy and cancel plans, and Stevie, being Stevie, would tell him it was fine, even when it clearly wasn’t. And he would, for some reason, choose to believe this, and the cycle would start all over again.

Because it wasn’t fine, and I knew it bothered her. She never came out and said this, but then, being best friends with Stevie was sometimes like being in a Pinter play: you had to learn what was happening by what wasn’t being said.

But there had been too many instances in the past for me to forgive him, or trust now that he’d come through for her. I’d picked Stevie up late on too many occasions, going to the diner just to try and salvage a night she’d spent waiting for her dad, who’d invariable cancelled; tried to comfort her when she was red-faced and shaking and blinking back tears after he’d missed the final performance of the fall play Arcadia—his last chance to see it; tried not to see the look on her face when she would see my dad waiting for me after the curtain call with flowers that always made him sneeze.

“Joy shouldn’t be allowed to go by that name,” I pronounced as we passed the dumpsters—not a single vaper to be found. “Like, people’s names need to be somehow indicative of their personality or they’re just misleading.”

“Should there be a rule?” Stevie grinned at me.

“There should be a rule!”

“Like people named Sunny are required to be happy, at least some of the time.”

“You can’t be named Saylor if you hate the water.”

“And at least you’re safe,” Stevie said. “Since you like cats.”