Not hearing, her mother said, “Well, what did you do with yourself while I was here planning your funeral?”

You had to hand it to her; she was good at this.

“I went to Coney Island,” Ilanka said, and smiled. It was such a random thing to have done that she couldn’t believe she’d done it.

“You what?” her mother said.

“I didn’t want to go to the gym and”—she shrugged—“I wanted to be near water.”

“There’s a river right there, Ilanka.” Her voice starting soft, then hardening itself.

“It’s not the same.”

Her mother shook her head, flipped another page in her farmhouse magazine. But it was true. You could see across a river—there was no horizon to gaze at. There were no real waves, no sand. So maybe it wasn’t water she wanted so much as beach. And then she’d gotten hungry so decided to take herself out to a long and late lunch at a proper restaurant on the boardwalk in Brighton. She’d peeked into the room where the cabaret shows would be later that night and tried to imagine her mother up there in a silky, sequined costume doing acrobatics on a hanging swing, but the image wouldn’t come even though she’d seen pictures. Then she and her mermaid had slowly made their way back to the train and back to Queens.

“Why are you even reading that?” Ilanka said. “It’s not like we own a farmhouse.”

Her mother flipped again. “I don’t know. I saw it in Costco. It looked pretty. It’s not like we want to live in this apartment forever.”

“You don’t?”

“Of course not.”

Ilanka liked the idea of leaving home; she didn’t like the idea of her parents ever moving.

“I’m not going back to gymnastics,” she said.

“Yes, you are.” Her mother stood and put the magazine down. “You’ll go, and you’ll speak directly with your coaches about your decision, and you’ll listen to what they have to say. And then if you really are done, we’ll talk about how you’ll pay us back what’s left of the month we just paid for.”

Ilanka had been ready to pounce, ready to protest, but it wasn’t the worst outcome, all things considered. So she was grounded; she never went anywhere anyway. It’d be smarter to take away her phone, except the reality was that her mother couldn’t handle Ilanka not having a phone, and now she knew it.

In her room later, she texted the others. Sorry guys. I’m grounded. Going to need the device delivered tomorrow after all.