“Of course,” she said, feeling emotion start to swell. But something wasn’t sitting right. About Nancy’s reaction when Dan had said he wasn’t going to be home on time—“You see?”—and her mother’s face and Mark thinking something was off with his dad. Eden said, “Hey, can you do one thing for me and don’t ask me questions about it?”

“Anything for you,” he said.

“Can you text me your dad’s phone number?”

“Why?”

“What did I just say?”

“Yes, I can do that for you.”

“Thanks.”

She didn’t even want to articulate to herself why she was asking. And Dan Rankin wouldn’t be an NH, so it made no sense. Still …

They just-danced some more then, and she felt lighter than she’d felt in a long time, and then they went upstairs and raided the freezer for ice cream, and it was so cold it hurt Eden’s teeth, but the rest of her was so hot from dancing that it almost felt good. The moms were on the living room sofa with their wine glasses.

“Finally,” Nancy said, looking at her phone. “Dan’s on his way.”

Eden’s mom set her half-full glass aside. “Well, we’re sorry to miss him but we really ought to get going.”

At home, later, with her mother asleep, Eden went downstairs and compared the number Mark had texted her to the number of the mysterious “NH” in her mother’s phone.

It didn’t match.

Eden was beyond relieved.

The device texted: Why’d you have your phone off for so long?

Was at a friend’s. Didn’t want to drain battery.

Tell me the name of your friend.

Why?

Why not? Also would you like me to text a photo to Julian?

No! What? I deleted those.

I did not.

Eden’s heart thumped wildly.

A car crashed into a tree.

Some scaffolding was reported as unstable, the way Eden felt now. Like she might crumble in on herself.

She wrote, His name is Mark.

Thank you and good night.

I want you to delete those pictures, she wrote next.

I am sure you do.

Have you figured out why it was the four of us yet?

I sense I am getting close and that I will know after I am handed off to Ilanka.

Eden went back up to bed, this time opting to leave her phone plugged in downstairs. Since those were the rules.

User_error

User_error

Ilanka

ILANKA

The moms were drinking sparkling white wine while the dads talked by the grill. Smoke from the barbecue—breakfast sausages—was drifting up and out toward the river, creating a small patch of haze in front of the Empire State Building. Ilanka wondered whether anyone up there on the observation deck had those magnified eyes—big silver standing binoculars—trained on them. It was tempting to wave just in case.