Soon, Antonia finds Metamorphoses, a greasy, dog-eared copy that she becomes in thrall to almost immediately. Where teenage Antonia held on to stories of principle, of the great unfairnesses perpetrated by those in power, mamma Antonia prays to stories of evolution, stories that promise that no one is born into their final shape. She mouths words to herself, tasting them as they bounce along the tongue. She wonders if she herself has the capacity for change.

When she walks home in the early afternoon, Antonia is buoyant, the combined joy of exercising her brain and the adrenaline of keeping a new secret propelling her along. Of course, she knows in some way that this is a stopgap, something she made up to pass the time, to distract herself. She can see the concrete ways that the people around her have changed: Sofia, with her job; Lina, who has now built such a loyal clientele that she often sits with visiting women from dawn to dusk. Even Frankie, once small enough to balance with Antonia on one chair like a teddy bear, has begun saving money to move out of her parents’ home. She cuts neighborhood ladies’ hair and they forget she is only sixteen; her self-assurance is so contagious. Her face so poised.

It’s just us, thinks Antonia. She and Paolo and Robbie. It’s just us who are standing still.

—

The phone rings as Saul is finishing breakfast. Sofia is already gone, having kissed Julia’s forehead and whispered to Saul, my mamma can take her to school, and then rather than kissing Saul, too, brandishing the bottoms of her shoes in a wave before disappearing in a cloud of Soir de Paris. Saul picks up the phone.

It is Joey. He is brief, but he asks Saul for a meeting.

—

The room where Saul has been told to wait for Joey is small and dark and smells like salted meat. There are two chairs, both soft brown leather that have seen better days, and there is an aged folding card table with an espresso machine and cups balanced precariously on one side. From the one dirty window a saturated afternoon light streams in, illuminating generations’ worth of dust dancing in the air. On the ground floor, just below, is a sandwich shop, the din of which rustles up through the floor.