“Okay. I left the keys on the kitchen counter.”

“Pancho and Murray are coming over for dinner tonight, remember?” she said.

“Oh shit. I forgot.”

“Charlie can’t remember what day of the week it is half the time,” Teddy said.

“He was never much for details,” Arch said.

“Will you come for dinner tonight, Arch?” she asked.

“I’d be delighted,” he said.

I followed Teddy to the door. “See you at home.”

“What’s going on?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He just showed up.”

“You don’t think that’s strange?”

“Do you?”

“Charlie,” she said.

“You can ask him at dinner.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I will.”

I waited until I heard the door to the studio outside slowly close and latch. When I went back inside, Arch was appraising the work leaning against the walls to dry.

“You’re living with Teddy Whitten?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“That must be a dream come true for you.”

“We’re just roommates, Arch.”

“Sure you are.”

“Really,” I said. “I’m not her type.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“The person she was talking about, Mariela?” I said.

“Yeah, what about her?”

“Mariela is Teddy’s type.”

“I see.”

“Mariela manages the kind of places you and Vanessa are accustomed to,” I said. “Teddy helps her out. They’re pretty serious. I’ll probably be needing another roommate before long.”

“Well, good for Teddy,” Arch said. “We all deserve to be happy.”

He glanced around the room. “Is there some place we can sit down?”

I led him out the back door. We sat on the stairs leading to the parking lot. A car door slammed shut, followed by the distant laughter of small children and the sound of a radio through an open window.

“You haven’t asked me about your mother,” he said.

“I was waiting for the right moment.”

He looked at me, and then he looked away. “She’s sick,” he said. “Stage four breast cancer. She’s dying.”

All at once, the colors of the world seemed too bright. I could smell everything—flowers and herbs in the beds around the factory, woodsmoke and tamales over hot coals in the open-air market across the highway.

“Uncle Jim asked me to come down and bring you home,” Arch said. “He told me exactly where I could find you, down to the bench you like to sit on in that park.”

“He had me followed?”

“He’d do anything for your mother. He wanted to come for you himself, by the way, but he doesn’t dare leave her side. He’s a complete mess. You wouldn’t believe it. He can barely talk without bursting into tears.”