Lucy shoved away her plate. “You look fantastic everywhere except inside your head.”

“In your opinion.” Temple made a dismissive gesture toward her own body. “You can spin it any way you want, but I’m still fat!”

“When will you not be fat?” Lucy cried. “What ridiculous number has to flash on the scale you carry around in your head to finally make you feel okay?”

Temple licked her fingers. “I can’t believe Miss Porky is lecturing me about weight.”

Panda didn’t like that. “She’s not porky.”

Lucy ignored him. “Your body is beautiful, Temple. There’s not an inch of you that jiggles.”

“Unlike your hips,” Temple shot back, but without any real sting.

Lucy gazed at her untouched plate with disgust. “My hips will be just fine as soon as I can eat like a normal person again.”

Temple turned to Panda. “She’s some kind of alien. How can she gain twenty pounds and not have it make her crazy?”

“I haven’t gained twenty pounds,” Lucy retorted. “Ten max.” But sweet potato fries and sugar cookies weren’t her real enemy. Her enemy was the guilt she felt over the pages she hadn’t written, the family she was virtually ignoring, and the panic she experienced whenever she thought about leaving Charity Island.

Panda pushed back from the table. “If you’ll both excuse me, I’m going outside to shoot myself.”

“Do it near the water,” Lucy said, “so we don’t have to clean up after you.”

She and Temple finished their sad excuse for dinner in glum silence. Temple stared out the window, and Lucy picked at the kitchen table’s vomitous green paint.

LATE THE NEXT AFTERNOON, AS Lucy pulled some weeds by the porch and contemplated a trip to a bar in town so she could work on her reverse bucket list, she heard a car pull into the driveway. It didn’t sound like one of their regular delivery vans. She set aside her trowel and went around the house to investigate.

A woman with short, bright red hair and a stocky figure stepped out of a silver Subaru. She wore a loose-fitting white top, serviceable tan capris that would have looked better on someone with longer legs, and athletic sandals. A chunk of turquoise hung from a leather cord around her neck, and silver rings flashed on her fingers. Lucy nodded in greeting and waited for the woman to identify herself. Before that could happen, the front door opened and Mr. Bodyguard stepped out.

The woman turned away from Lucy to face him. “Patrick Shade?”

He stopped at the top of the steps. “Can I help you?” he said, without answering her question.

She came around to the front of her car. “I’m looking for a friend.”

He nodded toward Lucy. “Unless you’re looking for one of us, you have the wrong house.”

“She’s here. I know she is.”