“Or got tired of your shit.”

Alice laughed. “More that.”

Charlie helped herself to a handful of Alice’s blueberries. “So why are you ducking Angela?” she said, popping one blueberry, then another in her mouth. “Thought she was your bestie? Hey . . .”

Alice’s stomach seized as she saw a thought enter Charlie’s eyes. Trying to ward it off, or at least distract her from it, she said, “Will you stop two-fisting my blueberries? There won’t be any left for my cereal.”

But Charlie wouldn’t be distracted. Shoving the blueberry bowl to the other side of the table, she said, “Wait, weren’t you supposed to go down to see Angela yesterday?” Snapping her fingers. “Yeah, yeah, you were. You were going to go with her to that Occupy Boston thing, right?”

Alice snuck a quick glance at Richard. He was sitting in his chair, very still, posture ramrod straight, jaw set, face so expressionless it was like a mask. The knife in his hand was suspended midway between the jar of marmalade and the halved muffin on his plate. “I decided to skip it,” she said to Charlie quickly, hoping that would shut the subject down.

It didn’t.

“But you were so into the whole Occupy Whatever movement,” Charlie said. “You chewed my ear off about it. You even made me read that article in Mother Jones a couple months ago.”

Alice felt a smile breaking across her face in spite of the tension. “Tried to make you read it.”

Charlie shrugged, like same difference.

“The timing wasn’t good, okay?”

“Are there going to be any more?”

Alice snuck another glance at Richard. The muscles in his jaw were so bunched up now they looked like they were about to pop out of his skin. “Yeah,” she said, “I’m sure there’ll be plenty more. It’s a big movement.”

“You should take me with you when you go. When the cops come up, try to mess with you, I’ll pull up my shirt, flash them. And while they’re totally, totally mesmerized, you and Angela can escape. And I’ll—”

Richard slammed his knife down on the table, sending bits of marmalade flying.

All three females’ heads snapped in his direction.

“You’re not going, either of you. First of all, I won’t have you allying yourself with crybabies and crybaby causes. It’s bad psychologically, bad for the character. Second of all, I won’t have you getting thrown into the back of a police cruiser, your mug shots taken. I only have a verbal contract for the Boston Art Institute job. I haven’t signed anything yet. Pollard and the rest could still take it away from me, give it to someone else.”