Lu smiled. “It’s just called vaping,” she said. “Not doing vaping. Maggie doesn’t know any kids who vape.” Joy found the smile a touch condescending even as she understood that Lu probably meant for it to be inclusive. “Anyway, I’m sure it’s going to be all right. I didn’t mean for you to get all worked up. I just wanted you to know.”

“I’m not all worked up!” cried Joy, who was feeling very worked up. In her mind she was already texting Holly. Call me, she’d say. Right away.

“It’s just that . . .” Lu leaned forward conspiratorially and put her hands on the table. “When you’re young, it’s easy to make yourself vulnerable. Didn’t you ever make yourself vulnerable when you were young? Especially when you had a crush on someone?”

Ha! Had Joy ever! When she was twenty-two and Dustin was the lead singer of the Chiclets she’d spent fourteen nights straight tossing her hair around at venues up and down New England. Club Babyhead and Lupo’s in Providence. The Paradise in Boston. T.T. the Bear’s in Cambridge. She would have jumped off a bridge for Dustin, off a cliff, out of a moving train. Vulnerable was an understatement. But she’d been twenty-two, not thirteen!

Out of the corner of her eye Joy noticed Olivia Rossi pause in the wiping of the counter, the way you pause when you don’t want to miss a word of what someone around you is saying. “Olivia,” said Joy, in a slightly fake voice, “could you just run into the storage closet and see how many boxes of coffee stirrers we have? I forgot I have to put in my order by four o’clock today.”

Olivia disappeared into the back—was she walking more slowly than she needed to, maybe a little reluctantly?—and Lu said, “And especially when the crush is on someone older . . .”

“Right,” said Joy, because she couldn’t very well say, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I’m worried my daughter likes you and your nuclear family more than she likes me.

“I mean, he’s adorable,” Lu went on. “I don’t blame her. She’s got great taste! But we don’t want her to get her heart broken.”

“Of course not,” said Joy. Her voice was her regular voice, but inside she was roiling. She had forgotten all about the text she’d seen earlier in the summer, but the memory came flooding back to her now. What had it said? Do u rly think I should go 4 it. How could she have forgotten?

The lack of a male role model in the household meant that Maggie was looking to older boys—she shuddered—for affection, and who knew what else. Joy had been distracted this summer, with the business, with Anthony, and she’d taken her eyes off Maggie. And now Maggie was telling Lu things she wasn’t telling Joy.

She let her pride fall to the floor, where it landed with a thud that was almost audible. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I’m not sure I know exactly who you’re talking about.”