Lu thought about her first crush, her first kiss, her first time having sex (with Sean Townsend, on his decrepit brown basement couch, with a runaway spring sticking into her back the whole time). She thought about the time she and two of her friends had been thrown out of a seven p.m. showing of Fargo for pouring wine coolers into their soda cups. “Don’t you think it’s possible that she slipped herself through the cracks?” she asked. “Like, on purpose? Because she’s growing up?”

“I don’t know. I think I deserve the blame. I overreached. My expectations were too high. It’s too hard to do all of the things I was trying to do and be any good at them.” Joy pulled a face that was wry and self-mocking. “Isn’t this essentially the argument women have been having since time began? Whether or not we can have it all? I thought we were done with that question. I’m exhausted by it.”

“Me too,” Lu said softly.

“And now I know the answer, for sure. The answer is, we can’t.”

“No!” said Lu, sudden tears stinging her eyes. “No, don’t say that, please don’t say that!”

“Whoever said we could was not a single mother or had a high-end nanny or only needed four hours of sleep a night or something. Because the rest of us, the ones with credit card debt and Bridezillas? And vet bills and college to save for, and a seasonal business that operates at a loss every single winter? We can’t have it all. We have to pick.” Joy looked so sad and defeated that Lu felt herself crest a wave of indignation.

“You’re wrong,” Lu said. “You have to be wrong.”

Joy shook her head sadly. “What would you know about it?” she said. “You have no idea.”

Lu felt like Joy had slapped her. “You have to be wrong,” said Lu. She tried to tamp down the vehemence in her voice, but it escaped anyway. Lu realized how difficult it would be to explain everything to Joy, how Lu looked to her as a role model, a success story. A trailblazer, in a very real way—someone who had struck out on her own, and made it work. If she wasn’t actually making it work, what did that say to those who hadn’t yet had the courage to strike out?

“And now I’m zero-for-three. I messed up all of them, in one summer. Kid, job, relationship.”

Lu let an appropriate amount of time pass, and then she said, “Public service announcement. I don’t think Anthony is a jerk.”

Something flashed across Joy’s face. “What is he, then?”

Lu leaned back. She took another sip of her cappuccino and considered the raspberry whoopie pie on the plate before her. She thought for a long time about the answer to this question. She didn’t speak until she felt that she had it right. “A guy who got messed up by his mistakes,” she said. “A guy who sometimes panics and does the wrong thing. Like all of us.” She shrugged and popped the whole whoopie pie into her mouth.