Nancy nodded her approval. “Good. It’s a busy time for you all,” she said. “But it goes so fast, the boys are only little once. You blink and you miss it.”

Lu gritted her teeth. “How come nobody ever says that to a man?” she asked.

“Excuse me?” said Nancy.

“It goes fast for everyone, how come people don’t tell the dad that? They tell the mom, always the mom. I have never heard a single person say that to Jeremy.” She looked deep into Nancy’s eyes and then, without waiting for an answer, she said, “I need to take my shower now. Please, help yourself to more coffee.”

Lu ran the shower super-hot and stepped inside, letting the steam engulf her. She had read somewhere that cool water was better for your skin, but hot water felt so good, like it was washing away all of the evil parts of her. All the resentment and bad temper and terrible thoughts of wanting to be elsewhere. Leaving her cleansed and motherly, ready to pickle.

When she returned to the kitchen Nancy was, impossibly, still there. She was holding Lu’s cell phone.

“Your phone rang,” said Nancy. “While you were in the shower.”

What Lu thought was, Please don’t tell me you answered it.

“I answered it,” said Nancy.

“You answered it?” Lu tried to convey with her voice what an appallingly inappropriate thing to do this was, but she feared that instead she still came off as the same compliant child, waiting patiently for the grown-ups to tell her the answer. “Who was it?”

“It was a wrong number.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were looking for someone named Leo.”

Lu’s hands got instantly sweaty. “Well, who was it?”

Nancy gave Lu a shrewd look. “How should I know? It was a wrong number, and I told them as much.”

Later, when she checked her blog email, Lu found this, from [email protected].

Dear Leo,

I tried to track you down by phone but it was a #fail. Whoops! My name is Abigail Knowles, and I am a new agent with the Wilder Literary Agency in Manhattan. I’m looking to build my list of clients. I’m a new and VERY BIG fan of your blog, and I think we could put together a fabulous cookbook proposal to shop around. If you are interested in talking more, please respond to this email at your convenience. I know a publisher will gobble this idea up, ha ha.

All best,

Abigail

Chapter 19

ANTHONY

IN THE AFTERNOON Anthony returned to Joy’s house with a bouquet of flowers he’d bought at the farmers’ market at Legion Park. It had been a heck of a bike ride out there, but worth it. The flowers were stunning. He planned to deliver them with an apology. He’d let Joy do more of the talking the night before, and he hadn’t been completely truthful about his own background. He hadn’t been honest about his father. He hadn’t mentioned his son. He hadn’t expected to fall for her! He hadn’t expected to sleep with her! But sometime during the night the universe had reordered itself. Everything was different now.