“Is Theresa coming?” Bettina asked, checking her phone. She still had the radiance from yesterday’s spa day with Sloane. I’d checked the prices for a massage and facial at that place and nearly fainted. One good thing about my boys—they weren’t fussy. Their idea of a birthday was pizza and cheese fries and whatever latest video game was hot.

“I hope so,” I said, throwing her a meaningful look. “We have things to discuss.”

Namely, a favor I was going to gently ask of Theresa. Since she was so chummy with Greg Hendricks, maybe I could use her to get to Jackie. I’d thought about stopping by her house but decided to wait until this gathering and bring it up naturally, so she wouldn’t get suspicious and ruin the only idea I had.

“Well, in the meantime, let’s get stuffing,” Pia said as she came downstairs with mugs of hot apple cider, flavored with Indian spices her grandmother had shipped from Delhi. Even the warm drink couldn’t evaporate the deep chill of the basement air.

I’d begun to sort out the candy when the front door opened and Theresa glided down the stairs, that red hair of hers just-out-of-the-shower wet. She resembled a drowned rat.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Bettina leaned back on her elbows like a lazy cat. “We were starting to worry you’d locked yourself in another shed.”

Theresa unwound the scarf from her neck and shrugged off her coat. As soon as she did, Alice attacked her with a skeleton necklace.

“I’m going to have Justin take that dead bolt off the door,” Alice said. “That was just—not good. If any of the kids ever got locked in there...”

Alice truly believed the door had fallen shut and the plank had slid down of its own accord. I was doubtful—that thing was rusty and definitely wouldn’t just close without someone encouraging it—but I didn’t want to go accusing her little darlings of imprisoning the neighbor. And Theresa hadn’t seemed too fazed by it. She’d only been stuck for twenty minutes before Alice discovered her.

“I was on the phone with the contractor. The sink faucet is delayed again, which means we still don’t have a working bathroom on the main level.” Theresa sat cross-legged on the floor, fluffing out her hair.

“Any home project is always insufferable,” Pia said. “Just accept it and ride that wave out. It’ll look good when it’s done.”

“I guess.” Theresa frowned. “It doesn’t help that Adam has zero interest in any of it. He can make things out of wood like a master but zones out the second I start asking about countertops.”

“Same here,” I said. “Our house could be crumbling around our ears and Paul would be like, ‘Eh, the TV still works.’”