“Meet me for a coffee or something. As soon as your mug is empty, you can go. I promise.”

I cross my fingers for the lie, an old habit clearly brought back by the fact that I’m talking to my teenage friend for the first time in over a decade.

I would sooner tie her to a chair than let her go after only one cup of coffee. Especially with the way she drinks any liquid put in front of her. We once got Frappuccinos and snuck them into the movie theater, and her straw was sucking whipped cream off the bottom of the cup before the title credits had rolled. She was drinking a venti. I mean seriously.

“Fine,” she says. “One cup. Tomorrow. I’ll meet you at Joy’s, yeah?”

“Okay, what time?”

So eager.

“Well.” She sighs. “You’ll probably want to do something like noon.”

“I probably will?”

“Unless you’ve magically become a morning person.”

I don’t want to wait.

“There’s no chance you want to come down to, uh”—I search for the memory of the name—“Dinner Party like … right now, is there?”

My stomach feels oily as I wait for her answer.

“Ah come on, Meg, I’ve got the kids and Theo will be home any minute. We have very different lives, remember?”

I don’t know quite what she means, but she could not be more right. Even so, I’m a little stuck on the fact that she says it in a way like she’s quoting me back to me.

Also, kids? I’m like a cartoon doing a double take way, way too late.

“You have kids?” I accidentally blurt.

There’s silence on the other end of the line, and I see Kiera looking mortified for me.

“Okay, that’s very funny, Meg, but—”

“No, sorry, bad joke.” I shrug at Kiera who is blushing a hard Irish red at the secondhand embarrassment. “Tomorrow it is,” I stumble, “and noon sounds good. Unless earlier is better. I can do whenever.”

She’s also right about the fact that I never used to want to do anything before noon. But to see Aimee I’d wake up at the crack of dawn. I’d do anything. Even if I wasn’t used to rising painfully early and running on fumes these days.

Besides, I must be jet-lagged, but adrenaline or pixie dust or something else has me feeling awake and raring to go more than usual.

“Noon it is. I need to go to the market anyway.”

“Okay. I’ll see you then.”

“Right, see ya.”

I can’t bring myself to hang up, so I let her do it, leaving the phone at my ear for a few seconds extra to linger in the moment.