Rebellious strands of Angela’s thick curly black hair had come loose from her cap. They were firing rifles into the air and screaming, “Viva Zapata!”

“I’m writing you up for this, and if you don’t get your hair cut to a decent length by tomorrow, you can look for another job.”

“But it’s almost eight—”

Nurse Fontaine snatched a card from her smock. “This woman does my hair in her home. I was going to have my hair done tonight, but you can take my appointment—eight-thirty sharp.”

“Thank—”

“And let me tell you another thing. If I see you so much as glance at Dr. Weaver again in anything other than an entirely professional fashion, I’ll suck those big brown eyes right out of your head, blend them with horseradish, and serve them up with your ripped-out and still beating heart I will make your life a liv

Ruth heard the kitchen door open and voices. It was a relief to be distracted. Before Oliver died, these asinine romances never took her more than a month to complete. She had started this one well over two years ago. Her despairing publisher was throwing copyediting work her way, but she could earn four times as much if she could get back into her old routine. What was wrong with her? She used to be able to enter these romances imaginatively while also keeping them at a certain ironic distance, but Dr. Weaver’s masterful jawline and Angela’s yearning loins were getting through to her, so she was defending herself in the only way she knew how. She went into the kitchen, where Raj was pouring Lewis a glass of lemonade. Lewis’s beautiful face, his clairvoyant mineral-blue eyes, shocked her. She hadn’t seen him in a while. There was something deeply wrong in this boy, and yet it was absolutely compelling, as if he were the hopeless guardian of some occult purity that irradiated his features, giving his face an unearthly aspect.

Raj looked guilty. “Is it all right to have this?”

“Of course,” she said. “Finish it.”

The boys—God, they were nearly fifteen now—gulped the lemonade down their thickening adolescent throats. A long day of writing had left her a little unguarded, not yet completely inhabiting herself, and these boys in her house suddenly appalled her: their physicality, the strong smell of their sweat, their big hands and feet. The world swallowed boys and regurgitated them as men in a painful, heaving articulation of bodies.

“I thought maybe Lew could stay for dinner,” Raj said.

It took her a second to respond. “Yes, of course.”

Lewis was fingering the lip of his glass. “I’d better get back.”

“Stay,” Ruth said.