“You cheater!” Ryann said. “You can’t use a throw pillow.”

“Oh, yeah?” he said. “Why not?”

“Because they’re harder. They hurt more.”

“Like you can feel it through your thick head,” he shouted back.

“Children, children,” Maddie said. “Do I have to separate you two, or can you play nicely?”

“She started it,” Stuart said, pointing.

Ryann flushed with embarrassment and dropped the pillow. She tried to smooth her messy hair, which was surely sticking out in all directions from the static in here and the pillows that had been pummeling her the last few minutes. She could hardly stand the idea that this stranger had seen them playing like—well, as she put it—children.

Maddie, however, was smiling, her hair today more sophisticated and styled than it had been last night. She was once again in a version of lumber-wear, but those burgundy workpants hugged her shapely legs so well, and that nice gray-flannel shirt brought out the rich blue of her eyes.

“Excuse me for a moment, please,” Ryann said, heading toward the bathroom.

“You embarrassed her,” Stuart said behind her.

Ryann didn’t hear Maddie’s reply, closing and locking the door. Her forehead pressed into the wood, she waited for her face and body to cool a little before turning to the mirror.

The color was still high in her cheeks, and her hair was, as expected, a complete mess. She’d planned to have it straightened sometime this week, but after Erin and Darcy’s compliment last night, she wasn’t so sure. Her curls had always been a source of frustration and anguish. She’d been straightening her hair since elementary—first at her mother’s insistence, then her own. Then, when everything had picked up at work last autumn, she’d missed one appointment with her stylist, then another, until now she could hardly remember the last time she’d had her hair done. It was, in fact, longer and curlier than she could remember it being, even as a child. It brushed the middle of her back. The color was a fiery red, one shade darker than orange, another source of displeasure most of her life. Still, as she regarded herself now, she recognized how striking and wild it was. It was entirely different than her usual style, but maybe she’d leave it alone. She liked the change. She used some mousse to tame the flyaways and tied it back in a loose, thick bundle at the base of her neck, too tired to try anything more elaborate.

Her eyes, a pale green, were bloodshot and red-rimmed, propped up by dark, almost purple circles. With her pale complexion, it was always obvious when she was even the slightest bit tired, and she was exhausted. She dabbed some more concealer on the darkness, swiped on a little more mascara, and then straightened her shirt. Did she have time to change it?