“Your mother.” Markus stood up suddenly. “Tony, I forgot to tell you that your mother called and said she’d call back”—he glanced at the clock, which read five minutes after noon—“on her lunch break.”

Tony was just getting to his feet when the phone rang.

“Too late,” Angie said, and Rivera added: “Don’t be a coward, Russo. Millie’s on the phone.”

Rivera had been saying for years that they could make a whole film around Millie Russo’s phone calls to her only son. Tony refused to discuss the possibility, but he always put his mother on speakerphone. Angie had yet to figure out if his purpose was to spread the misery around, or entertain them.

“Tony,” Millie said now from her kitchen in East Orange, “I’m calling to ask, you ever think about real estate?”

“Hi, Ma,” Tony said. “How you doing?”

“You know, same as always. So, you ever give real estate a thought?”

“Real estate? What for?”

“Real estate. Why not.”

“Ma, would you just spit it out?”

“Listen to Mr. Impatient. You don’t got ten minutes for your mother?”

“Sorry, Ma. Go ahead.”

Millie sniffed. “You remember Jerry Tedesca, the tubby boy with the overbite was in high school with you? His uncle Mario died. His heart, and him only seventy-nine.”

“And Jerry was at the wake.”

“That’s what I’m telling you. You know what Jerry drives? A Mercedes, the biggest one they make. Still got that new-car smell, leather seats as soft as butter. He drove me and your aunt Dot home.”

“And Jerry Tedesca is in real estate.”

“That’s what I’m telling you. Real estate. He made close to a million dollars last year.”

“Real estate, Ma.”

There was a moment’s silence. “What, you can’t sell a house?”

Angie let out a squeak, and Rivera poked her.

“Ma.”

“I’m just saying. How hard can it be to get a real estate license? Your second cousin Eddie got one, and God knows he’s got nothing much going for him in the brain department.”

“Ma, I’ve got a job.”

“You drive around all day in a nice car, looking at houses. You want, you can fill the trunk up with cameras, take pictures on your lunch hour.”

“I’m fifty years old, Ma. I’ve got a job I like and I’m good at.”

“It’s never too late to improve yourself. You could go back to school. Move in here with me to save some money, go and study business. Angie, you tell him,” Millie shouted so that the speakerphone vibrated. “A backup plan is a good thing.”

“A backup plan is a good thing,” Angie echoed obediently, and Tony shot her a dirty look.

“Why do I bother?” Millie asked with a sigh. “He never listens. You never listen, Tony.”

“We’ll talk to him about it, Mrs. Russo,” Rivera volunteered.