“Not soon. It’s only June.”

“Still, it’d be good to get a jump on it. I haven’t seen a list yet. Did they send a list? Of what you need?”

Alexa didn’t know; Alexa didn’t seem to care that much. Rebecca supposed the list, like everything else these days, could be found online.

“What about a dorm assignment? Did we get that yet?” Rebecca couldn’t wait to drop Alexa off at Colby and watch her get ready to experience everything she herself had experienced. “I wonder if you’ll be put in Hillside,” she mused. “Remember, from the tour?”

Alexa didn’t answer.

Rebecca’s phone, which was in her lap, buzzed. A text from Gina. Sry we missed u at the beach yesterday! U should have told us where u were going.

Rebecca could feel the passive aggressiveness seeping through the screen. “Oh, please,” she said.

“Drama?” asked Alexa. She found a spot in the traffic flow and shot across Merrimac Street; they were almost home. “Mom Squad drama?”

“Of a sort.”

Alexa’s expression simultaneously said, You are old, so your drama cannot possibly be as interesting as my drama and, Despite myself, I’m sort of curious. After a moment the curiosity must have won out because Alexa asked, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” said Rebecca. The phone buzzed again. This time the text was from Monica. Thought we’d see you at barre yesterday. “I mean, it should be nothing. Morgan and I went to the beach with Sherri and Katie and you’d think I gave the nuclear code to North Korea.”

“Who are Sherri and Katie?”

“New people. From Ohio. Jeez, try to make a new friend and it feels like high school all over again. Do you know what I mean?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Alexa. “I definitely know what you mean. Remember that time someone called you at one in the morning to find out why her daughter hadn’t been invited to a sleepover with Morgan and four other girls?”

“Tammy,” said Rebecca. “I remember. I told Morgan she could only have five that time. I can’t always host a dozen!”

“Remember when World War Three broke out over a barbecue that someone wanted to have on the same weekend as Brooke’s end-of-summer party?”

Rebecca remembered that too. “Gina,” she said. “Not even the same day. Just the same weekend. That was a kerfuffle. To put it mildly.”

“So who would be what, then?” asked Alexa. “If you were all in high school?”

Rebecca thought about it. “Esther would probably be homecoming queen,” she said. “And, let’s see, Gina would definitely be student body president, and Melanie would be the pretty girl who wanted the lead in all the plays but thought she was too cool to hang out with the theater kids. A theater kid in sheep’s clothing, I guess.”