Connor reaches out to take the paper, looking like a snake ready to gobble up a rat.

In a breathy voice, the deliberately bad Marilyn Monroe impersonation he drags out at parties to make the boys laugh, he says, I don’t know, Mom, do you think she’ll still let me borrow her high heels?

Then, without another word, he slides out of the booth, tosses the paper behind him, and leaves.

I don’t know why your brother has to be so angry all the time, Mom says as we’re taking the subway home.

I sometimes forget how good she is at denial. How good she is at forgetting that her inability to stand up to our father had so much to do with Connor moving seven times in four years, crashing on friends’ couches and floors. How good she is at pretending she had nothing to do with him working a job for not much more than minimum wage because Dad pulled his college funding.

This time it’s myself I have to remind to shut up. But it’s hard.

Things that fill our house:

• My grandmother’s old flowered sofas

• A scratching post from our cat, Henry, who died when I was in seventh grade

• Conversations about the weather and the Yankees

• My mother’s collection of salt-and-pepper shakers from all fifty states

• My father’s anger

• My brother’s absence

It isn’t that I’m unhappy, Becks, I say. Not really. It’s just that…

Ennui, James interjects, not looking up from the copy of the New York Times he’s smuggled into our apartment. He has the Arts section spread out across my bedroom floor and is trying to read and solve the crossword at the same time.

Damn, he says, we missed our chance.

What? I ask, happy to have the conversation shifted away from me.

To see the worst play to ever appear on Broadway, James replies. That could have made for a good time.

Yeah, well, better not let my dad see that paper, I warn. You know my father only reads the Post.

James smirks. He isn’t a fan of my father, and I think my dad is scared shitless of him, because James is a walking billboard for everything Dad hates. James looks up at me and says, Seriously, you just need something to be excited about.

I lower my eyes while Becky asks him, Are you sure you don’t know anyone you can fix Michael up with?

I don’t know why Becky thinks that’s the answer; for some reason, people in relationships always think that relationships can solve everything.

No, kitten, James says with a sideways glance at me. I’m pretty certain that Michael wouldn’t be interested in anyone I know.

Well, I guess you could always get a job, she says to me as she gets up to flip the Ramones cassette she’s playing to get under James’s skin.

Or a dog.

Or a hobby.

Or.

I stare at my guitar.

My guitar stares back.