Kira’s voice was quiet but determined. “Great, good, thanks. Thank you. I’m— Can I get you something?”

“Yeah,” Tiana said. “We’re just getting some cookies and muffins to go? The art showcase is next week, so we’re working on setting up the studio? For the displays?”

“Why didn’t you enter something?” Elliot said to Kira as a line of customers formed behind him. “You don’t have to be enrolled in class. Are you painting lately? Tiana, have you seen Kira’s acrylics? They’re amazing.”

Oh, boys. They can be so clueless. Tiana laughed and shoved through the line to examine croissants in the case.

“I’m really busy this semester,” Kira said, running the register and pouring coffee. “Lots of psychology homework.”

“Kira,” Tiana said, “we’re going to need a dozen cookies, ten scones, and we’ll take the rest of these cupcakes? Sound good, Elliot? Artists get hungry, amirite?” She laughed and googly-eyed him.

This was an after-school special with a shitty actor trying to be a mean-girl bully. She was so mediocre. She wasn’t even good at being a bitch. She was just—nothing. And Kira, who was happy to see me every day, who was herself the reason I never felt nervous or had to eat alone at school, who was nice to everyone—she put her head down and filled boxes with the pastries Tiana pointed to, impatient and entitled and wallowing in Kira’s humility.

I wanted to push Tiana off a cliff.

“Kira, see you at school?” Elliot called as Tiana dragged him out the door, balancing boxes of pastries.

Kira got through the line of other customers, untied her apron, and sat miserably beside me.

“Don’t listen to me about anything,” she said. “Ever.”

I gave her my last piece of jam-drenched toast. “I will listen to you about everything. Always.”

She bit the toast and chewed sadly. “Till you leave.”

“Well,” I said. “Yeah. But always till then.”

—

“The Irish story of Halloween says there was once a dickhead named Jack who played a trick on the devil, so when Jack died and was turned away from heaven, the devil was still mad about being tricked and wouldn’t have Jack in hell, either. Instead, the devil banished Jack to wander earth in darkness forever, with only a burning bit of coal in a carved-out turnip to light his way. And that’s why we make jack-o’-lanterns!”

Twenty little kids sat on a carpet of red and gold leaves in the Salishwood field and looked up at Sean, eyes wide, hands full of seeds and stringy innards from the pumpkins they were carving.