“How do I get hold of you?” Eddie asks sullenly, but he folds the hundred dollars into a money clip and stuffs it in his front pocket.

Rose writes her email address and phone number on his cocktail napkin. “Call or email. We’ll meet and talk face-to-face, like real people.” She steps around him and walks toward the restrooms. She doesn’t glance back.

Once in the relative safety of the ladies’ room, she locks the door and slumps down on the commode.

The adrenaline that kept her going during the interaction with Eddie Martinez evaporates like rain on the desert. Fatigue joins gravity. Rose barely has the strength to lift her arms. Laboriously, she fumbles the iPhone from the pack and texts Mel. Where are you?

At a table outside.

Of course. Rose wishes the kids were in a bunker ten miles away. Sighing, she heaves herself up and commences her metamorphosis. In the backpack are a wig—short and dark—a lightweight microfiber cardigan in teal blue, and a Whole Foods tote bag. Rose dons wig and cardigan, then dumps the backpack into the tote.

She leaves Vincenzo’s via the back door.

Mel and Royal are at one of the tables farthest from the door of the restaurant. An empty chair, its back to the entrance, awaits Rose. The girls on their cell phones are still on their cell phones, ignoring the food in front of them. A man has taken the table next to Mel and Royal. An open New York Times, a paper, an actual paper made of paper, hides most of him. A couple with a whining infant fusses at a table next to the phone girls.

Rose slides into the waiting chair and drops the tote to the ground.

“Well?” Mel asks.

“I think it went okay. Who knows?” Rose says. She is too tired to be a leader or a grown-up. “What are we doing now?”

“We’re going to wait, watch him come out, so we can see what he looks like,” Mel says.

“For identification purposes,” Royal adds.

A waitress appears with menus.

“Pinot grigio?” Rose asks hopefully. The woman writes it down as if a glass of wine is merely a beverage and not a heavenly reward.

“Diet Coke,” Mel says. Rose sniffs. “Regular Coke,” Mel says with exaggerated patience. To Royal she explains, “Gigi thinks diet drinks make you fat.”

“They do,” Rose says. “How do you think they stay in business? If they worked, everybody would get thin and quit buying them. It’s all a marketing ploy.”

“Zero calories. How does it make people fat?” Royal asks.

“You can bet that is a very carefully guarded trade secret,” Rose tells him. “Ask your dad to poke his nose in the files if he ever gets detailed to a diet drink production plant. Scientific proof would be great. All I’ve got for now is a hint from the Akashic records.”