“Siya, I need your help.” Lily thrust a pile of bows from presents Joey had unwrapped earlier into Siya’s lap. “Can you make this into a hat?”

“Why, are you gonna stick it on your Insta, Lil?” asked Joey.

Lily’s microbladed eyebrows raised in a look of disdain that was so Rand, it nearly took Joey’s breath away. How was it even possible she’d never noticed? “No offense, Joey, but I have two million savvy followers. They aren’t captivated by some basic shower ribbon hat.”

Siya snorted. Joey pressed a hand over her chest, her heart pounding. “Then you can take Siya off ribbon hat duty, Lil. It’s not really my thing.”

Siya took the ribbons. “It’s fine. I like an art project.”

“Thanks!” Lily burst off, flagging a server.

“She’s something else, isn’t she?” Joey watched her little sister gesticulate to the poor server who’d apparently committed some sort of infraction. As ever, Joey was both amazed and appalled at the way Lily walked through the world, claiming everything and everyone she wanted. Maybe it was the Rand in her asserting itself, Joey thought with disloyal dread. An image flashed of her own father in his trademark sandals with socks, proudly walking into the kitchen to display an impressive tomato from his garden.

“Lily’s just trying—” Siya was interrupted by a shrill of the microphone.

“Sanjeep, where is Sanjeep?” Bea shouted amid violent taps to the microphone. Joey could barely look at her without seething. For a moment, Joey wondered why such a happy event felt a little like being tortured. Her mother wore her multicolored, embroidered artist’s cape, which she’d apparently retrieved from the bowels of her closet. Joey’s memories were rife with memories of her mother painting in that cape, especially on Corfu. Her mother now swept an edge of her cape in much exaggerated fashion so it came to rest over the same shoulder on which it had previously resided.

It was a practiced Bea move. Draw Attention to Thyself.

Sanjeep appeared from the kitchen, his round face steamy and bashful. He wore a long tunic made of thick yellow silk with navy embroidery adorning the neck. “Here I am, Madame Bee.”

At that, Bea executed a curtsy. She said into the microphone, in booming good humor, “Sanjeep, you’ve known me my whole life. How many times must I tell you? It’s Bay-uh.”

Joey said, “He’s younger than her. How is it possible he’s known her all her life?”

Siya shrugged, a purple ribbon clamped between her lips. Up front, by the windows onto Atlantic Avenue, Sanjeep dragged something cloaked in a sheet out of a closet.

“G.” Joey tapped her grandmother’s hand at her right. “Did you intend for Mom’s name to be pronounced Bay-uh?”