In the meantime Tunlaw Place was in disarray, the air tinged with the stench of diesel. A construction truck and a dumpster were parked along the curb, along with Nick’s little yellow bulldozer, which looked like a brightly painted toy.

Allison closed her eyes and stretched her arms and legs toward all four corners of the bed imagining that she—not the neighborhood—was the one at stake, she the damsel in distress, she the one for whom Ted would slay Nick Cox. Or vice versa. The winner would bed her. She was ready to make the sacrifice.

Ted stood at the window, on the verge of shouting. Allison waited, excited at the prospect. Today, it was finally going to happen. Today, blood would be spilled. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs, waiting, waiting—but Ted seemed to think better of it. He slammed the window shut and stomped off to the shower.

The alarm beeped then, an unrelenting tone that increased in volume until Allison silenced it with the flat of her palm. She set off to face the last day of August. A day that was neither summer nor fall. A day neither here nor there. A day that promised to be nothing more than betwixt and between—just like she was, Allison thought. Just like her.

JILLIAN MILLER SLOGGED HER WAY THROUGH HER CEREAL, HOPING she’d finish before her dull stomachache went full-blown. She chewed dutifully, her eyes on the leprechaun on the cereal box. She’d slipped the box into the cart on a recent trip to the supermarket. Her mother preferred organic products—brown rice, brown eggs, thin brown paper towels that dissolved in your hands.

Jillian had hoped there would be a good-luck charm inside the cereal box, but after digging around she came up with nothing more than a powdery hand and arm. No prize to put in the shoe box under her bed amid the other tokens she’d collected over the years: fortunes from fortune cookies, found pennies, rabbits’ feet—until she realized they were the real feet of real rabbits. They hadn’t helped so far, but you never knew when good luck might kick in.

Jillian was about to give the rest of her cereal to their dog Candy, a shaggy dachshund mix, when her mother came downstairs singing a cowboy love song. Her mother had been cast as the lead in the town production of Annie Get Your Gun. The thought of her skipping around in a little skirt and cowboy boots in front of everyone made Jillian want to die.

“The hammering wake you, hon?” her mother said. “It’s like living in a war zone.”