“Dinner’s in an hour,” comes our mother’s voice from the other room. “We need to get cleaned up and head right over.”

I go to the door of Mom’s room and watch her unpack. She’s spent the entire day in grimy airports and on bumpy airplanes and in a less-than-stellar taxi, but she manages to look completely put together, the top half of her bobbed blond hair pulled back in a tortoiseshell barrette, her sweater set and khaki pants still crisp and unwrinkled. She carefully hangs up a row of her expensive, tasteful blouses in the closet, two pairs of pressed black slacks, a little black cocktail dress, and a black formal gown for the awards night at the end of the week. There’s a lot of black in my mother’s wardrobe, because it matches everything so she doesn’t have to give it too much thought.

“Do we have to have dinner with the entire group?” Afton protests from behind me. “This is supposed to be a vacation.”

“We always have dinner with the entire group the first night.” Mom crosses back to her suitcase and withdraws a silk robe I’ve never seen before. It’s white with a red-and-black cherry blossom pattern on it.

“That’s pretty,” I say.

“What’s pretty?” Afton comes around me and over to inspect the robe. She strokes the fabric down one of the arms. “Ooh, shiny.”

“Thanks,” Mom says stiffly, and hangs the robe up with her dresses and shirts. She has never been good at taking a compliment, even about her clothes. “Ruthie found it at Nordstrom’s last week.”

“We could get room service,” says Afton.

I don’t even know why she’s trying to get out of dinner. It’s like she doesn’t know Mom at all.

“No,” Mom says flatly.

See.

“You could say I wasn’t feeling well,” Afton suggests.

“We always have dinner all together the first night,” Mom says again.

“Will there be ice cream?” Abby inquires.

“I bet there will be pineapple,” I say. Pineapple is Abby’s self-proclaimed favorite fruit. “And there might be—I don’t know—some cute boys for us to assess at dinner,” I direct at Afton.

“Cute boys?” Mom frowns at us. “But don’t you both have boyfriends?”