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bankruptcy was his best course of action. “You do not do boredom. Your brain waves move so slowly that boredom would not register on them. You don’t get bored concocting new bagel flavors. I would find that boring. Most people would. Which isn’t a put-down—I’m just saying, you operate on a different plane, and that’s good. It’s enviable. You are spared the albatross of boredom while dreaming up ways of incorporating prunes and peppermint into bagels.”
    “Albatross?” Casey interrupted.”
    Mose reverted to his familiar jive. “Something like that. Sounded good, didn’t it?”
    “It sounded ridiculous. So does the idea of peppermint bagels. Prunes I might consider. Raisin bagels are so popular, why not prunes? Or apricots.”
    “See?” Mose beamed a smile at Casey, his point apparently proven. “You love what you do. You love bagels. I give you a boring speech and you decide to make apricot bagels. You don’t want to leave Bloom’s—especially not to start your own catering company.”
    “I think I do,” Casey said, wishing he sounded more positive. He slumped forward, resting his arms on his thighs and staring at a tag of graffiti someone had painted onto the asphalt near the bench. Bingo , it said. Why would anyone paint Bingo onto a schoolyard basketball court?
    “You’re a bagel man. You work with dough. You really want to set up shop making stuffed mushrooms and miniature egg rolls and caviar on toast points? That’s not your thing, Woody.”
    “There’s money in it.”
    “There’re headaches in it. Catering, you’re working on everyone else’s hours. Kiss your nights goodbye. That’s when people have catered parties, right? At night.”
    Casey shrugged, not seeing this as a problem. Without Susie, he would have to fill his nights somehow. Might as well fill them stuffing mushrooms.
    “Your specialty is bagels. You want to go into business for yourself, go into the bagel business.”
    He eyed Mose, feeling a sudden pop, like a camera flash bursting through muddled darkness. He’d thought of a catering business because he’d been working after-hours for Vinnie Carasculo, who had his own catering business, one that didn’t involve caviar or miniature egg rolls. Vinnie was usually hired for Italian weddings, and the most popular items on his menu were lasagna platters, stuffed manicotti, six-foot-long garlic breads and fried calamari. Casey knew how to cook all those things, so he’d figured he could run a catering business. But someone planning an Italian wedding wasn’t going to hire an Irish guy named Keenan Christopher Gordon Jr. to cook the food.
    But bagels. Bread. Rolls and muffins and scones. He could do that. On his own hours, too. He wouldn’t be at the mercy of tantrum-throwing brides and their mothers, or biddy ladies in Jackson Heights who hosted bridge parties and refused to pay unless every last detail, from the paper napkins to the chocolate mints, wasperfect. Vinnie had dealt with customers like that. Casey had witnessed a few scenes.
    A bread store. He’d need a little real estate, a few ovens, vats for boiling bagel dough, flour and yeast and his imagination. He could do what he’d been doing all along for Bloom’s—something he truly enjoyed—but without doing it for Susie’s sister. Or her grandmother. Or for Susie herself.
    She’d said no. He didn’t need a map; he could find the door himself. A door that led out of Bloom’s and into a bread store…Yeah, he could see it.

Three
    “S he’s fat,” Sondra Bloom observed, her stage whisper echoing through the common room on the first floor of Adam’s dorm.
    “No, she’s not,” Susie argued, shooting Julia a look. Julia shot a look back, one of her There goes Mom, but it’s not worth getting into an argument looks. They were seated on uncomfortable vinyl-upholstered sofas in the oversized, underdecorated lounge, having just sent Joffe upstairs with Adam and his girlfriend, Natasha, to make