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beaten up was just wrong. “The music—I wonder what kids listen to these days. Wow, I sound a hundred. Now that would be funny—that I could be an old lady at fifteen!” She started to laugh but for just a moment remembered how she had once felt old and bruised and—
    She shivered, chilled to the core.
    “Rose?” Evelyn said.
    “Yeah?”
    “I’m sure a stream will be fine. For the music.”
    Rose looked around, noticed the festive decorations, and snapped back cheerfully into pre-party mode. “Selena wants a DJ.”
    “Selena can hire one, then.”
    Rose was still wondering about Evelyn. Why hadn’t she ever remarried? She never even dated. A couple of years before, a man from her real estate office called for a while. But Evelyn never went out with him, and the calls stopped. “Do you think you’ll ever get married again?” Rose asked.
    “What? No,” Evelyn said. “I’ve been married.”
    “What about being in love?”
    “I’ve been in love.”
    “You make it sound like a driver’s test. You take it once and if you pass, you never have to take it again.”
    “I . . . didn’t think I was capable of the depth of feeling I had for your dad. It’s highly unlikely I’ll feel that way again. And I don’t think I want to.” Evelyn untangled a skeleton, pushed a button, and watched it float around the room, slowly jiggling its arms and legs. “Not exactly dancing, is it?”
    “Why wouldn’t you want to?”
    Evelyn sighed. “Let’s just say my parents didn’t set the best example.”
    Rose got distracted. The blue chair, her dad’s favorite place to sit and watch baseball, had been moved. But she and Evelyn hadn’t touched the furniture while getting ready for the party.
    When Rose caught up with what Evelyn was saying, it was something about being in a house with a storm raging outside and her mother standing at the window, insisting it was a beautiful day.
    “But that was nice of her,” Rose said. “Maybe it was a beautiful day and you just hadn’t noticed. That happened to me when I woke up on Sunday—it was so beautiful out. I’m so glad I noticed it.” She didn’t mention the red light, so obtrusive again the past couple of mornings, like the wrong kind of alarm clock.
    “That’s not what I meant—”
    “Did you move the blue chair?”
    “What?” Evelyn glanced at the blue chair. “I was reading.The light from outside was bothering me.”
    “It left a dent in the rug. See? It’s saying, ‘I was here, don’t forget I was here.’ It’s saying it as loudly as if it could actually talk. It wants to be put back where it belongs.”
    Evelyn looked down at the spot. The skeleton swooped between them. “Rose, are you happy?”
    “Yes, very,” Rose replied without hesitation.
    “It’s what I’ve always wanted for you.”
    Rose tucked her hair behind one ear, a move that had already become almost unconscious. “Then you got what you always wanted. Now you, your turn. Are you happy?”
    Evelyn looked at her carefully. “Yes and no.”
    “Meaning—?”
    “Meaning, I am if you are.”
    But Rose had just said she was.

CHAPTER 8
    “The thing to remember about cats,” Dr. Lola told Rose on Saturday morning, her first day at the animal hospital, “is that you can’t hold a cat that doesn’t want to be held. Cats are still somewhat wild, much more so than dogs. Dogs are pussycats.”
    “Dogs are pussycats?”
    “But guess what. You can fool a cat, psych her out. That’s your weapon. Never mind that a cat can run away if she tries to. She’ll stay if you make her think you’re in control.”
    Dr. Lola had given Rose a pale-green smock to wear over her clothes. Rose had spent the morning cleaning out litter pans and refilling bowls with dry food and water. The whole place had a dark, musty scent.
    Dr. Lola picked up a black-and-white cat. “This guy is the Great Catsby. Hello, Catsby,” she said firmly, pulling the skin on the back of his neck so tight his eyes