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at the altar the very day before her identical twin sister, Robin, went missing. Hmmmm.
    Carmen could privately ridicule it because it wasn’t her soap opera. Her soap opera (to which she had become progressively addicted since she’d been accepted to Williams early decision in January and stopped doing her homework) was called Brawn and Beauty and it would never have a plot line as dumb as this one. Carmen’s addiction centered on one actor (hailing from the Brawn side of things) named Ryan Hennessey. He was absolutely, explosively gorgeous, and her one true love, no matter how much her friends made fun of her for it. He was a good actor. Seriously, he was. He’d done some sort of Shakespeare thing before he’d gotten the soap gig. At least, that was what Carmen had read in Soap Opera Digest while she was waiting with Tibby to pay for the Diet Coke at the A&P the night before.
    The Kaligarises’ front door opened and closed, and Lena appeared with her mother a minute later.
    “Hey, Carma.” Lena looked sweaty from her shift at the Elite. Ari was in her work clothes.
    “Hi. How’s work?”
    Lena rolled her eyes.
    “At least you have a job,” Carmen pointed out.
    “How’s the search going?” Ari asked, pulling a pitcher of water from the fridge and filling a glass. “Anybody?” She held up the pitcher.
    “No, thanks.” If Carmen had wanted something, she would have gotten it for herself. The Septembers had broken down that barrier at each other’s houses before it had even gone up. “The search is…uh, slow. I’m kind of, uh, not that much in the mood for babysitting this summer.” Carmen realized that if she didn’t rush onward, she could be questioned on this topic. “But I saw this ad at the A&P to take care of an old lady five afternoons a week. She’s kind of blind, I guess, so the job would mostly be reading to her. I called the number and left a message.”
    Ari put her glass down a little too forcefully on the granite counter. Lena turned to look at her mom. “You know,” Ari said, her eyes animated, “that’s strange. I’ve been thinking about that same thing for Valia. I’ve been thinking how much she needs some companionship to help her with her errands and correspondence and maybe take her to her doctor’s appointments. I don’t dare take another afternoon off work this month.”
    Carmen nodded.
    “I was hoping Lena or Effie could pitch in, but they both got jobs early this summer.”
    Carmen kept her expression brightly neutral, so as not to appear to indict Lena.
    Ari put her glass in the sink with a definitive motion. “How much were they offering to pay on the sign you saw?” She was getting quite enthusiastic now.
    “Eight an hour.”
    “How about I’ll pay you eight fifty if you’ll look after Valia thirty or so hours a week? We could make up the schedule together.”
    Carmen considered, looking down at her chipped red nail polish. In this minute she could go from having no job, no purpose in life, to having one. The money was decent. It would be a little weird to have Ari paying her. But then, it was more comfortable for Ari to hire Carmen than to hire a stranger. Carmen would frankly rather hang out in Lena’s airy, spacious house than in what would likely be a stuffy, old-lady apartment.
    “Well…” Carmen tapped her index finger on the counter. “Okay. Why not?”
    “Fantastic,” Ari said.
    Carmen hadn’t looked across the counter at Lena before this moment. So she hadn’t seen how Lena had positioned herself with her back to her mother and was facing Carmen, frantically wide-eyed, mouthing the word no and drawing her index finger across her neck, until it was too late.
    Lena waited to explode until she’d gotten Carmen up to her room and shut the door.
    “Are you insane?”
    “Lenny, jeez. What’s the problem?”
    “Why do you think Effie and I set up jobs in mid-April? Jobs we both fully hate, by the way.”
    “Because…you’re well