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figure out how to un-jam the window.
    “If you need anything…”
    Murphy could think of many things she needed. She needed to be getting stoned outside the Ryman auditorium. She needed a real spring break, one of the few joys of life. Now, thanks to Birdie and her dogs, she had neither.
    “Don’t you think that’s hypocritical?”
    Birdie shifted her weight. “What do you mean?”
    “Well, you’re asking me what I need, but I already told you I need a window that opens, and you can’t do that. And what I really need is to go on break like every other normal person in America, and I can’t do that either. And I have you to thank for that and you, Honey Butt.” Murphy nodded at the one dog. “And you, Ambrosia Salad.” Murphy nodded at the other.
    “It’s Honey Babe and Majestic. They’re named after peaches….”
    “I don’t know if that’s how you spend all your time, sitting around waiting to bust people’s balls because you don’t haveanything else to do. Guarding your dad’s crème de menthe.”
    “Bust balls…but we weren’t…?”
    “Yeah, bust balls. You and your fascist dogs.”
    Birdie’s bottom lip quivered. “But I didn’t…I…” Birdie blinked a few times, unsurely. Then, to Murphy’s amazement, she simply pivoted on her heel and took off down the stairs.
    Murphy came to the doorway and watched her disappear. Maybe she had hit a sore spot and Birdie really was afraid that her dogs were fascists. She imagined them giving each other little Nazi salutes with their paws.
    “Chickie,” she called with a giggle in her voice, wanting to apologize. But the sound of the screen door hissing closed announced that Birdie had already gone. Murphy walked to the end of the hall, which was marked with a big square window, and peered out to see her and her dogs rushing across the grass toward the house, still walking self-consciously with no one behind to watch her.
    “Damn.”
    Murphy’s eyes drifted over the landscape. It was a far cry from Anthill Acres, where the foliage consisted of the kudzu that lined the telephone poles and the moss that stuck up through the cracks in the concrete patios.
    Just emerging from one of the rows—on a path to intersect Birdie if she’d been walking instead of run-hobbling—was a figure. Murphy watched it closely, making out a man, well, a guy, in an orange T-shirt and jeans. He was nice to look at, definitely, though he had very little style—his jeans weren’t any kind of hipster blue and his T-shirt looked like Hanes standard variety. Murphy was into style.
    Still, she could tell just by the way he walked that he had to be good looking. Guys who knew it had a certain walk that didn’t show off—their looks could do it for them.
    Murphy made a mental note of him. And then she slunk back down the hall and forgot about him altogether.

    Up on the porch, several people—mostly young Mexican men—were milling around speaking Spanish—sitting on the porch rockers and standing on the stairs, their skin brown and warm looking. Leeda parked her Beemer as close to the house as possible and primly made her way through the crowd. “Pardone, pardone.” She wasn’t sure if that was right, though she’d taken two years of Spanish so far. Of course, she’d spent most of that time snapping the split ends out of her hair and being courted via note by ninety percent of the boys in the class and half the girls.
    Inside, the house smelled like mothballs and boxwood—the signature scent of Uncle Walter’s. Uncle Walter himself carried the smell with him wherever he went, much like Leeda’s mom carried the smell of Givenchy Very Irresistible, claiming that every woman should have a scent others could remember her by.
    Leeda let out a long, nervous sigh. She hadn’t been to the house in over a year. Looking around now, she could see the signs of Aunt Cynthia’s sudden disappearance. Bare spaces where pieces of furniture had been. The dining room table covered