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in papers, the chairs pulled out and in disarray. Cynthia had always been in Walter’s office, on the phone with some client, solving some issue for the workers, or handling the bills. It felt quiet without her high southern voice lilting through therooms. Leeda wished she had Rex with her. Or one of her friends from school.
    Poopie came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. “Hiya, honey,” she drawled in her weird mixture of Spanish and southern accents.
    “Hi, Miss Poopie.” Leeda kissed her on her warm, dewy cheek. Poopie didn’t smell like mothballs. She always smelled like warm cookies.
    “You look more and more like a movie star every day. How many boyfriends you have?”
    Leeda smiled. “Just one for now.”
    Poopie shook her head. “A waste. I hope he’s sweet to you.”
    “He is.”
    Poopie smiled too, showing three gold teeth. “Well, it’s good to have you, sweetie. We need every hand we can get this year. I’m about to drive the van into town to take the workers shopping. This young man is helping me get everything organized.” She nodded to a cute, dark-skinned guy standing in the archway of the kitchen. He smiled at Leeda. Leeda smiled tightly back, polite. People who didn’t speak her language always gave her the giggly wigglies. “Go on up and see our Birdie. She’s hiding from me.”
    Leeda plodded her way up the droopy, lopsided stairs, miserable. She wondered if her parents would have ever sentenced Danay to two weeks with the Darlingtons. She tried to picture it. Instead the picture leapt into her head of the day Danay had left for Emory (the Harvard of the South, as her mom liked to say)—her mom and dad with their arms genteelly looped behind each other’s backs watching her drive away, tears in their eyes. It made a lump rise to Leeda’s throat.
    In the upstairs hall, the same dresser held the same knickknacks that had been there since Leeda could remember. The same piece of cinnamon candy had been sitting there for at least sixteen years. Leeda wrinkled her nose. She liked things new and shiny, not old and dusty.
    Birdie was sitting in her giant window, flipping through a Cosmo and nibbling the chocolate off a Goo Goo Cluster. Aside from the Goo Goo Cluster, she reminded Leeda of a Renoir she’d seen in Paris last summer—soft and full and pretty. Two papillons lay sleeping on each other’s necks at her feet.
    “Hi, Birdie.”
    Birdie jolted and tucked the magazine behind her, her cheeks turning pink. Leeda scanned the room to the TV, which was playing some Nelly video.
    “What are you doing, Birdie?”
    “Nothing. Um, hiding from Poopie.”
    “She knows you’re up here.”
    “She wants me to go into town with the workers and take them shopping.”
    “Well, why don’t you?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “There’s some cutie downstairs, looks like a worker. Maybe you should go anyway.”
    Birdie blushed harder, clasping her hands like an old lady. Birdie was more like an old lady than any old lady Leeda knew, and she knew a lot because old ladies loved the Primrose Cottage Inn, their fluffy white hairdos poking over the backs of the rockers on the verandah all summer long.
    “What are you reading?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Well.” Leeda cleared her throat, remembering her posture and throwing her shoulders back. “Where should I put my suitcases?” she asked brightly.
    “Dad wants you to sleep in here with me. He said we should pull out the trundle bed.”
    Leeda sank deeply into one hip. “Are you serious?”
    Birdie nodded solemnly.
    “No way. I need my privacy.”
    “I told him. I need my privacy too. I said we’re not ten anymore. He didn’t listen.”
    Leeda surveyed the room and wondered. It hadn’t changed much since they were ten. The same four-post bed, the same stuffed animals on the shelves.
    “Well, it’s just not happening,” Leeda said, stiffening in the way she did when she was resolved. “I’m going to talk to Uncle Walter. I