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distraction. My eyes kept wandering up to study details like the obviously fake spray of leaves with white berries. The berries trembled each time she raised a hand to adjust the lapels of her jacket or to touch the brooch at her throat. “You may call me Miss Tucker.”
    â€œOkay,” I said, for lack of anything better.
    â€œTucker is my Christian name, given to me because my mother’s mother was a Tucker. Do you like my hat?” she asked with an arched brow. “I notice that you keep studying it.”
    â€œIt’s … interesting,” I said.
    â€œI do the design work for all of my own hats,” she said. “Normally I would not feel it necessary to invite a compliment about one of my creations, but social graces don’t seem to be your particular strength. You don’t really have the … polished manners of your father, but I suppose that type of honesty is refreshing. People from the northern cities are like that.”
    Washington was not a northern city by any map I had ever studied in school, but I let that one go.
    â€œWe saw you talking to the young Miss Delilah,” Miss Mitze said with a crafty smile, and her sister shot her a look of disapproval.
    Miss Mitze was as disheveled as her sister was polished. Miss Tucker’s hair was a steely gray, shot through with one last stubborn streak of brown and pulled into a bun at her neck. In contrast, Miss Mitze’s hair was a soft halo, with a faint blue cast to it that made me think of cotton candy.
    â€œShe could be quite lovely,” Miss Tucker said, picking up the conversation. “I’m speaking about her appearance, of course. Her manners leave a lot to be desired.”
    â€œShe takes after her mother in her looks,” Miss Mitze said with a wistful sigh. “And maybe her personality too.”
    â€œHer mother was a Lefferts,” Miss Tucker said, leaning in conspiratorially, though the name meant nothing to me.
    â€œMm,” Mitze breathed in agreement.
    â€œThe Lefferts were always a bit eccentric,” Tucker said diplomatically from my left.
    â€œInsanity,” Mitze clarified from my right.
    â€œYes. Though it usually skips a generation,” Tucker said.
    â€œYou think Delilah is insane?” I asked, thinking maybe everyone in Ashland was crazy.
    â€œHer grandmother was,” Tucker said.
    â€œUsually skips a generation,” Mitze repeated. “But you never know.”
    â€œThe cancer,” Tucker said, and her expression softened as she still looked at Delilah. Mitze nodded in agreement, her eyes shutting with dramatic effect.
    Before I could ask for any explanation, Tucker continued: “It’s hard to really know someone without knowing their family tree,” she said, moving nimbly to an entirely new topic while I was still trying to get up to speed on insanity and cancer. She said this with an inviting look at me, presumably for me to disclose something worthwhile about my own family tree. Again our gazes tracked together, this time toward my dad and Doris, who were strong-arming an elderly couple into conversation. The husband kept glancing hopefully toward the buffet, while his wife sipped at her iced tea, nodding and smiling woodenly.
    â€œWell,” I said with a sigh, “if I have to be judged according to who I’m related to, I might as well give up the fight right now.”
    Mitze and Tucker both smiled but gracefully let the topic drop as we all continued to watch the party around us.

 
    7
    When I returned to the auto shop after our first meeting, Roger hired me to help him out after school—answering phones, keeping the office clean and organized, occasionally helping him with the cars for minor repairs like oil changes. There was only one other guy who worked at Roger’s shop—a guy named Tiny who was anything but. He had wavy black hair to his shoulders, a grizzled goatee, rheumy eyes, and an