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you.” Which they were, really. She and Roger were together, which was more than you could say for most families these days. And if Mr. Gomez was blaming her for working, he could go straight to hell, because the hair problem had started long before Kacy’s Kitchen opened for business.
    â€œI didn’t mean—”
    â€œI’m sure you didn’t,” Kacy said, and she hung up. Her chest tightened, and her heart speed-thumped, and she was afraid she might throw up. It was the same feeling she’d had a few weeks before, when she’d opened the oven door and found her butter cake had fallen and it was her fault, she’d overbeaten the egg whites probably, and there was nothing she could do but watch the cake sink farther into itself, ruined.
    She took her glass of scotch into the bathroom, set it on the vanity, and locked the door behind her. She looked in the mirror and ran one hand over her jawline, seeing for the first time how her teeth grinding had bulked and hardened her jaw muscles. She caressed the nascent sags of skin under her eyes, trailed her nail along a crease across her forehead that she didn’t remember being so deep. She lifted a hand up to her perfectly bobbed chestnut hair, took hold of a single strand, and yanked. It stung, although not as much as she’d expected. She held the hair up to the light. The root was white and oily-looking. Disgusting. She let go and watched the hair flutter into the sink. She plucked out another, and then another, and then a few more. Why on earth would April do this?
    The house was still. Cool, contracting metal ticked somewhere inside the ventilation system. And aside from that, nothing. Silence. As if there were nothing else in the world, nothing beyond her standing alone in this bathroom with a spent drink and a sink littered with her hair. With a blast of water, she rinsed the hair away.
    The front door banged open and Kenny unleashed his little-boy war whoop. She heard him chase Mooch down the hallway and up the stairs. She just couldn’t take it, all the thumping and screeching, not today. “Kenny!” she shouted at the ceiling. “Goddamnit to hell, not now!” Above her, the footfalls stopped dead.
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    Kacy and Roger spent New Year’s Eve at the Johnson Library at a black-tie benefit for leukemia research. They both drank heavily, and Roger draped himself all over the chesty girl who was serving champagne. After the obviously repulsed girl pried him off, Kacy told him he disgusted her, and they’d stopped speaking. When Kacy awoke the next morning, she could taste cigarettes and alcohol in her mouth, but she felt surprisingly clearheaded. She was alone in the bed; Roger was sleeping it off elsewhere in the house.
    A new year. Clean slates, new hopes. She picked up the phone on her nightstand and called Dinaburg at home, humming as her fingers danced over the buttons.
    He answered. “Kacy,” he said. “Happy new year!”
    â€œHappy new year to you, too. How’s your kitchen?”
    â€œGreat,” he said, “though I don’t get to use it as much as I’d like. It’s funny—I was just thinking that I’d like to talk shop with you. The other night I made a Prinz Tom torte that came out aces . My wife’s sick of hearing about it. She sure loved eating it, though.”
    She asked him how the plans for the wedding were going.
    â€œThe groom hasn’t run away to Mexico or anything. So I guess we’re in good shape.”
    â€œYou know, Joel,” she purred, “you never told me about the cake you’re getting. The Rona Silverman.”
    â€œWe designed it together. Nine tiers, white and dark chocolate—El Rey and Scharffen Berger, of course—with chocolate-dipped strawberries on top and decorations that’ll knock everyone’s socks off. And it’s going to taste incredible .”
    â€œThe water.”
    â€œLike