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down.”
    Perry knocked Hadley over and she started to wail, so I stretched the cord of the kitchen phone as far as it could go out onto the back porch and shut the door behind me.
    “I miss you, Intrepid Spouse,” I said.
    “Listen, the car’s gonna be downstairs in a second. Did the girls like their presents? What’d we get them, anyway?”
    “We” my ass.
    “Parrish shoved
Where the Wild Things Are
into the middle of the birthday cake. I think that’s a thumbs-up.”
    He laughed. “I have something great for you. Saw it in the airport and knew you had to have it.”
    “Can’t wait.”
    “I gotta run, kiss the girls for me?”
    “Sure thing,” I said. “Have a great time tonight. Knock ’em dead.”
    I was talking to the dial tone.
    Just as I was walking back into the living room, our doorbell chimed.
    I went to answer it, discovering a colleague of Dean’s on our front porch. Nice guy called Cary. We’d had him over to dinner a few times—our first pal in town, really. He and this chick Setsuko, the receptionist, were the only people at Jim’s office I dealt with at all regularly.
    Cary and my husband had quickly become biking partners, on the commute to work most days and often recreationally on weekends. Maybe because they were both six-five, evenly matched for racing each other up and down the canyons.
    “Hey there,” I said, stepping back from the doorway and waving him inside.
    He shook his head, the motion making a hank of dark hair fall across his left eye. “I gotta run home in a minute, just wanted to stop by and wish the girls happy birthday.”
    “How come you’re not in New Orleans with the rest of the gang?”
    “Someone had to keep the home fires burning.”
    “By which you mean Bittler’s being a vindictive asshole again?”
    Bittler was Cary’s boss but not, thank God, Dean’s. Nasty little man.
    “Exactly,” he said, laughing. “Left me behind with stacks of bullshit paperwork.”
    “He’s just jealous… And for chrissake, Cary, it’s cold with this door open. Come inside and meet my mom and my best pal from college. Have a slice of birthday cake.”
    “Well, if there’s
cake
,” he said, stepping into the front hall.
    I closed the door. “Let me take your coat.”
    “Take these, instead,” he said, producing two presents from behind his back.
    They were wrapped in tinfoil, bachelor-style, but he’d sketched a pretty decent Elmo on one package and Big Bird on the other with a black Sharpie.
    I took them out of his hands, complimented his artwork, and then stood on tiptoe to give him a peck on the cheek. “You are an
awesome
friend. Thank you.”
    “And you told me you didn’t know
anyone
here yet,” said Ellis, waving good-bye to Cary from the front porch after he’d wolfed down both his slice of cake and the beer she’d insisted he split with her after that, paperwork or no paperwork.
    I laughed. “Fold your tongue back into your mouth, you unrepentant slut.”
    “Oh, like
you
don’t think he’s a hottie.”
    “I don’t, actually.”
    “Well then,” she said, nodding, “no wonder you’re friends.”
    “Mostly he goes biking with Dean.”
    “Biking: the new golf,” she said. “Our generation’s excuse to leave your wife alone with the children all weekend.”
    “Exactly.”

8

    M om and I stood on the front porch the next morning, kissing Ellis and brood good-bye before they headed out for the airport.
    “
Ciao
, my darling—keep those cards and letters coming!” I said as we all broke free and Ellis started down the steps.
    She paused, looking back up at me. “Speaking of, madwoman, I think you should try figuring out how to use email. You guys have an account, right?”
    “Dean does, I think.”
    “I mean, it’s great that you’ve finally started writing letters, but if you upgrade to the cutting-edge technology available to us in the late twentieth century, we could alleviate each other’s suburban angst and alienation without