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“The Butkuses?”

“Yes. Ooh.” She fluttered her eyelids with relish, as though she had a steaming vat of gossip tea, as the twins would phrase it.I think. I can never quite grasp their teen talk.“Ooh, wait till you hear.”

“Go ahead, then.”

She took a deep breath, then held up one finger and rummaged in her nightstand drawer, from which she extracted a long box of Fran’s Chocolates. She was like Mary Poppins—always pulling things out of that bottomless nightstand. She handed me a sea salt caramel and popped one in her own mouth, then continued.

“The Butkuses are a lovely couple about our age. Teachers nearing retirement.”

“Teachers?” Confused, I glanced through the curtains, where the edge of the house next door was just visible. It was a sort of nautical, white-brick, Cape Cod house with forest-green shutters and about four thousand square feet—and again, $3.5 million. Sure, back in the 1980s a man like my dad could buy a house in Madison Park on one salary. But oh, how times had changed. Nowa couple of hardworking teachers could barely afford a house out in Bothell, let alone this neighborhood.

Mom’s eyes positively gleamed. She clasped her hands under her chin. “Their son, Christopher Butkus, thirty-two, bought it for them. And darling…” She was practically weeping with joy. “He’ssingle.”

“Ah.” I made a play for time and reached for another caramel. “And what exactly does Christopher Butkus, thirty-two, do for a living that enables him to buy three-point-five-million-dollar houses for his parents?”

I knew what she was going to say. I knew it. You knew it. Davis’s assless chaps knew it.

“Some sort of tech start-up. It’s been rather successful.”Of course.

“Hmm.”

“They move in on Monday, darling. I’ll invite them all over for a dinner party. You know what you should wear, that green wrap dress from Nordstrom. It sets off your figure, shows a bit of leg. You hear people say, choose whether to show leg or cleavage, but I can’t understand why. What’s the point of keeping your cards hidden if you’ve got a winning hand? When I first met your father, I was wearing—”

“Mom!”

She giggled. “Well, anyway, I know you’ll look gorgeous. So we should do a Google for Christopher Butkus and see what comes up. I wonder if he’s tall.”

“Mom,” I sputtered through a mouthful of caramel. I considered my words carefully. Telling my mother she was getting ahead of herself was a sure way to get her to speed ahead like a curly-haired bowling ball. I opted for a change of subject. “Do you want to hear my New Year’s resolution?”

Clearly I would say anything to shut her up. I took a deep, excited breath and looked her in the eyes. “I’m going to try Jdate.”

She let out a bloodcurdling wail—you see where the twins learned it—and flung the box of caramels against the wall. I stared, slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. This did not seem like a cry of delight. Surely this was the same woman who had begged me for the last two and a half years to try something, anything, to find a nice Jewish boy? Had I entered an alternate reality? I pinched myself, then pinched Mom. She screamed louder.

“I thought you’d be happy!”

She shook her head frantically, fluttering her hands in distress as she cried. Finally she raised a trembling finger in the direction of the window. “B-B-B-Butkus!”

“What?” I jumped out of bed. “You want me to give up meeting new people in the hopes that I’ll end up with this rich nerd?”

She stopped crying at once, a glowing smile on her face as she nodded.

“No!” I shrieked. “I don’t like tech bros, especially ones like him. You know I have to put up with them at work. All they care about is money and algorithms. It’s so dull. I can’t stand to talk to one for more than thirty seconds. They’re all greedy capitalists who couldn’t flirt their way out of a North Face jacket. They want robots to take over the world while they relocate their rich-boy club to outer space, where there’s plenty of virgin territory for them to pillage and destroy! Meanwhile us mere mortals try to save the dying planet that they ruined with their—”

“Shut up, SHUT UP!” Mom sank back and smashed a pillow against her face. “You’re so pretty, Rachel; why can’t you be more like Jane? Polite andquiet. Jane is going to end up married while you’re scaring men off with your politics. Not everything in this world is an apocalyptic corporate conspiracy!”

I pouted for a moment. “I don’t want to meet Christopher Butkus.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Send your father up.”

I turned to leave, hesitated, then scooped up the sea salt caramels from the carpet and put them in my pocket.

I found Dad cowering in the kitchen pantry. He pretended to be searching for something when I opened the door, but I caught him hurriedly stuffing a bookmark into the novel he’d been reading.

“How are the twins?” I asked.

“Fine, fine. I told them I’d take them to Sephora, so.”

I cringed. “Did you give them a spending limit?”