“No, I’m upset because we’ll have to use your picture in the Most Likely to Become an Ax Murderer category,” I said. “No, but why don’t you go jump in the lake? No, I’m not upset… . Yes, I am.”

I was talking to myself. I admit it. I was setting the table and talking to myself.

I was trying to think of the perfect comeback for Cokie’s spiteful remark. And so far I hadn’t been able to do so, even though I’d been brooding all afternoon about what she’d said.

“Mary Anne?”

I looked up to see Sharon, my stepmother, standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Are you okay? Were you talking to yourself?”

“I guess I was,” I said, feeling dumb.

Sharon smiled. “I hope it was a good conversation.”

“So far, no.”

“Well, we can make it three-way if you’ll go get Richard. Dinner is ready.”

I slid the last spoon into place and found my father in the tiny third bedroom of our rental house, which he was using as a study. He was sifting through a box of books.

He smiled warmly at me when I peered around the open door. “Hi,” he said. “I’m telling you, I’ll be glad when we’re back in a house that has real bookshelves. Having to move these boxes around is driving me crazy.”

My dad is a neatnik. In his old study, his books had been arranged by category and alphabetized. Now the books he’d gotten since the fire just sat in labeled boxes, except for a few of the main law books.

“Dinner’s ready,” I said.

“Good. I’m hungry.” After he stood up and stretched, we walked back to the kitchen to help Sharon finish putting food out on the dining room table.

“Smells great,” my dad said. “What is it?”

“Mixed-noodle casserole,” Sharon replied. She looked pleased.

“What’s that?” I asked. Sharon is kind of disorganized, which makes her an erratic cook. She’s been known to put sugar into a dish instead of salt, season everything twice, or absentmindedly neglect to turn the oven off in time — or not turn it on at all.

The aroma rising from the casserole was good, though.

Sharon plopped a spoonful of mixed noodles onto my plate. I saw macaroni elbows, corkscrews, spirals, ziti, and ragged sheets of lasagna poking out of a tomato sauce spiked with broccoli, string beans, what might have been eggplant, and what looked like — lima beans?

“It’s what was left in all those boxes of noodles mixed together with all the leftover vegetables we had. Plus a nice eggplant. And basil,” Sharon explained.

“Sounds great,” said my dad.

Cautiously, I took a bite. “Delicious,” I said.

“Oh, I’m glad,” said Sharon. “I was afraid I might have forgotten something.”

“I like the nights you’re the cook,” my father said. “It’s always an adventure.”

Sharon laughed. She is so easygoing. She and my father are perfect for each other.

“I stopped by the house today,” said Sharon.

“No kidding,” my father teased gently. We’re remodeling our old barn into a new house, and Sharon goes by there at least once a day to check on the progress.

“It looks fabulous,” said Sharon. “The frame’s finished now, and you can see where all the windows are going to be. Total light. It’s going to be amazing.”

“I can’t wait,” said my dad.

“I can’t either,” I heard myself say. “This house is too small.”

“Too small?” said my father. “Well, I guess we could use more bookshelves.”

Dad didn’t understand. I meant that I was feeling crowded, even though I had a room of my own. My father had been acting like Super-Protective Dad since the fire. After we’d moved into our rental house, he seemed to check on me all the time, tapping on the door of my room to see how I was doing, asking me repeatedly where I was going and when I’d be back, even for something routine, such as a BSC meeting.

He wasn’t as bad as he’d been when I was a little girl, but he was definitely getting on my nerves. And that made me feel bad, because I could understand why he was being so protective. After all, he’d lost everything but his family in the fire too.

Why did it have to be our house? My thoughts slipped back into the same old pattern. Why couldn’t it have been the house of someone deeply mean and petty, like Cokie? Of course I didn’t wish that Cokie’s house had burned down, but maybe I did wish she’d had major smoke damage to all her clothes.

And then it came to me. The perfect comeback to Cokie’s shot at the yearbook staff meeting that afternoon: “No, Cokie. I’m just upset because we’ll have to have a page for you for Least Likely Ever to Be Part of a Couple.”

I smiled, feeling better. I rehearsed it in my head, imagining her face if I’d actually had the nerve to say something that spiteful and mean. My smile widened.

“I thought you’d like my new surprise,” my father said.

I returned to the conversation at the table. “Surprise?” I said.

“The new beds I bought. Yours has an antique pine headboard and footboard, carved with a leaf-and-vine-pattern trim. It’ll be great in the new house.”

“Oh,” I said blankly.

“And we can get rid of this lumpy, plastic-wood rental bedroom furniture,” said Sharon. “Super, Richard!”

My father beamed.

I said, “But Dad — I mean, the bed sounds great, but what if I wanted to pick out my own bed?”

My dad looked startled, a little less beamingly happy. “Of course. You can do that. We’ll go by the store tomorrow and cancel the order and you can pick out whatever you want. There’s no rush.”

“No,” I said. “Never mind.”

“Really, Mary Anne …” he began.

“It’s fine.” I shrugged. “It’s just a bed. Whatever.”

We were all silent. I could tell I’d surprised both Sharon and my father. I wasn’t a “whatever” kind of girl.

But maybe it was time I became one. Maybe it was time I stopped taking everything so seriously, worrying about everything being right. Maybe I should start taking things easy. Isn’t that what Kristy had been trying to say to me?

Whatever.