3

Every Monday, I spend an hour sitting in Frannie’s little back office recording her deposits and organizing her bills while she tops up people’s coffee at the bar. It’s been two weeks since I’ve been here because my kids have been home, but today they started camp at the rec center, so I am back in my element. I can hear Marco at the grill singing nonsense to Theo in his playpen. Theo always smells like cheeseburgers, which I think is the only way to improve the smell of a baby.

This is my favorite part of the week, sitting in this space alone and making sense of this small business. Organizing people’s closets is a quick fix, but shoring up the chaos at the diner is deeply gratifying. The fresh-bread delivery people like to be paid in cash weekly, the dairy farm bills quarterly or not at all, but the expense still needs to be recorded. The utility bill is on autopay with Frannie’s parents’ personal credit card. She leaves it all for me on tiny slips of paper, faded invoices, and Post-it notes with question marks and happy faces on them. Each week, when I leave, the problem is solved and I am satisfied in the same way I used to be when I was an accountant making the final closing adjustment on an audit.

Today I finish in forty-five minutes, so I order poached eggs.

“What’s happening with the divorce?” Frannie asks. “Have you found a lawyer?”

“We’re not doing lawyers.”

“What does that mean?” Frannie tosses her rag into the sink behind her.

“We’ve been living separately for a year, peacefully. We still share a checking account and pay for everything out of that. It’s been pretty amicable, but with the new expense of his apartment, we aren’t putting anything into savings, so we don’t want to spend what savings we have on lawyers. He’s found a mediator.”

“How absolutely new age hippie of you guys.”

“It’s nice for the kids to see things easy between us.”

“Is he seeing someone?”

“I’d have no way of knowing. Is it time for that already?”

“It’s not time for dating until you start wearing hard pants.”

I look down at my dirty gray sweatpants, which I think are different from the dirty gray sweatpants I slept in. “I know.”

“And your overalls don’t count.” She’s gesturing at me with the decaf coffeepot in a way that I find mildly aggressive. “Don’t try to hit me with the denim exemption; they’re soft and loose, and in their spirit they’re sweatpants.”

“They have hardware, like hooks and buckles. They’re totally hard pants.”

“Until you produce a pair of pants with a zipper, you will not be dating.”

“It’s the zipper that attracts a man. Noted.”

“It might be just what you need,” she says. “A date. Just to get you unstuck and past the firsts—first date, first kiss.”

“Oh my God, stop.” Just the thought of it makes me feel more stuck than ever.

“Can I go with you?”

“On a date?”

“No. To mediation.”

I almost smile at the thought of Pete walking into a lawyer’s office and finding Frannie by my side holding a big yellow legal pad. “No thank you.”

“Well, you know my little brother’s a lawyer, if you want to talk to someone.”

This actually makes me smile. “Scooter’s a lawyer? There’s no way we’re that old.”

“He’s thirty-six. He could be president.”

“Scooter? Hilarious.”

The bell over the door tinkles and Mr. and Mrs. Hogan appear in coordinating tracksuits and panama hats. “Oh, I forgot to mention, they’re back,” says Frannie.

“Girls!” says Mrs. Hogan. “So glad we caught you together.” They sit down on either side of me and I notice they are wearing the same cologne. This is next-level.

“Welcome back! How was Florida?” I ask.

“Well, we just loved it,” says Mrs. Hogan. “We were in a little bungalow on the water. It was like we could see all the way to Cuba. We made friends with the young people who bought the bar Hemingway used to go to.”

“He didn’t really go there,” Mr. Hogan says.

“Well, true. But it’s such fun to imagine that he did.” She claps her hands together, and her smile is pure rapture. What I wouldn’t give for one ounce of this woman’s energy.

“The Fourth of July parade wasn’t the same without you,” I say. They always dress as Uncle Sam and a bedazzled Betsy Ross. The parade starts in town and ends at the inn, where the Hogans serve hot dogs and Cokes to anyone who makes it that far. This year Frannie had hotel staff in their regular uniforms serving everyone, and it sort of fell flat.

“I’m sure it was lovely,” Mr. Hogan says. His eyes land on the translucent stain on the front of my sweatpants. The fact that it’s maple syrup is known only to me, and I’d like to keep it that way. “Everything okay with you, Ali?” he asks.

“Yes, everything’s fine. We’re all doing great,” I say, moving a paper napkin onto my lap and feeling it adhere to the syrup stain.

Mrs. Hogan gives Frannie a look. “Well, come for Fun-tastic Friday Night. We are celebrating our return. Bring the kids, of course. Scooter’s even coming down.”

“Sure, thank you,” I say. I could use something Fun-tastic.