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to look back through the swinging half-doors that separated the kitchen from the dining area. She sighed. “My goodness, my new hire’s been on her break a long time.”
    Tricia pushed aside the orange-slice garnish on her plate.
    Angelica sighed and again glanced at the clock. “It may have been a mistake to take on my new hire. It’s . . . it’s . . .” She stammered. “Oh, I may as well just tell you. I hired Pammy.”
    Tricia nearly choked on her tuna. “You what?” she spluttered, and started choking.
    Angelica clumped around the counter in her black high-heeled shoes to slap Tricia on the back. “Do you need me to do the Heimlich maneuver? I learned how to do it properly at my county-sponsored safety course, you know.”
    Tricia pounded on her chest, and then took a sip of her cooling cocoa to help control the urge to cough. “Why on earth did you hire Pammy?”
    “I felt sorry for her, what with you throwing her out and all.”
    “I did not throw her out!” Tricia took another sip of her cocoa. “I simply asked her to leave, and she agreed it was past time.”
    “Really.” Again, it wasn’t a question.
    Tricia took in her sister’s guilty expression. “What did she tell you?”
    “Not much. But when she spoke about it, she sounded quite wounded.” And Angelica sounded quite judgmental. Trust Angelica to take someone’s—anyone’s—side against her.
    Tricia glared at her sister for a long moment before returning to her lunch.
    “Why don’t you go out back and apologize to Pammy? I’m sure she’d forgive you. And it wouldn’t hurt to let her come back and stay with you for a few more days—just until she gets settled.”
    “I don’t have anything to apologize for,” Tricia said, viciously stabbing a chunk of tuna. “And I do not want her staying with me for even one more night. You’ve got just as much room in your apartment—she can stay with you, if you’re that worried about her.”
    Angelica ignored the suggestion. “Well, then, just go talk to her. You two have been friends for way too many years to just throw it all away.”
    Would she feel that way if Tricia told her about the stolen check?
    “I’d seen her maybe three times in the last eighteen years, before she camped out in my living room for two weeks, so it’s not like we’ve been close.”
    “Yes, but it’s important to maintain old friendships—especially as we age.”
    Tricia eyed her sister’s getup; she looked like she was more than two weeks early for Halloween—hardly an example of aging gracefully. Angelica had added on years, but her outlook hadn’t caught up with the inevitable march of time.
    Angelica nudged Tricia’s arm. “Go on. And while you’re out there, you can see if they’ve delivered my one-and-a-half-yard Dumpster. It was supposed to arrive by this afternoon—two weeks late.”
    “I don’t want to go out there at all.”
    “Tricia,” Angelica said, using the same tone of voice their mother had employed when she’d tried to shame the girls into doing something she wanted.
    “What?”
    “Go out there and make nice with Pammy while I call my soda distributor. I think they shorted me by a case. I’m going to need it for tomorrow’s crowd. Now, where did I put the business card with their phone number?” she said, and crouched down to search the shelf under the counter.
    “Okay, I’m going. But when I get back, I’m going to finish my lunch and then I’m going back to work.”
    “Of course, of course,” Angelica muttered, her voice muffled as she leaned further under the counter.
    Tricia sidled past the lunch counter and pushed through the swinging half-doors into the narrow kitchen. For a short-order cook, Jake was fairly temperamental. Angelica had complained that he’d often leave without fully cleaning his work space. As expected, he was already gone for the day and had left the place a mess of unwashed pots and pans. Angelica, or more likely Pammy, had her work cut