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something nicer. I mean, before the Almost Home.”
    “I don’t have to share a room with my sister. It’s a step up,” Kristen said.
    Marydale led her back downstairs and onto the porch.
    “Try this.” Marydale retrieved a growler from beneath the porch swing and produced two small canning jars. She poured an inch of cedar-colored liquid into each jar.
    Kristen took a sip and coughed. It was awful, but there was a hint of something sweet behind the burn of bottom-shelf alcohol, a kind of smoky-floral taste the philosophy major might just have done the honor of deeming bourgeois.
    “It’s not bad. If you know what to expect,” Kristen said.
    Marydale laughed. “I’ll take it.”
    They discussed the details of the rental. Month to month. Shared utilities. The cord of wood. Marydale said she was happy to have a roommate, and Kristen promised to draw up a contract on paper. They finished their whiskey, and Kristen knew it was time to go, but the idea of one last night reading legal briefs in a stuffy room at the Almost Home wasn’t particularly appealing.
    “Do your parents still live around here?” Kristen asked.
    “They passed.” Marydale walked to the porch railing and looked out.
    “I’m sorry.”
    The land around the house was dry and brown, except for a patch of sunflowers. Squash vines and tomatoes tangled around their feet, and their heads turned toward the sun setting behind the house. Kristen watched Marydale’s profile in the golden light.
    “I miss my mom.” Marydale pursed her lips in an apologetic smile. “It’s all been such a mess. If I had a dollar for everyone who told me I should feel lucky my folks aren’t around to see what I’ve done with my life…”
    “You’d be rich a woman?”
    “I’d be something.”
    “People are assholes. What’s wrong with being a waitress?”
    If Marydale had teared up and started a long-winded rendition of her life story, Kristen would have mumbled something about needing to study the next day’s docket, but Marydale just shook her head.
    “You miss her. That’s something,” Kristen added. “I haven’t talked to my mother in more than a year, and I don’t miss her. A year isn’t long enough.”
    “But she’s your mom.” It wasn’t an accusation.
    “She’s living in Vancouver with some guy she met on an app call Cream Meet.”
    “Ooh. Grade A,” Marydale said. “I bet he’s fabulous.”
    If Donna had said it, Kristen would have told her to fuck off, but if Donna had said it, it would have been a jibe. My parents might not speak English, but at least they’re not picking up drunks at the Tik Toc Bar. Marydale smiled slightly and looked down, just missing Kristen’s eyes. And Kristen felt like Marydale was holding open a door. Come on in, she seemed to be saying. We’re friends now.
    “The last time I talked to her, she wanted me to buy her a whole set of recording equipment from Craigslist,” Kristen said. “She’d been to some seminar that told her she had to manifest the dream in real life .”
    “And her dream is to own a recording studio?”
    “She thinks she’s a singer. She wants to be a star, but all she does is karaoke bars and guys at karaoke bars. And she sends videos to those reality TV shows. She got called in for an audition once, and they aired it for two seconds along with a bunch of other train wrecks. She thought she was going to be discovered.”
    “Did you buy it for her?” Marydale asked, but her face said she knew Kristen wouldn’t do that.
    “No.”
    “What did you tell her?”
    “I was so mad about that fucking equipment.” It felt good to say it out loud. She remembered her mother wheedling on the phone. You always were my girl, Kristi.
    “She shouldn’t have asked,” Marydale said.
    “When I said no, she tried to get my sister, Sierra, to drop out of high school and manifest the dream with her. They were going to be a duo.” Kristen remembered the tiny apartment she had shared with