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“I’m glad that he did,” Gramps said. “I must have had this date on one of the forms you filled out when you were my student and I should have put it in my calendar. Oliver, do you have any candles? We’re going to sing.”

Oliver only had a large-sized candle but he held it up behind a cupcake and they both sang beautifully. He told me to make a wish before I blew it out, and I thought for a while about that. Then they clapped when the flame was extinguished.

“Thank you for this,” I told them. A few years before, I had bought myself a little cake and blown out eighteen candles, but this felt very different. “I hope my wish comes true.”

“Don’t tell us what it is,” Gramps warned. “I want it to come true, too.” He smiled at his grandson and I had a good idea of what he was thinking. Then he nodded at me, approvingly. “I see that you dressed up for the day. I always liked those earrings.”

“Would that kind of thing be a good gift for you?” Oliver asked. “Jewelry? I was just wondering, apropos of nothing.”

“Don’t get me a present,” I ordered, but the thought of it made me smile widely. “Not unless you really want to.”

Gramps stayed to hang out for a while but he said no, he couldn’t drive me back to the Milaflores Building. “I have things to do and I’m not heading there. I don’t want to waste the gas going out of my way. I’m an old man and I shouldn’t be on the roads so much,” he told me.

“That’s a lot of excuses,” I answered, but he bustled out the door, jumped into the hearse, and got on his way before I could hop in with him.

“He thinks that he’s sly and conniving,” Oliver mentioned. “I’ve never met someone with more transparent motives.”

“But his cupcakes are delicious.” I took a second one, because it was my birthday and also because I’d recently discovered that my mother had wanted to abandon me. I deserved two cupcakes.

“Are you really free this afternoon?” I asked. “Because I want to buy some real furniture, not the kind I have to put together, and I want to buy it locally and get it delivered as soon as possible. Do you want to come?”

“I’d love to. There’s nothing I like as much as a furniture showroom,” he answered, and I told him he sounded just like his gramps. “You wound me, Kat,” he said, but he was laughing. We did go shopping and I picked out a couch that I would like to sit on, a table that came in one piece with matching chairs, a new desk that would hold more than a cup of coffee, and, most importantly, a bed. I also got real mattresses that didn’t need to be inflated. It would all be delivered within the next few days.

“Now, that’s a good birthday present,” I said with satisfaction. I hadn’t gotten the bookshelves but I would soon and then my apartment would be just the way I wanted it. “Want to come over and sit on the floor to have pizza?” I suggested. All the shopping had taken a while, and I was hungry again.

He suggested that a restaurant with chairs might be better so we headed to one he thought I would like. “We could go to have south Indian food instead,” I said. “Isn’t that your favorite?”

“I had it for lunch. Actually, I didn’t eat anything except a piece of chapati before I heard from Gramps and ran out.”

“You left when you heard about me?”

Oliver nodded. “He said that you were upset, very upset, and you weren’t answering him. He thought it might have been about your mother’s Spiderman boyfriend and I got extremely worried. So I left and she—I was meeting Lexi,” he explained. “She was angry but now she understands.”

“What does she understand?” Because whatever it was, I didn’t get it.

“She’s not my priority. She’s not anything to me, not anymore,” he answered. “I was meeting her to tell her, face to face, that we are fully done. Just because she may live close by, I’m not going to see her. I’m not going to answer her texts, I’m not going to meet up for lunch again. I’m not interested in—” He broke off again and I could see him blushing slightly.

“Oh, she wanted to have sex?”

“I’m not interested. She understood it very clearly when I jumped up and ran out of the restaurant but she’s angry about it. She texted to say that I was a coward, just like I was about the high dive. Now she thinks that I’m also afraid of her raw sexuality and of my own happiness.”

“What?” I shook my head. “I have questions. She was the person who goaded you into jumping off the high dive at your college? Your girlfriend?”

“She thought I was behaving, uh, pardon me for saying it, like a pussy. I decided that she was probably right so I climbed up and jumped. But I’m not afraid of being happy and I’m not exactly sure what she means about sex. I’m definitely not afraid of that.”

“I agree that it’s better if the two of you don’t talk anymore,” I advised. “I don’t like her, even if she is so pretty. She does have a lot of raw sexuality but that doesn’t excuse her from being mean to you. I’m sure you don’t like being afraid of heights, because who would? I don’t enjoy getting nervous every time a car goes over a bump in a parking lot or when a big truck rattles my windows, either.” I realized I was gesturing with my hands, kind of like how my mom did it but a lot angrier. I realized that because I knocked off one of my earrings and quickly grabbed it from the floor mat, hoping I hadn’t hurt it. It wasn’t mine—

Then I stared at the little piece of jewelry in my hand. “Wait a minute.”

“I’m sorry I used that word. I hate that word,” he told me. “There are a lot nicer ways to discuss a woman’s, uh…”

“That’s ok, I’ve heard it before. Look.”

At the next stop sign, he did glance down at my hand. “Your earring?”

“No, it’s not. It’s Vera’s earring. Vera Doyle, from the garden apartment.”

“I know who you mean. That was nice of her to loan them to you,” he said.