all about inclusion! One day a year.”
“It’s not just one day,” Sam said. “What about the fellows?”
“Right,” Isabella said. “The college has this program for black first-generation college students who got amazing grades in high school. The Lucretia Chesnutt fellows. They’re all totally brilliant. They get a free ride. But the way the school trots them out on special occasions—it’s weird.”
“I think it’s inspiring,” Sam said.
Isabella rolled her eyes, and Elisabeth understood that she was not as earnest, as pure, as Sam was.
“A fellowship for geniuses doesn’t address actual, structural problems,” Isabella said. “School inequality, access to test prep. Only the most elite kids get singled out. What about everyone else at a bad high school? Don’t they deserve a shot?”
“I feel like you stole that opinion from Shannon,” Sam said. Then, to Elisabeth, “Our friend Shannon is one of the fellows.”
Elisabeth nodded. “Ahh.”
“You can’t steal an opinion,” Isabella said. “I agree with Shannon is more like it.”
“Why shouldn’t someone who excels academically be rewarded for it?” Sam said. “I didn’t grow up around the kind of people who went to schools like this one. I didn’t have an SAT tutor like you and Lexi. If I hadn’t seen President Washington’s speech online, I would never have applied.”
Sam looked at Elisabeth. “President Washington gives this incredible lecture called ‘If Women Ran the World.’ It’s on YouTube. I’ve watched it like a hundred times.”
“Sam has a major crush on President Washington if you couldn’t tell,” Isabella said.
It was both touching and absurd, how they referred to her that way, as if she were the actual president.
“And what does she suggest would happen if women ran the world?” Elisabeth said.
“That it would be better in every way,” Sam said.
Elisabeth snorted.
“You don’t think so?”
“I think it all comes down to power. And the individual. Women are every bit as capable of being evil and corrupt as men are. They just haven’t had as much opportunity to show it, historically speaking.”
“But you’re a feminist, right?” Sam said.
“I don’t even know what that word means anymore. They use it to sell soap now.”
Both girls stared at her. Elisabeth felt like the biggest cynic who had ever lived.
“Yes, though. I’m a feminist. Of course,” she said. “I should stop talking. Sleep deprivation has left me with no filter.”
She turned to Isabella. “Gil’s going through a bad patch. They call them Wonder Weeks. The baby is up all night and a total disaster, but allegedly by the end of it, he’s mastered new skills. Though I think that might just be something they tell mothers so we don’t go insane.”
“Doesn’t your husband ever get up with him?” Isabella said.
“Iz,” Sam said.
“We switch off at bedtime and in the morning, but in the middle of the night, Andrew doesn’t wake up. He doesn’t hear the baby crying. I have no idea how that’s possible, but that’s what he says.”
“What if you didn’t hear him crying either?” Isabella said.
“But I do. I even wake up somehow knowing he’s about to cry.”
“But what if you gave it a minute? Didn’t jump up. What would happen?”
Elisabeth didn’t think she could lie there and listen to Gil cry until the sound grew loud enough to rouse her husband, but she smiled at the suggestion.
The back door opened then. Andrew stepped into the kitchen.
They started giggling like ten-year-old girls at a slumber party.
“What?” he said. “Aww, look at the mouse.”
Andrew lifted Gil from his bouncy seat atop the counter.
“Is it safe to have this here?” he said.
Few things annoyed her more than when he walked in and immediately critiqued some baby-related decision she had made in his absence.
A response came quickly to mind, but Elisabeth chose not to say it out loud.
Andrew looked into the bowls of candy. Only a handful of Tootsie Rolls and Milk Duds remained. She should have thought to save him some.
“The trick-or-treaters cleaned us out,” she said.
Elisabeth saw him eye the mountain of silvery wrappers on the counter, next to the empty wine bottle.
“Huh,” he said.
“Oh wow. It’s six-fifteen,” Sam said. “We better get going before the nail place closes.”
Elisabeth went with them to the front door.
“Thanks for keeping me company,” she said. “Have fun tonight.”
Isabella hugged her goodbye, a move that surprised her.
“Think about my advice, please,” Elisabeth said.
“Okay,” Isabella said. “And you think about mine.” She cast a glance in the general direction of Andrew.
Elisabeth watched them cross the lawn to Isabella’s car, a blue Audi.
Across the street, Debbie had installed an inflatable black