Swish-click:  Bathtub again.  Cygnet's here and she's just thrown something into the tub; a cheerful yellow rubber ducky, it is.  It appears to be brand-new, and it squeaks magnificently.  "Quit losing weight," she says.  "If you start making me look fat, one of us is going to have to die."  I smile, but the color fades out of the ducky as I'm looking at it.

Somewhere off in the distance I hear the sounds of voices raised in anger, and one of them sounds familiar.  "Is Molly here?" I ask Cygnet.

She nods.  "She is, and is she peeesed.  I wouldn't go down there, if I were you."

With my two bestest friends in the house though, I'd be an idiot for sitting soaking in the bath, so I get up.  Cygnet doesn't care; we had gym together for two years, and I've seen her burn scars.  "What's going on?"

"She's giving Ian hell.  He didn't tell either of us that you were coming down to Detroit.  I would've been at work that day, but Molly asked him to tell her when the meeting was, so she could get a flight out, and he lied and told her you weren't going to be there."

Oh, dear.  Molly has put figurative heads on pikes for far less.  "Well, he deserves it then.  It would've been nice to see you guys."

"We shouldn't intervene," Cygnet says, "but let's eavesdrop.  God!  Look at all those ribs.  You make me sick."

"It's not a good diet," I tell her.  I wrap up in a towel and we sneak to the top of the steps.  It sounds like they're in the living room, which is underneath my room, but the sound carries better through the foyer.  We can't really hear Ian, but Molly's voice carries when she's irritated.

"Take me through your thought process here, Ian.  I want to know exactly how it went.  You lied to us because you didn't want to bother us, or because you thought it would be good for Lex not to see any of her friends?  How is this helping her, exactly?"

Ian's response sounds like a mumble. 

"What doctor?  I've talked to Josie--she hasn't seen Lex since July…Josephine Hu, Ian, Lexi's physician.  I know you've met her.  So what doctor is giving you this wonderful advice on how to help her?"

I look at Cygnet, who's barely containing her laughter.  I have a question, somewhere, but forget what it is.

"Okay, so which is it?  Either the mysterious unnamed doctor thought she shouldn't see us, or Lex decided at the last minute to go and you didn't tell anyone.  I'm sure I couldn't have gotten a flight on such short notice, but that was my decision to make, Ian, not yours.  There are plenty of flights between Boston and Detroit and I suspect I could have found one.  And Cygnet lives fifteen minutes away!  You couldn't have called her?"  Molly's voice raises suddenly.  "Shut up!  I don't care what she said, don't interrupt me."

"Trying to speak out of turn," Cygnet says quietly.  "Classic male error."

"Why do they always try to argue?" I say.  It's true, too.  There is no arguing with Molly when she's like this, the best thing to do is shut up and take it; fighting back just makes her angrier and prolongs the thing.  Ian's doing just what Molly's ex-husband used to do, interjecting just enough attempts at self-defense to keep her wheel spinning.  "This could go on for hours."

"Should've brought popcorn."

I don't feel like listening to arguing though.  I never did like listening to Molly and Rich fight, either.  I creep back upstairs so I can put clothes on. 

Cygnet follows and sits on my bed while I look for something to wear.  "So," she says, "OJ and Tupac Shakur knocked you off the front pages of the tabloids, you know.  You're going to have to do something drastic if you want that coveted spot back."

"What did Tupac Shakur do?"

"He died, sweetie.  Not that you should do that, of course, if you commit suicide, I promise you I will get to hell so I can kick the living shit out of you.  But anyway, yeah, someone friggin' shot him."

That's incredibly sad, but the fact that the world has been spinning without me is…something.  It doesn't feel as horrible as I suppose it should, but it doesn't feel good either, it's somewhere in between.  "Did anybody else famous go and get themselves dead while I've been napping?"

"Um, let me think.  Ella Fitzgerald and Erma Bombeck pop to mind."

"Ella Fitzgerald?"

Cygnet nods.  "It would be so much nicer if the shitty artists died once in a while.  You missed two big plane crashes, too."

"Tell me something cheerful, creepo."

She rolls her eyes.  "Clinton beat Dole, and there was much rejoicing.  They cloned a sheep, they're making an electric car, Lollapalooza kicked ass, and you missed the summer Olympics in Atlanta.  And you guys promised to get me tickets."

And just like that, I'm crying.  We were all going to go to Atlanta, that's right.  Ren promised Cygnet he'd take us.

"Aw, fuck, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said--hey, hey, it's okay."  Cygnet pulls me into a little hug and I sort of fall into her lap, wishing the waterworks would stop.  "I was just joking, Lexi, it's all right."

It's not all right, though.  It's never going to be all right again, and we both kind of know that I think.

"Besides, someone set off a big bomb there.  With our luck they'd have blamed us."

"What about the electric car?"

"Huh?"

"You said they're making an electric car. Who's building it?"

"Oh, GM.  I saw a picture of it--it looks like a suppository.  You'd never get me in one."  Cygnet drives a rusty old Isuzu Trooper.  When I close my eyes I can picture it, midnight blue with flowers of iron oxide blossoming around the fenders and the leading edge of the hood.  She has two bumper stickers on it.  One says, "Don't Mess With Texas;" the other, "Visualize Whirled Peas."

"I feel like Rip Van Winkle," I say, pushing myself up out of her lap and wiping tears with the towel.  "The world just went running along without me."

"It does that," she agrees.  "And you look like Rip Van Winkle, too.  When was the last time you shaved your legs?"