“So say, ‘Hi, Bennie, you gonna make me a partner?’ ” Anthony kissed her neck. “Just do it. It weighs on your mind. Take a risk.”

“But she hasn’t even mentioned it. She may not even be thinking about it.”

“Trust me, she is. Anybody who has to slice up another piece of the pie is thinking of it. Besides, it shows you have initiative. Ask her. You might be happily surprised.”

Half an hour later, Mary was heading to work, standing in a packed C bus, where the air-conditioning was set to Public Transportation. She’d showered and put on a casual white dress with flats, but still felt wilted as she slid her hand along the greasy overhead bar, picked her way through the dimpled arms, big bottoms, and Payless sneakers, then fell into a seat by the window. Her hair would explode in this humidity. Maybe she shouldn’t talk to the boss today. She didn’t have partnership hair.

The bus lurched off, and she looked out a window smeared with Vaseline, motor oil, or maybe anthrax. They passed a check cashing agency, a dollar store, and a storefront diner, and she did a double-take when she spotted a couple at one of the tables. It looked like her father and Fiorella Bucatina were sitting at a table in the window.

“Pop?” Mary blurted out, standing up as the bus lurched forward. She bumped into a teenager, almost stumbling, then caught herself on the overhead bar. “Excuse me, sorry.”

“No problem.”

Mary tried to get off, but a tourist with a suitcase blocked her way. “Excuse me, I’m sorry, I have to get off.”

“Hold your horses,” the tourist said, but the bus was already moving down Broad Street, rocking from side-to-side.

“Wait, please, stop the bus!” Mary wedged her way through the crowd, but she couldn’t reach the front fast enough. The diner receded into summer haze, so she hung on to the pole and dug into her purse, found her cell phone, flipped it open, and pressed H for Home.

“Allo?” her mother answered.

“Ma? It’s me, how you doin’?”

“I’m a good, Maria, how you?”

“Good, Ma.” Now that they had established everybody was good, Mary got to the point. “Ma, where’s Pop?”

“He’s a no here. He take Fiorella to St. Agnes Hosp’.”

So it was him! “The hospital? Why? What’s wrong with her?”

“She cut her finger, onna bread knife.”

“Was it bad?”

Her mother made a pfft noise. “No.”

“Did he eat breakfast before he left?”

“Sì, what you tink, I no feed your fath’?”

“And Fiorella, too?”

“Sure, sì, why, Maria?”

Mary wasn’t sure what to say. “Ma, I don’t like Fiorella.”

“Shh! Maria, no say such a thing, be nice, be good, she have such power, she hear.”

“She’d hear us, on the phone? Mom, that’s ridiculous. She’s a fake.” Mary told her mother what Fiorella did last night during the prayer, and nobody within earshot even looked over when she talked about the evil eye. They weren’t all Italian, but every ethnicity had its own superstitions, which was what they contributed to America, in addition to better food.

“Shh, Maria, basta, is bad luck, per favore, no, shh. She’s a nice, she got no family, no no-ting.”

The bus was almost at Mary’s stop. “Okay, Ma, tell Pop I said hi. I gotta go to work now.”

“No work so hard. Is too hot. Come home. Eat.”

Mary smiled, touched. Other people had parents who pushed them, but her earliest memory was her mother telling her that reading would ruin her eyes. “Bye, now, Ma. Love you.”

“Love you, Maria, be good.”

Mary pressed END, made her way to the front of the bus, and stepped out into the humidity, where her hair exploded.

Definitely not a good day to talk partnership.

Or maybe things couldn’t get worse.

Bennie didn’t know where she was, whether she was conscious or dreaming, alive or dead, but she didn’t want it to stop because it was light and golden and she was so happy. Her mother was alive, healthy, and well again, a vision holding out her arms, her long fingers moving and white as bone, reaching for her daughter.

Benedetta, her mother whispered. I am here.

Bennie hadn’t understood how much she had been hurting, she had been in pain, her heart sick and sore, part of her had stopped living, too. But that was over now and her mother was back, her hair loose and raven-dark, her skin smooth and soft, like when she was young, in the picture.

Her mother was wearing her blue chenille bathrobe, a welcome sight until later, when that was all she wore and she got so sick, and nothing could make her happy or cheer her up or cure her. If Bennie only tried harder, she could make her mother well again, but nothing she did worked, no good grades, no library books read, no spelling bees won, no merit badges, jokes, funny faces, nothing at all could make her mother smile again. But Bennie knew, even when she was little, that her mother was still inside her body and would come out if only she could, and the thing that stopped her was the disease.

Bennie was sitting at the kitchen table, and her mother was cooking pancakes, and she could breathe in the nice baked smell and hear the butter sizzling in the pan. Her mother was showing her how the bubbles popped on the pancakes, a secret clue they were ready to be turned over, and Bennie was standing next to her mother, barely reaching the pan, feeling the heat from the burner near her nose, watching the pancakes flip over so that the golden side came up, all smooth and fresh.

The best part was that they were together again, just the two of them, standing so close that Bennie could smell her mother’s tea rose perfume, hear her voice, reach out and touch her soft robe, and she was so happy to have her mother back again for just one pancake breakfast, just one morning, just one day would be all she could ask for. Her full heart told her what she knew was true, that this was surely heaven.

And even though they were both of them dead, Bennie felt that this moment was the only time she felt truly, happily, fully alive.

Alice accepted the pen from the guard while he watched her, his cop eyes narrowing. Her hand hovered over the log, then she said, “Between you and me, what time did the associates leave last night?”

“Don’t know. I wasn’t here. Herm was.”

“Let’s see.” Alice flipped the page backwards and ran her finger down the signatures. Her finger stopped at Judy Carrier’s signature but she glanced a few lines up at Bennie’s, took a mental snapshot, then flipped the page back and scribbled a decent forgery. “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

“The kids work hard, Bennie, and you know Mary’s shootin’ for partnership. She always comes in on Saturday.”

“I know.” Alice handed him the pen. “But I gotta whine about something, don’t I?”

“Don’t we all, Cinderella?” the guard said, and they both laughed as she told him good-bye, walked through the turnstile, and headed for the elevator bank. She found a swipe card in Bennie’s wallet and used it over the electronic reader, then glanced quickly at the building directory for ROSATO & ASSOCIATES.

Third floor.

She got inside, and when the elevator doors slid open, she exited and walked through a reception area stuffed with hotel art, blue chairs, shining tables, and a stack of fancy magazines. She came upon a hallway that opened onto a conference room with a table made from a single slab of wood, its edges rough, black bark. It must have cost a fortune, and it was surrounded by soft navy blue swivel chairs, a walnut entertainment center, a plasma TV, and a mini-kitchen in matching walnut. It was classy down to the tartan dog bed that read BEAR, which reminded her to get the dog’s body out of the basement before it started to stink.