Another shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Well, do you want to?”

“I said I don’t know.”

Then why tell me about it? I was about to ask if she thought the treatment had helped any when we were suddenly attacked by the fire-breathing Lenore-monster, who had woken from its restful sleep down in the dungeons. And now it was hungry.

Actually, it was just my mom, coming up from the downstairs bedroom. “I thought you were going to make us breakfast, Alice,” she was saying. “It’s nearly noon.” Then her eyes caught onto Bette and she smiled charmingly. “We have company?”

I made with the introductions: “Mom, this is Bette Porter; Bette, this is my mom, Lenore.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Bette said, shaking my mom’s hand. My mom decided to be weird and do this thing where she looked Bette over from head-to-toe with big dramatic flourish, before finally saying, “Likewise.”

“Anyway,” I said. “I was gonna make breakfast, so…”

“Right,” Bette said. “I should really try to get back before my lunch meeting.”

“Thanks for the book.”

She nodded, honored my mother with a captivating smile, said “Nice meeting you” and showed herself to the door. It was only after she was out that I realized it might’ve been polite of me to walk her to the door, even though we were only standing like, eight feet from it.

I went back to the refrigerator to find something to make for breakfast while Mom sat down at the kitchen table and pretended to read the newspaper. I say “pretend” because the only thing my mom ever reads is the entertainment section, and I’m telling you, she had that paper open to sports. Like, okay, Mom.

I figured I could make scrambled eggs and probably wouldn’t botch them too badly and if Mom was really serious about me making breakfast for the dogs, too, I could put some in their dishes. And then suddenly, behind me, I hear this big thump and I looked over-there was Mom, the paper flat on the table and her palms pressed against it, giving me this look, the same look Blair on Empire Falls got every time she came up with some sort of scheme that was going to land some poor, unsuspecting girl in the hospital so that Blair could have the man of her dreams.

But what she said was, “Well, I thought she was gorgeous! And I don’t see why you broke up with her!”

I grimaced. “Mom. I didn’t break up with her, we were never dating. God.”

“She drives all this way to see you…”

“She drove all this way to make sure there was no trace of me left in her house.”

“And you don’t even invite her to stay for breakfast?”

“Mom!” She raised her eyebrows and I sighed. I indicated the open carton of eggs. “Do you want scrambled eggs?”

“All right.”

“Good. Fine.”

In between cracking the eggs and beating them and putting them in the pan, I didn’t think of Bette Porter once.

Not once.