“Your mother’s cool with this? Bob and his boy telling you to be the next Cindy Crawford?”

“Cindy who?”

“Crawford,” I said. “She was-never mind. Your mom’s okay with this?”

“She’s not having a shit fit like you,” Syd said, shooting me a look. “And besides, Evan’s helping her since the thing.”

The thing. Susanne’s parasailing accident in Long Island Sound. Came down too fast, did something to her hip, twisted her knee out of shape. Bob, behind the wheel of his boat, dragged her a hundred yards before he knew something was wrong, the dumb fuck. Susanne didn’t have to worry about parasailing accidents when she was with me. I didn’t have a boat.

“You never said what you paid for the shades,” I said.

Sydney sighed. “It wasn’t that much.” She was looking at several unopened envelopes by the phone. “You should really open your bills, Dad. They’ve been there like three days.”

“Don’t you worry about the bills. I can pay the bills.”

“Mom says it’s not that you don’t have the money to pay them, you just aren’t very organized, so then you’re late-”

“The sunglasses. Where’d you get them?”

“Jesus, what’s the deal about a pair of sunglasses?”

“I’m just curious, is all,” I said. “Get them at the mall?”

“Yeah, I got them at the mall. Fifty percent off.”

“Did you save your receipt? In case they break or something?”

Her eyes bored into me. “Why don’t you just ask me to show you the receipt?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you think I stole them.”