"I am a nightmare," Miranda had always said to her latest assistant, smiling innocently.

And it was quite true. Her bullying was both caustic and disarmingly kindhearted. Half the time, she was harsh toward her assistants, demanding order and obedience to compensate for her own natural disorder and rebellious confusion. The other half, she spoiled them like a coddling mother. They never knew if she would snap or stroke. Her assistants trembled, preened, adored and loathed her. They came and then went as quickly as they could extract themselves, but it was she who always made certain they got wonderful new jobs. People called Miranda many things — a horror, a wild woman, and, following her example, a nightmare — but never in all the annals of gossip and slander in her small world had anyone ever doubted her loyalty or, finally, her goodwill. She specialized in melodrama, in her life and in her work, but in both areas, Miranda Weissmann insisted on a happy ending.

For the members of Miranda's family, her unpredictability had become predictable. There were tantrums when she was young; when she was older, a combative dedication to whatever it was to which she was dedicated at the moment, and, at every age, the demands and the drama. But with Miranda's bombast and theatricality, always, came an almost fanatical tenderness. Miranda was manipulative, Josie once whispered to Betty, late at night in bed when he'd been thinking about how lucky he was to have inherited his little family: Miranda was manipulative, but who better to be manipulated by?

Manipulanda, Annie called her.