“You like tuna salad?” she asks Kevin.

“Okay,” Kevin says, wolfing down the sandwich without looking at it, then licking his fingers with an appearance of slight distaste. He wipes his hands on his cutoffs and carefully takes off his sunglasses in order to rub clear, glossy sunscreen that smells like dog shampoo onto his face. He uses a different tube, white stuff, for his arms and legs. Taylor watches with very mild amazement. He pulls off his shirt and hands Taylor still another tube, marked Number 28.

“A lot of it’s just poor money-management skills,” he says, lying belly down on the towel, crossing his arms under his chin. “Know what I mean? Could you be real careful with the sunscreen? Don’t miss any spots. One time I missed a little triangle on the bottom part of my back and it was there for the entire summer and fall.”

“Poor money-management skills?”

“Well, yeah. It’s a matter of putting in the effort, and being careful what you spend, right? And just having the basic attitude of going out and getting what you want.”

“If you can dream it,” Taylor says, “you can be it.” She toys with the tube of sunscreen in her hands, reaching a conclusion that makes her stomach feel better instantly.

“Basically, that’s the American reality,” Kevin says. He closes his eyes and looks as if he plans to sleep.

Taylor rubs dry hands over Kevin’s sweaty back, taking her time, until he begins to snore softly. Then she opens the tube of sunscreen, applies it to one finger, and carefully writes across his back: WASH ME.

The apartment is dark when they get home. Taylor clicks on all the lights to try to make herself feel less dark inside. “I guess Barbie went out, huh?”

“She probably went to get some Cheese Doritos with her pocketbook money,” Turtle says.

“That’s a safe bet. You feel like a peanut-butter sandwich?

We’ll go to the grocery tomorrow, I promise. I’ve got a paycheck, babycakes! We can buy anything we want.”

“Chocolate cookies!”

“Lamb chops!” Taylor says.

“What’s that?”

“Lamb. You know, baby sheep.”

“Does it hurt the lamb to chop it?”

Taylor closes the refrigerator door, reluctantly. There is hardly anything inside, but she doesn’t want to lose the light.

Turtle is standing in the doorway, her eyebrows raised in their permanent question mark.

“Yeah,” Taylor says. “I’m afraid it does. I don’t know that it hurts the animals a lot, but they do kill them, before we eat them. That’s where meat comes from. Didn’t I ever tell you that?”

Turtle shrugs. “I guess.”

“So how about peanut butter and strawberry jam?”

“Do they kill the peanuts so we can eat them?”

“No.” Taylor thinks about this. “Well, yeah. I guess. A peanut isn’t an animal, though.”

“No, it’s a plant. It’s a seed. If we eat it, it doesn’t get to grow up.”

“Turtle, this is too sad. We can’t just give up on eating.

Let me make you a sandwich.”

“Mom, I’m not hungry.”

“At least a glass of milk, then, okay? They didn’t kill anything to get milk, they just drained it out of a happy old mama cow.”

“Mom, my tummy hurts.”

“Okay, sweetheart. Go get ready for bed, if you want. I’ll read you a book.”

“We read all the books already.”

“Back to the library tomorrow then. Promise.”

Turtle leaves the kitchen. Taylor’s stomach has begun hurting again, too. The sky outside the kitchen window is the shade of dark blue a blind person might imagine.

Turtle is back in the doorway, big-eyed. “Mom, why’s it so clean in here?”

Taylor tries to understand. She follows Turtle into the living room. “I’ll be darned, Barbie finally got in the mood to pick up all her stuff.”

They are both quiet for a minute, not wanting to look any farther. Then Turtle goes to the door of Barbie’s room.

“She cleaned up her room, too,” Turtle says. “She took the sheets and everything.”

“Damn it!” Taylor says. She sits on the broken brown sofa and tries hard not to cry. Those sheets were Taylor’s; she brought them all the way from Tucson.

“Did she leave a note, Turtle?”

For a long time there is only the sound of Turtle opening and closing dresser drawers. She comes back to the living room. “No note,” she says. “Remember when we found that note on our car? That said I’m sorry I didn’t see you at Migget’s and here’s fifty dollars?”