“My kids will love you,” Maravelle says.

“Kids?” Shelby says, wary. “I don’t like kids.”

“You’ll like mine.”

“Why would I have anything to do with them?”

Maravelle grins. “You’re my babysitter, baby.”

Shelby might have used school as an excuse, she’s taking Advanced Biology, but it’s spring break, there are no classes, and if she doesn’t take a few days off from work she’ll lose her vacation time. Not that this is the vacation she had in mind. She was thinking she would sleep late, go to movie theaters during the day, and spend evenings at the Strand Book Store on Broadway looking for Ray Bradbury books she hasn’t yet read.

“I need you to watch them,” Maravelle insists. “You’re the only one I trust.”

This is probably the moment Ben had mentioned, when Shelby can show Maravelle she’s a true friend. This is beyond concert tickets. This is her life. As soon as she says yes, Shelby is furious with Ben. He always thinks she’s more human than she is. That night as she packs, Shelby won’t talk to him. She tends to blame him for whatever goes wrong.

“Don’t worry. There’s nothing to taking care of kids,” Ben assures her.

But Ben has nephews and nieces and is kindhearted. Shelby is nasty and ill-tempered. She shudders at the thought of babysitting. “I don’t even know how to talk to a child.”

“Talk to them like you talk to me,” Ben advises. “But without the curse words. They repeat what you say, like parrots.”

She’s agreed to three days with Maravelle’s children. And in Queens, a place she only travels through by train when visiting her parents. Because she has the dogs, Shelby takes a cab out to Astoria, which costs a fortune. It takes forty minutes with the meter ticking before the cab reaches the street of triple-deckers where Maravelle rents a ground-floor apartment. Shelby gets out and stands on the sidewalk, then walks up a weedy path. The bell doesn’t work and she has to bang on the door. Maravelle appears and embraces her. “You made it to Queens!”

The boys have ducked behind the door and peer out. Jasmine, a pretty girl who resembles her mother, clearly disapproves as soon as she gets a look at Shelby. “She can’t take care of us!” Jasmine declares. “She’s bald! I’m not going to be seen with her.”

Shelby really doesn’t care how she looks, but Jasmine’s reaction reminds her of how concerned she’d been about her appearance back in high school. She used to get up in the dark so she’d have time to brush her hair a hundred strokes and apply her makeup. Nowadays, she doesn’t even look in a mirror. She’s afraid no one will be staring back at her.

Maravelle shows Shelby around, but since it’s a one-bedroom apartment, there isn’t much to see. The bathroom is so overstuffed with towels and toiletries that things keep falling off the shelves. Maravelle sleeps on a foldout couch in the living room, and the three kids share the bedroom.

“You literally have no privacy,” Shelby says.

“Well, for the next three days, neither do you.”

Shelby unpacks, which takes about two minutes. She’s got underwear, T-shirts, and a whole lot of kibble. The twins hang around staring at Shelby’s dogs. The surgery to remove Blinkie’s eye was a success; at a thousand bucks it should have been. He now has a permanent wink.

“He looks creepy,” Teddy says after his initial study of the dog. Teddy is the take-charge twin. Sometimes his daring gets him into hot water at school and Maravelle is called in to the principal’s office.

“That dog is none of your business,” Maravelle tells him before she turns to Shelby. “That other eye’s not going to drop out while you’re here, is it?”

Shelby notices the kids are always getting something out of the refrigerator. It’s like they never stop eating. “Do I have to cook for them?”

“No pizza and no junk,” Maravelle informs her. “I made out a menu for every day, and I already went grocery shopping. All you have to do is get them ready for school and on the bus, and be here waiting for them at two. Then make their supper.”

“We don’t get home till three,” the quieter twin, Dorian, reminds his mom.

“I want Shelby here at two, just in case you’re early. Don’t butt in,” Maravelle tells him. “Go out and play.”

The twins do so. There’s a small yard out back, where they’ve set up a kind of swing. They’re pretty cute boys, Shelby thinks, if you liked children. But Jasmine is another story. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, sulking. Just one of the girls.

“The kids can go in the yard and to the playground on the corner. No farther,” Maravelle continues with her rules. “And Jasmine has to come directly home. No friends. No hanging out. She’s got homework.”

“Stop talking about me,” Jasmine says.

“And no makeup,” Maravelle tells Shelby.

Jasmine storms away. The back door slams.

“You’re a hard-ass,” Shelby says, impressed.

“What happened to me is not going to happen to Jasmine.”

“Sex?” Shelby says.

Maravelle throws her a look. “A baby at sixteen.”

The responsibility of Maravelle’s life is mind-boggling. “I don’t think you should leave your kids with me.”

“Well, I don’t have anyone else, so stop talking like that. You’ll be fine. You’ll probably wind up wanting kids of your own by the time you’re through.”

Shelby tries to think of a way to get out of her promise, but before she knows it, Maravelle hugs her children, grabs her suitcase, and is gone. Now Shelby is in charge. She makes boxed macaroni and cheese that the kids say is inedible. After a single bite Shelby agrees and heats up a pizza she finds in the freezer. She lets them watch whatever they want on TV just so she can be alone. She goes out to the yard and lets her dogs sniff around. She takes one of the cigarettes she keeps with her for times of extreme anxiety. She can almost see the stars come out. Queens is not Manhattan, but it certainly isn’t the suburbs. Sirens blare in the distance. The back door opens and Jasmine comes out.

“You smoke?” Jasmine says.

“No.” Shelby stubs out the cigarette on the concrete steps.

“You were too smoking. I saw you.”