“Bobby sells them, you know.”

This made him look up. His eyes widened, and he shook his head back and forth, imploring her not to. No matter what he’d done, Bobby never thought that Carmen would sell him out, not like this. Not at the dinner table, without warning. She plowed ahead.

“Bobby sells the powders, I mean.” Carmen straightened up and tossed her hair over her shoulders, enjoying the sensation of having everyone listen to her for once. She thought she might never stop talking.

Franny puffed out her lower lip. “What do you mean?”

Sylvia froze with half an asparagus spear sticking out of her mouth, a green cigar.

“He sells them at the gym, at Total Body Power. But also at other places, like fitness conventions. You know Amway? It’s kind of like that.” Carmen had an aunt and uncle who sold Amway, and it wasn’t really the same thing, but she knew the look it would put on Franny’s face, the way the word would sound in her ear, cultish and cheap.

Sylvia spat out the uneaten half of her asparagus. “Wait, what?”

“What is she talking about, Bobby?” Franny said, knitting her fingers together under her chin. “This is crazy!”

Jim leaned back in his chair. The feeling he experienced wasn’t surprise or disappointment, but a very slight letting out of air, like a balloon slowly emptying. It was the sensation of Franny’s focus shifting away from him and onto their son, the kind of feeling no father ever wanted to admit that he enjoyed. His poor son was doing him a righteous favor, whether he wanted to or not. Jim half wanted to try to kiss Franny right then, to see how distracted she’d become, but no, that might ruin it. Instead, he remained quiet and tried to focus on what was being said.

Bobby’s stare remained fixed on his plate. He held his fork in his left hand, and his napkin in his right. He didn’t turn back to Carmen, or direct his chin upward to face his family. She was doing this to him on purpose. He told the truth to the moist chicken now cooling in front of him.

“It’s not that big of a deal. It’s just to make some extra money. The market’s been slow for the last couple of years, and Carmen thought . . .” Here he paused, closing his eyes. “It’s not her fault. I needed to make some money, and she got me a job at the gym.” Bobby looked up and made eye contact with his mother, who was still holding her hands as if in prayer. “I’m an assistant trainer, and I sell the Total Body Power Powder. It’s not bad. I’m much healthier than I was before.”

“Tell them the rest.” Carmen made a tiny smacking sound, satisfied. She wasn’t going to let herself smile, but she sure as hell was going to make sure everything came out that she thought should come out. He’d made her wait long enough.

“There’s more?” Franny made a noise like a fish on dry land.

“Take it down a notch, Fran,” Jim said, jeopardizing his newly secure position.

“Wait, so you’re a personal trainer now, too?” Sylvia said. “Like, people pay you to force them to do sit-ups? Like a gym teacher? Do you have a whistle?”

“What’s in the powders?” Lawrence wanted to know. “Is it that Xendadrine stuff that’s supposed to give you a heart attack?”

“Jesus!” Bobby said, pushing his chair back from the table. Carmen looked smug. Everyone else waited for him to continue. It wasn’t that working at a gym was so sordid, it just wasn’t what people like the Posts did, that’s what they were all thinking. Charles and Lawrence experienced pangs of guilt at this internal admission, having been discriminated against for their entire lives, and still occasionally hollered at on the sidewalk by morons in passing cars. Franny felt like a failure. Sylvia was trying to imagine her older brother wearing a sweatband and a Britney Spears–style microphone, doing dance steps at the front of an aerobics class. Jim, who had paid for Bobby’s college education, was the most disappointed, though he knew enough to mask such feelings. He had long suspected that Bobby’s career might not be going quite as gangbusters as he wanted everyone to think, and wasn’t entirely surprised by this new information. “Fine,” Bobby said, shaking his head. His soft curls bounced, as pretty as they’d always been, and Franny began to tear up.

“I started selling the powders because it seemed like a good way to make money more quickly, but in order to do that, I had to buy them in bulk, like, really in bulk, and they haven’t been as easy to unload as the manager at Total Body Power made it seem. They’re really good, all whey protein, but the shakes come out kind of grainy if you don’t mix them with enough liquid, and there’s an aftertaste.”

“You get used to it,” Carmen said. “Bobby doesn’t even drink them anymore, but I do. They’re really good for your muscle recovery after a workout.” Bobby gave her a sharp look, and she stopped talking.

“Eww,” Sylvia said, and Franny pinched her, hard.

“Anyway, I used my credit card to buy the powders from the distributer, and I haven’t been able to pay off my card in a while, and so it’s just getting a little, you know, expensive.” Bobby’s cheeks were the color of the wine, a red so deep they were nearly purple.

“How much are we talking, honey?” Franny leaned forward and reached for Bobby’s hands. The room was completely silent while everyone waited to hear the number.

“A hundred and fifty. Or so.” Bobby let his mother stroke his hands but wouldn’t look at her.

“A hundred and fifty?” Franny wasn’t thinking. She’d begun to brighten, and looked over her shoulder at Jim, confused. He frowned.

“A hundred and fifty thousand?” Jim asked.

Carmen was the only one who didn’t make an audible reaction, because she already knew the figure in question. It was $155,699, actually, but Bobby was rounding down. He hadn’t told her until it was nearly half as much, and that was a year ago, shortly after he began to work at the gym. It had been sweet watching him, Carmen wanted to tell his family that—seeing him holding a heavy bag steady for a middle-aged woman who wanted to get rid of her upper-arm wattle was nice, and Carmen liked that she could teach him things. Give him pointers. Some of the trainers had been to kinesiology school, but most of them were just gym rats who’d stuck around long enough to make a good impression. Bobby was neither, a pale New York City half-Jew who’d never done more than jog on a treadmill. The ladies found him unintimidating, and he reminded them of their sons up north. He was popular. If he’d only stuck to that, it would have been fine. They probably would have been married by now, maybe even living closer to the beach. But Bobby had liked the idea of easy money, and what was easier than making a milkshake?

Bobby nodded. The purple in his cheeks had shifted into a slightly greenish tint.

“Hmm,” Jim said. “We’ll talk about this later, son, okay? I’m sure it’ll all be fine.” He spoke with his most solid voice, then Franny withdrew her hands, and stood up, searching for a tissue. Sylvia laughed—she’d never heard so large a number said out loud so casually. Her bank account had approximately three hundred dollars in it. She used her parents’ credit card whenever she needed to, which wasn’t often. Charles and Lawrence held hands under the table. Charles wanted to remember to tell Lawrence that this was one of the possible perils of having children—having to bail them out. The chicken smelled heavenly, like butter and garlic and some tiny green things that Franny had snipped out of the planters by the pool, and he was starving.

“Well,” Charles said. “Would someone pass the wine?” Bobby lunged for the bottle on the table, delighted to have something else to do. “Lawrence, how are your werewolves coming along?”

Lawrence began to talk at length about the reshoots in Canada, about the waylaid bags of fur, and though everyone peeked at Bobby in their own time, even Franny made a show of listening to Lawrence talk about the movie, listening as if their lives depended on that rickety sleigh.