By eleven in the morning, the Irvine sun had erased every reasonable outdoor plan.
The forecast said eighty-eight degrees. Daddy’s phone said it felt like eighty-five, which Arya considered suspicious.
“How can it feel colder than it is?”
“Weather has complicated feelings,” Julie said.
She lay beneath the ceiling fan with frozen peas balanced on her forehead.
Mama had come home late from an Ali Wong show in San Bernardino. She had laughed until her cheeks hurt, driven back through the dark, and announced at breakfast that she loved everyone but would prefer to love them quietly until noon.
At 11:07, Jiya opened Mama’s door and whisper-shouted, “Are you sleeping?”
“I was,” Mama said.
At 11:12, Arya needed the blue tape.
At 11:16, Daddy dropped a tray of ice and said a word that brought both girls running with unusual interest.
At 11:20, Julie sat up.
“This family requires public services.”
She taped a sign to the living-room wall:
ORCHARD HILLS EMERGENCY COOLING CENTER
FREE ADMISSION. COMPLAINT REQUIRED.
“Why is a complaint required?” Arya asked.
“Funding.”
Julie placed four chairs beneath the air-conditioning vent. A wooden spoon became the official microphone.
Jiya went first.
“State your emergency,” Julie said.
“I’m hot.”
“That is a temperature. What is your complaint?”
“Arya has the chair that turns.”
“Approved.”
Arya complained that Jiya always wanted whatever she had. Daddy complained that everyone heard his bad word but nobody heard him ask who had left a crayon melting in the car.
Julie admitted them both.
Jamie arrived with iced tea and read the sign.
“You’ve made distress a condition of entry.”
“People value things more when there is paperwork.”
“Who decides whether a complaint is good enough?”
Julie raised the wooden spoon. “The impartial microphone.”
“Does it ever disagree with you?”
“It respects institutional stability.”
Jamie sat in the chair away from the vent.
“I’d like to appeal.”
“Twenty-dollar filing fee.”
“Nobody has said what they actually want.”
The room grew quiet, except for Jiya chewing an ice cube she had been told not to chew.
Jamie looked at Arya. “Do you want the chair, or do you want Jiya to ask before taking your things?”
“The second one.”
“And Jiya, do you want the chair?”
Jiya stopped chewing. “I wanted Arya to play with me.”
“Then why take her chair?”
“Because she was sitting in it.”
Julie nodded. “The logic is regrettably sound.”
Jamie turned to her. “What do you want?”
“I’m administering relief.”
“Try again.”
Julie glanced toward Mama’s closed door.
“Everybody did something interesting yesterday. Today they’re tired or hot or busy. I wanted everyone in one room long enough for something to happen.”
Jamie pointed to the sign. “Could people enter by saying what they want instead?”
Julie frowned, then crossed out COMPLAINT REQUIRED and wrote:
SAY WHAT YOU WANT. NO SPEECHES.
Arya wanted ten quiet minutes, then she would play restaurant with Jiya. Daddy wanted help removing yellow wax from a cup holder without first explaining the yellow wax. Jamie wanted iced tea without a debate about hydration.
Just after noon, Mama came downstairs in sunglasses, though the living room was not sunny.
“What happened to complaints?”
“Governance reform,” Julie said.
Mama took the wooden spoon. “I want a mango popsicle and twelve minutes during which nobody asks about blue tape.”
“Approved,” everyone said.
They ate popsicles beneath the vent. Arya read. Jiya waited almost nine minutes before opening her restaurant.
Julie added one last rule:
FEELINGS MAY BE EXPRESSED. FROZEN DESSERTS MAY NOT BE HOARDED.
Jamie looked at the popsicle behind Julie’s back.
“That second rule is about you.”
“The cooling center does not discuss individual cases.”