Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCR458QSH91AKST55W3QVWV

Molly spread the napkin across the diner table and smoothed it flat with the side of her hand. "That's the blueprint?" Bill said. "That's the blueprint." "It's a napkin." "It's a *scale* napkin. This ketchup blob is the bouncy castle." Bill leaned in, squinting. "And the mustard?" "Piñata. Suspended from the pergola, roughly here." She tapped. "Which is our biggest problem, Bill, and I need you to understand why." "Because of the candy." "Because of the *stampede*. Twenty-two children, average age six, and the second that donkey splits open they become a single organism with one hundred and ten legs and no conscience. I've seen a grown man go down in a piñata surge. He never walked right again." "Who?" "Terry." "Terry walks fine." "Terry *limps*, Bill, and he tells people it's from Bosnia." Molly slid the sugar dispenser onto the napkin. "This is the gift table. Present count, based on the invite list Denise photographed off the fridge: thirty-one, plus whatever the grandmother brings, which will be an envelope with eight dollars in it and will not be worth our time." "So we go in during the piñata." "We go in during 'Happy Birthday.'" Bill sat back. "That's ninety seconds." "Ninety seconds where every adult in that yard is holding up a phone and filming a cake. Not one of them is looking at the gift table. They're not looking at each other. They're not looking at their own children. It's the single most defenseless moment in modern American life." "And if they sing it twice?" "Then we get one hundred and eighty seconds and I buy you a milkshake afterward." Bill picked up a fry, considered it, put it down. "I've got a concern." "Voice it." "I'm the clown." "You're the clown." "I don't want to be the clown." "Bill—" "I want to be the magician. The magician gets a *cape*." "The magician has to do magic," Molly said. "The clown has to hold balloons and be sad. Which of those two is your skill set?" Bill was quiet a moment. "Fine." "You'll go in at two, twist a few dogs, establish yourself as furniture. Nobody remembers a clown's face. That's the whole point of a clown. It's a face you *legally cannot remember*." "And you?" "Catering. I arrive at two-thirty with a tray of things nobody eats. Cucumber. Hummus. The mother will thank me and never speak to me again, because the mother is losing her mind and has been since Tuesday." Molly moved the sugar dispenser two inches. "Presents go into the tablecloth, tablecloth goes into the empty hummus tray, hummus tray goes out the side gate to the van." "What van?" "The van that says 'Bouncy Castle Removal.'" "We don't remove the bouncy castle." "We absolutely remove the bouncy castle, Bill, it retails for four hundred dollars." She folded the napkin and tucked it into her jacket. "Deflate it during the cake." "During the cake." "Everything happens during the cake." She stood and dropped a five on the table. "Wear the big shoes. Nobody suspects a man in the big shoes."