The light turned green. I flipped my visor down.

“Or I guess I could call you,” Karen Sue screamed.Now she was looking worried. “You’re at your parents’ place, right? Jessica? Jess?”

I gunned the engine and took off. Whatever else Karen Sue said was lost in the roar of my muffler.

I didn’t slow down again until I’d reached my driveway. I cut the engine and was pulling off my helmet when Rob pulled up alongside me.

“What was that all about?” he wanted to know. “Who was that girl?”

“No one,” I said. “Just someone I used to know.”

Rob studied me through the open driver’s-side window. “Someone you used to know, eh,” he said tonelessly. “Guess there’re a lot of people around here who you could say that about.”

“Guess so,” I said, not rising to the bait…whatever it was. “Can I have my boxes, please?”

Rob shook his head. But he got out of the truck and went around to get the boxes of tapes, and set them gently on my lawn.

It was quiet on Lumbley Lane, which wasn’t exactly a main thoroughfare. There were only a few lights on in Tasha’s parents’ house across the street, and only a few on in my own house, as well. People in southern Indiana go to bed early—after the eleven o’clock news, at the latest. It’s not like in New York, where sometimes the parties don’t even start until midnight, or two or threeA .M. The only things still up at two or threeA .M. in this part of the world were crickets.

“Are you going to let me in on the plan,” Rob wanted to know, breaking the evening’s stillness, “or are you going to keep on shutting me out?”

I felt my jaw clench. “I’m not the one shutting people out,” I said.

“Oh, right.” Rob actually laughed at that.

“I’mnot ,” I insisted. How dare he laugh?He was the one who wouldn’t level with me about Miss Boobs-As-Big-As-My-Head. Not that I’d brought her up lately. But still.

“I can’t sit around and do nothing about this guy, Jess,” Rob said.

“I know that,” I said. “And we won’t be doing nothing. We’re just not going to hurt him. Physically, anyway. Look. You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

Which was when he looked down at me and said, an incredulous look on his face, “Oh, right. You mean the way you trust me?”

I knew what was coming then.

And I also knew I was nowhere near ready for it.

“I gotta go,” I said, and whirled around to seize one of the boxes and head for my parents’ front porch.

But Rob—just as I’d feared he would—slipped out a hand to catch my arm.

“Jess.”

His voice, in the still evening air, was gentle…though his grip, as I tried to shake it off, was most definitely not.

“I seriously don’t want to talk about this right now,” I said through gritted teeth, keeping my gaze rooted on my parents’ front door. No way was I going to look him in the eye. Noway. I’d melt if I did. I’d melt into a puddle of tears right there on the lawn.

“We have to talk about it sometime,” Rob said in that same gentle voice. But his grip didn’t loosen one iota. “I’m not letting you go until we do. Not this time.”

“You have to let me go,” I said, still keeping my gaze glued to the front door. My mother had painted it blue. When had she done that? It had always been red before. “The paper boy will call the cops in the morning if he gets here and finds us like this.”

“I don’t mean we have to do it tonight,” Rob said. And now he did relax his grip. I yanked my arm away and turned to glare at him. It was safe, I knew, to look at him. So long as he wasn’t touching me.

“But we’ve got to talk about it sometime before you leave to go back to New York,” Rob went on. His expression, in the light from the moon that was just beginning to rise, was as serious as I’d ever seen it. “I know you don’t want to, but I do. I have to. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move on if we don’t.”

I had to laugh at that one.

“Oh,” I said. “You haven’t moved on?”

He frowned. “No. What makes you think I have?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” I said sarcastically. “Maybe it was that blonde I saw you making out with.”

The frown deepened. “Jess. Itold you. That—”

“Jessica! There you are!”

My mother’s voice rang out across the lawn.

Thirteen

I turned around to find Mom on the front porch, looking down at us.

“Aren’t you going to invite your friend inside?” Mom wanted to know.

Then she flicked the porch light on and saw who “my friend” actually was.

“Oh,” she said, startled. “Hello, Robert.”

Rob looked as if he tasted something foul. But his voice, when he spoke, was friendly enough. “Hey, Mrs. Mastriani.”

“Well,” Mom said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“It’s okay,” I said, bending over to retrieve my boxes. I lifted them both without a problem. That’s how freaked out I was. I didn’t even notice how heavy they were. “You didn’t interrupt anything. We were just saying good night.”

“Right,” I heard Rob say as I hurried to cross the lawn. “We were just saying good night.”

“Call me in the morning, Rob,” I said, climbing the steps to the porch. “So we can talk about what we’re going to do about thatsituation .”

“I’ll do that,” Rob said, behind me. “Good night.”

“Good night, Robert,” my mother called to him. Then, to me, as I was crossing the porch, she said pleasantly, “What have you got there, Jessica?”

“Just some videotapes,” I said, brushing past her and heading into the house in the hopes of getting away before she noticed how red my face was…and how hard my heart was slamming into my ribs.

Fortunately, Mom didn’t seem to notice how discombobulated I was. She wasn’t interested in what was in the boxes I held, either. She was more interested in finding out what was going on between Rob and me.

“Videotapes?” she echoed, closing the front door behind us. Outside, I heard Rob start up his truck. “I see. Well. I didn’t know you and Rob Wilkins were back in touch.”

“We’re not,” I said. “Well, not really. We’re just…we’re working on a project together, that’s all. Something to do with his sister.” I had started towards the door to the basement—my dad had set up a den down there where he could watch sports undisturbed.

“I didn’t know Rob had a sister,” Mom said.

“Yeah. Well, neither did Rob.”

“Oh.” My mom had always been able to put more meaning in a single word than anyone I knew. ThatOh spoke volumes—mostly about how not surprised she was that someone of Rob’s ilk would turn out to have an illegitimate sibling.

“And what about that girl?” Mom wanted to know. “That one you said you saw him kissing that day?”

Now more than ever, I wished I’d kept my mouth shut about Miss Boobs-As-Big-As-My-Head. At least where my parents were concerned.

“Was that his sister?” Mom asked.

“God, Mom. No!”

“Oh,” Mom said. “Well, what, then? Are you just going to forgive him for that? You were off, risking your life, fighting a war, while he—”

“Mom,” I said with a groan. “Knock it off, okay?”

“Well, I’m just saying,” Mom went on, “if it happened once, it will happen again. That’s the problem with boys like that.”

I paused in the basement doorway and looked back at her from over my shoulder.

“Boys like what, Mom?” I asked her in a very quiet voice.

“Well, you know,” she said. “Boys who haven’t had the same advantages you had growing up.”

“You mean Grits,” I said, impressed at how even I managed to keep my tone.

“No, that is not what I mean,” Mom said, looking offended. “I’m sure Rob is a very nice young man—his penchant for kissing other girls behind your back aside. But you know perfectly well he’s never going to leave this town.”

“What’s wrong with living in this town?” I demanded. “You and Dad live here. Douglas lives here. If it’s good enough for you, why isn’t it good enough for me? I mean, for Rob?”

“How can you even ask that?” Mom asked with what I’m positive was genuine wonder. “Jessica, you have so much potential. Why would you want to waste all that staying here in this backwater town, when you could have a real career—travel, meet exciting new people, make a real difference in the world?”

“You know what, Mom?” I said. “I’ve actually done all that. And look where it got me.”

She gave me a sour look.

“You know what I mean, Jessica,” she said. “You’re a sought-after inspirational speaker, thanks to your former powers and all the good you did with them. Why, I’ve had letters from groups asking if you’d address their organization from places as far away as Japan. They’d pay all your expenses and as much as twenty thousand dollars in speaking fees. You have a very profitable career ahead of you….”

I looked her dead in the eye—which was kind of hard because I’d started down the steps to the basement and she was standing above me, and she’s taller than me under normal circumstances anyway.

“And that’s the future you see for me,” I said. “Traveling all around the world, talking to people about a power Iused to have, the good Iused to do. What about doing good now? Without benefit of my powers? Because there are things I can do now, Mom, that don’t involve extrasensory perception.”

“Well, of course, sweetheart,” my mother said. “All of your professors say you could easily become part of a world-class orchestra if you’d just apply yourself. You could tour the globe, playing in exciting places like Sydney, Australia. And since Skip will probably get a job with an investment firm in New York City, if you got a position with the Philharmonic, why, that would be just perfect! You two could get a little apartment together, and come back to visit us at holidays, and…well, who knows? Maybe even get married and start a family of your own!”

I just looked at her. What could I say? I couldn’t admit that the thought of being in a world-class orchestra made me want to run screaming down the street. I couldn’t admit that I was so sick of traveling, I balled up every single one of those speaking gig requests she forwarded to me, and threw them down the incinerator. I couldn’t admit that the thought of marrying Skip made me feel like I’d never stop barfing.

Because if I said any of those things, I know she’d be like,“Well, then what do you want to do instead?”

And if I told her, she’d be the one who’d never stop barfing.

So I just said, “Look. I have stuff to do.”

And continued down the stairs to the basement.

“Well,” Mom said to my departing back. “Don’t stay up too late! That nice Karen Sue Hankey called a few minutes ago. She wants to take you to brunch in the morning. I’m so glad you two made up. I never understood why you didn’t like Karen Sue. She’s such a nice girl.”

Great. I rolled my eyes. I was still rolling them when I got down to the basement and found my dad sitting in front of the television, which he’d put on mute, evidently so he could eavesdrop on my conversation with Mom.

“I always thought that Karen Sue girl was a bit of a drip myself,” he said to me. “But maybe she’s improved with age.”

“She hasn’t,” I assured him, and set down my boxes as Chigger, who’d been sleeping on the couch next to my dad (a definite no-no, in Mom’s book), jumped up to give me a lick before settling down again.

“What have you got there?” my dad asked, curious.

“Amateur pornos,” I said.

My dad raised his eyebrows. “Interesting. I assume you brought them down here to watch them.”

“Just to see if they’re for home use or distribution.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Well, one’s protected under the First Amendment,” I said. “The other is a crime if the girls are underage and didn’t know they were being filmed.”

“Actually, if they’re underage, I think they’re both crimes,” Dad said. He lifted his remote and turned off the cable. “Be my guest. I assume it would be highly inappropriate if I stuck around to keep you company.”

“Not at all,” I said, inserting the first tape—markedTIFFANY . “Since I’m just going to watch the beginning to see if they’re all the same or all different.”

“Well, then,” Dad said, “if you don’t mind, I’ll stay. I don’t get to spend much quality time with you these days—”

I watched as a young girl I assumed was Tiffany—wearing only a bra and panties—flung herself across a bed I recognized as the one in Apartment 1S.

“—though I’m not sure this is exactly what Dr. Phil means when he encourages fathers to spend more time bonding with their daughters,” Dad went on.

A man who was unmistakably Randy Whitehead appeared on screen, wearing a pair of tighty-whities. Before anything untoward could occur, I ejected the tape, and inserted the next one titledTIFFANY .