In her five years as an agent, Tibby's mother had mastered the art of real estate spin: When there is absolutely nothing with any charm in a room, point out the window.

Her father put her bags down on the bed.

"h.e.l.lo?"

All three of them turned.

"Are you Tabitha?"

"Tibby," Tibby corrected. The girl had on a Williamston sweatshirt. Her brown hair frizzed out of her ponytail all around her hairline. She had pale skin and a lot of moles. Tibby counted the moles.

"I'm Vanessa," the girl said, giving a big, arcing wave to all of them. "I'm the RA. That stands for resident a.s.sistant. I'm here to help out in any way. Your key is there." She pointed. "Your baseball cap is there." Tibby winced at the Williamston cap balanced jauntily on the corner of the nightstand. "Orientation materials are on the desk, and instructions for the phone system are on the nightstand. Just let me know if there's anything I can do."

She said all this in the rushed, half-memorized manner of a waiter with a lot of specials.

"Thank you, Vanessa," her father said. After he'd pa.s.sed his fortieth birthday, he'd taken to repeating everyone's name a lot.

"Terrific," her mother said. At exactly that moment, her mother's cell phone went off. Instead of ringing, it played Mozart's Minuet in G. Tibby felt embarra.s.sed every time she heard it. It didn't help that it was the last piece of music Tibby had struggled to play before her piano teacher had given up on her completely when she was ten.

"Oh, no," her mother said, after listening for a moment. She groaned and glanced at her watch. "In the pool ...? Oh, my ... Okay." She looked at Tibby's dad. "Nicky got sick in swimming cla.s.s."

"Poor kid," her dad said.

Vanessa looked trapped and uncomfortable. Nicky getting sick in swimming probably wasn't covered in her handbook.

"Thanks," Tibby said to Vanessa, turning away from her parents' discussion. "I'll find you if I, you know, need to ask anything."

Vanessa nodded. "Okay. Room six-C-one." She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. "Right down the hall."

"Great," Tibby said, watching her flee. When she turned back to her parents, they were both facing her. They had that look.

"Honey, Loretta has to take Katherine to music cla.s.s at one. I've got to dash back to ..." Tibby's mother drifted for a moment. "I'm trying to think.... What did he eat for breakfast ...?" Then she remembered she was right in the middle of disappointing Tibby. "Anyway, we're going to have to postpone our lunch plan. I'm sorry."

"That's fine." Tibby hadn't even wanted to have lunch with them until they'd canceled it.

Her dad turned to her and hugged her. Tibby hugged him back. It was still her instinct. He kissed the top of her head. "Have a great time, sweetie. We'll miss you."

"Okay," she said, not believing him.

Alice stopped in the doorway and turned around. "Tibby," she said, opening her arms as if she hadn't been so distracted she'd almost forgotten to say good-bye.

Tibby went over and hugged her, too. For an instant she allowed herself to sag into her mother's body. "See ya," Tibby said, straightening up.

"I'll call tonight to make sure you're settled in," Alice promised.

"You don't need to. I'll be fine," Tibby said heavily. She said it for her own protection. If her mom forgot to call, which could happen, both of them would have that as an excuse.

"I love you," her mother said on the way out.

Yeah, yeah, Tibby felt like saying. Parents could feel good by telling their kid that a few times a week. It was nearly effortless and gave them so many parent points.

She clutched the instruction booklet for the campus telephone system. She bent over it, studying it carefully so she wouldn't feel sad.

By page eleven, paragraph three, Tibby had discovered that not only did she have her own voice mailbox and her own pa.s.sword, but she also had five messages in her box. She played them, and smiled as she heard the voices. One was from Brian. One was from Lena. Two were from Carmen. Tibby let out a little laugh. Even Bee had left a scratchy message from a pay phone on the road.

Fine, blood was thicker than water. But friendship, it struck Tibby, was thicker than both.

"Honey, I just want to stop in here for a minute."

Lena's mom had recruited her to sit in the car while she picked up a prescription so she didn't have to park. But inevitably, this led to further errands. This was how her mom secured quality mother-daughter time-through stealth and trickery. Lena would have out-and-out refused, but she didn't have a job yet, which undercut her sense of self-worth.

Lena gathered her heavy hair away from her sweaty neck. It was too hot for sunroofs. It was too hot for parking lots. It was too hot for mothers.

"Fine." "Here" was Basia's, a boutique filled with women like her mother. "Do you want me to wait so you don't have to park?" Lena asked even as her mother swooped into a-wide-open spot smack in front of the store.

"Of course not," her mom replied airily, always deaf to the irony in Lena's voice.

Lena had spent so much time missing Kostos earlier in the year that she'd gotten into the habit of imagining he was present. It was a little game she had. And somehow, his imagined presence gave her perspective on her value as a person. Now she imagined him sitting in the backseat of the car, listening to Lena act like an ungrateful wisea.s.s.

She is horrible, she imagined Kostos thinking as he sweated on the dark leather seat.

No, I'm only horrible to my mother, Lena imagined defending herself.

"It'll just be a minute," her mother promised.

Lena nodded gamely for Kostos's benefit.

"I want to get something for Martha's graduation brunch." Martha was her cousin's G.o.ddaughter. Or her G.o.ddaughter's cousin. One of those.

"Okay." Lena followed her mother out of the car.

The store was cold as February. That was a plus. Her mother went right to the racks of beige-colored clothing. On the first pa.s.s she picked out a pair of beige linen pants and a beige shirt. "Cute, no?" she said, holding them up for Lena.

Lena shrugged. They were so boring they made her eyes glaze over. Whenever her mom went shopping, she always bought things exactly like all the things she already had. Lena overheard the conversation with the salesperson. Her mother's clothing vocabulary made her wince. "Slacks ... blouse ... cream ... ecru ... taupe." Her Greek accent made it that much more embarra.s.sing. Lena fled to the front of the store. If Effie were here, she would be cheerfully trying on flowered things in the dressing room next to her mother.

Lena looked through the sungla.s.ses and hair doodads on the counter. She glanced out the front windows. DETNAW PLEH, said the sign on the door.

Her mom finally narrowed the heap of beige to an "adorable eggsh.e.l.l blouse" and a "darling oatmeal skirt." She topped them off with a large pin Lena wouldn't have worn even for a joke.

As they were finally leaving, her mother stopped and seized Lena's upper arm. "Honey, look."

Lena nodded at the sign. "Oh, yeah."

"Let's go ask."

She U-turned them right back inside. "I noticed the sign on your door. My name is Ari, and this is my daughter Lena." Mrs. Kaligaris's real name was Ariadne, but n.o.body called her that except her own mother.

"Mom," Lena whispered through clenched teeth.

With a couple hundred fresh dollars in the register, the saleslady introduced herself as Alison Duffers, store manager, and listened eagerly to Mrs. Kaligaris's pitch.

"This job might be perfect, don't you think?" Ari finished eagerly.

"Well-," Lena began.

"And Lena," her mother interrupted, turning to her, "think of the discounts!"

"Uh ... Mom?"

Mrs. Kaligaris chatted amicably, gathering lots of useful information, like the hours (Monday through Sat.u.r.day, ten till six), the money (starting at six seventy-five an hour plus a seven percent commission), and the fact that they would need her to fill out some paperwork and supply her social security number.

"Wonderful, then." Mrs. Duffers beamed at them. "You're hired."

"Hey, Mom?" Lena said as they walked to the car. She couldn't help smiling in spite of herself.

"Yes?"

"I think she just hired you."

Carmen was pulling on the Traveling Pants for their great inaugural journey of the second summer when the phone rang.

"So guess what?" It was Lena's voice. Carmen turned her music down.

"What?"

"You know that place Basia's?"

"Basia's?"

"You know, off Arlington Boulevard?"

"Oh, I think my mom goes there sometimes."

"Exactly. Well, I got a job there."

"Seriously?" Carmen asked.

"Well, actually, my mom got a job there. But I'll be reporting for duty."

Carmen laughed. "I never pictured you having a career in fashion." She studied herself in the mirror.

"Thanks a lot."

"Hey, do you really think I should wear the Pants tonight?" Carmen asked, fishing.

"Of course. They look gorgeous on you. Why not?"

Carmen turned to get the back view. "What if Porter thinks the writing is weird?"

"If he can't appreciate the Pants, then you know he's wrong for you," Lena said.

"What if he asks me about them?" Carmen asked.

"Then you're in luck. You won't run out of things to talk about for the entire night."

Carmen could practically hear Lena smiling into the phone. Once, in eighth grade, Carmen had been so worried about running out of things to say on the phone to Guy Marshall, she'd written out a list of topics on a pink index card. She wished she'd never told anybody about that.

"I'm going to get my camera," Carmen's mother announced when Carmen walked into the kitchen a few minutes later. She was unloading clean dishes from the dishwasher.

Carmen glanced up from the raw place next to her thumbnail. "Do that only if you want me to commit suicide. Or homicide. Or matricide, I think they call it." She resumed picking her thumb skin without mercy.

Christina laughed, jangling the silverware basket. "So why can't I take a picture?"

"Do you want the guy to run screaming from our apartment?" Carmen drew her sore, newly spare eyebrows down in consternation. "It's just a stupid date. It's not the prom or anything."

Carmen's casualness was betrayed by the fact that she'd spent almost the entire day with Lena doing manicures, pedicures, facials, waxing, and conditioning treatments. Actually, Lena had lost interest after the pedicure and spent the rest of the time reading Jane Eyre on Carmen's bed.

Carmen's mother looked at her patiently and offered up her martyred mother-of-a-teenager smile. "I know, nena, but it happens to be your first date, stupid or not."

Carmen turned wide, horrified eyes on her mother. "If you say that when Porter is here-"

"Fine. Okay!" Christina held up her hand. More laughing.

Anyway, it wasn't her first date, Carmen comforted herself sullenly. She just hadn't yet had one of these nineteen-fiftiesstyle jobs where the guy picks you up at your house and causes you extreme mortification at the hands of your mother.

According to the stark-faced clock on the kitchen wall it was 8:16. This was a tricky business. Their date was at eight. If Porter came earlier than 8:15, for example, that would seem overeager. It would impart strong loser overtones. If, on the other hand, he came after 8:25, that would mean he didn't like her all that much.

Eight sixteen ushered in the official grace period. Nine minutes and counting.

She bustled into her room to get her watch. She refused to fall victim to the evil kitchen clock any longer. With its large black numbers, unmistakable minute marks, and fat, relentless second hand, it was the least forgiving clock in the house. According to it, she was constantly late for school and virtually never made her twelve o'clock curfew. She made a mental note to give her mother a replacement clock for her birthday. One of those stylish museum clocks with no numbers or markings of any kind. A clock like that would cut you a break now and then.

The phone rang as soon as she went back into the kitchen. Her mind raced. It was Porter. He was bailing. It was Tibby. Telling her not to wear the plastic mules that made her feet sweat. She studied the caller ID panel, waiting for her destiny to appear.... It was ... the law firm where Christina worked. Bleh.