"Yeah?"

"Did you tell your mom yet?"

Carmen pulled the lid off her coffee. "Tell her what?"

"Tell her about David calling on Sunday?"

Carmen was surprised. She had already confessed her guilt on this one. "No."

"Do you think ... you're going to?"

"Tell her?"

"Yes."

Carmen cast her eyes toward the big menu board, wanting to change the subject.

Tibby was looking straight at her. "Hey, Carma?"

"Uh-huh."

Carmen was considering the price difference between a tall, a large, and a magnifico latte. And anyway, why didn't anybody call anything small anymore? When you ordered a latte, if you asked for a small the cashier looked at you as though you were r.e.t.a.r.ded. "You mean tall?" she'd say patronizingly. Small is a relative term! Carmen felt like screaming at them.

"Carma?"

"Uh-huh."

Tibby's face was so unusually earnest that Carmen knew she had to pay attention. "Maybe you should tell her. It won't fix everything, but it might make her feel better."

"Who feel better?" Carmen snapped suspiciously.

"Her. You. Both," Tibby said carefully.

Carmen's mouth opened before she could stop it. "Like you're the expert on mother-daughter relations," she spat.

Tibby looked down at the stringy pile that had been her croissant. Her features seemed to shrink in her face. "I'm not. At all. Obviously."

"I'm sorry, Tib," Carmen said reflexively, putting her hands over her face. Tibby had already been feeling down. Her expression was fragile and her features looked impossibly delicate in her freckly face. Carmen hated herself for making Tibby sadder.

"That's okay." Tibby stood up. "You're right." She swept up the mess on the table. "I have to go. I told my mom I'd pick Nicky up at swimming."

Carmen stood up too. She wished this conversation had turned out differently. "When are you going back to Williamston?"

Tibby shrugged. "A couple days."

"Call me later, okay?"

Tibby nodded.

"Please don't be mad at me," Carmen begged.

"I'm not." Tibby offered up a smile. It was weak, but it wasn't fake. "Seriously. I'm not."

Carmen nodded, relieved.

"But Carma?"

"Uh-huh?"

"You should talk to your mom."

Carmen felt like crying as she watched Tibby walk out the door and across the parking lot. She knew a worse friend would have made her feel better.

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

-John Lehman

Carmen was a disaster. Tibby was a disaster. Lena was an even bigger disaster. Carmen considered this as she strode toward the Burger King on Wisconsin Avenue. The only current nondisaster was Bee, who ordinarily took the cake in disasters. A strange summer it was shaping up to be.

Carmen had the day off from work, so she'd spent Lena's lunch hour sitting and sweltering with her in the parking lot behind the store. Well, Carmen had done most of the sitting, while Lena had done the pacing and obsessing.

Carmen opened the door, enjoying the wave of cold, corporate air. As her eyes adjusted, she squinted at a blond girl standing at the counter. Maybe it was knowing Kostos was in town, but Carmen couldn't shake the feeling of seeing flashes of people she thought she knew. On sidewalks, in the lobby of her building, outside Lena's store.

Carmen walked toward the counter, studying the back of the blond girl. She had cutoffs and a perm, and she was counting out her change. No way, Carmen said to herself. It couldn't be.

And yet, as Carmen ordered french fries, she couldn't stop looking over at the girl. It couldn't be who she imagined it might be, because the girl Carmen was thinking of didn't have a perm, and she would never have worn shorts like that. And also she lived in South Carolina.

Still, Carmen waited impatiently for the girl to turn around. The girl was taking so long to count out her change, it might really be her, Carmen considered.

Finally, the girl did turn, and she looked straight at Carmen. After a moment of surprise, her face lit up.

"Oh, my G.o.d," Carmen muttered.

The girl hurried over, carrying her soda, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. "Carmen!"

Carmen stood there frozen. Apparently Kostos wasn't the only ghost from last summer to have returned. "Krista?"

Krista looked both excited and shy. "I can't believe I ran into you?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I was hoping to find you," Krista replied. She felt around in the front pocket of her shorts and with some effort yanked out a crumpled piece of paper. "I tried your place a few minutes ago, but n.o.body answered."

On the paper Krista had written Carmen's address and phone number.

"Wow ... really? Well ..." Carmen wanted to say why? without it sounding impolite. "Are you here with ... uh ... friends?" Carmen was mesmerized by the eyeliner and the shorts and the small red tank top. It had to be Krista, but Carmen didn't quite believe it was Krista.

"No. Just me."

"Oh," Carmen said. The only thing that had stayed the same, that convinced Carmen this girl was actually Krista and not an imposter, was the gold add-a-bead necklace.

Carmen quickly paid for her french fries. "Do you ... want to sit down for a minute?" she asked, leading the way to a table.

No matter that she was a fugitive, Krista probably couldn't forget her manners if she tried. She stood beside her chair until Carmen was seated.

"Um, is your mom in town?" Carmen asked. It would give the mystery a whole other dimension if Lydia and possibly her dad were in town without even having called Carmen.

Krista's face darkened slightly. "No." She cleared her throat. "I am here to get away from her."

Carmen's felt her eyebrows shoot upward. "You are? Why?"

Krista looked around in case someone might hear. "She's been tickin' me off is why."

Carmen was stunned, and she didn't try to hide it.

"Does she know you're here?" Carmen asked slowly, as if she were talking to Jesse Morgan.

"No." Krista had a fearful yet triumphant look.

"Krista." Carmen was staring at her seriously now. "Is everything okay? You seem really ... different."

Krista fidgeted with the paper from her straw. "I've been wanting to do my own thing this year, and my mom makes a fuss about everything."

Carmen nodded dumbly.

"I remembered you running off to Washington last summer without telling a soul. That's what gave me the idea."

Carmen put her hands in her lap so Krista wouldn't notice her picking the skin around her thumbnail. "But I live in Washington."

Krista nodded, a look of self-doubt creeping into her eyes. "That's why I came here? I hoped maybe I could stay with you a little while?"

Carmen thought she might explode. "You want to stay with my mom and me?" She wondered if Krista had stopped to consider that Christina was her stepfather's ex-wife.

Krista nodded. "If that's all right? Sorry not to call first." She dropped her head slightly. "I should have called."

"No, no. That's okay. Don't worry about it." Carmen surprised herself by touching Krista's wrist rea.s.suringly. "You can stay with us for a few days."

Krista pointed to her earlobe. It looked red and puffy. "I double-pierced my ears and my mother freaked. That was part of the fight that made me come here."

Carmen absently felt for the two holes in her own earlobe. "Krista, have you talked to Paul?"

Krista's blue eyes were round inside the ring of eyeliner. She shook her head.

"Does anybody know you're here?"

"No. And please don't tell them?" she answered seriously. Krista was still an uptalker, and it undercut the potency of her rebellion.

Carmen swallowed. How could she not tell Paul? She stood. "We should maybe get going," she said. She picked up the bag full of french fries she'd bought as a treat for her mother and motioned for Krista to follow.

Her apartment building was just two blocks away. Going up in the elevator with Krista, Carmen wondered what her wounded mother would say when she introduced her to the daughter of her ex-husband's wife and mentioned that she might be staying awhile.

Alarmin' Carmen,

You will never never never ever ever ever run out of chances. Don't you know that?

You're right. There are two kinds of people in the world. The kind who divide the world into two kinds of people and the kind who don't.

Love always and no matter what,

Bee

When Tibby was eleven, the year Bridget's mother had died, she had had the secret idea that her family could adopt Bridget. In her eleven-year-old way, Tibby had sensed that Mr. Vreeland had grown too isolated to take care of his daughter anymore. Bee's brother, Perry, barely left his room, content with his computer games. Bee was so fidgety and eager, and her house was still and empty. Tibby had ached for her friend.