Minutes later, I was slipping into Jared's car. "Drive," I said.

"Yes, ma'am!"

He had on a gray T-shirt with some sort of jumbled logo on the front, a loose pair of board shorts, and high-tops. But it wasn't until he climbed out of his car at the gas station that I discovered he was wearing navy blue boxers as well. With little diamonds on them.

More than I wanted to know. Way more.

So why, when he slid back into the car, did I meet his eye and ask about the print shop? Almost like I cared about his personal life?

He gave me one of his usual bored scowls and merged into traffic. "My uncle owns the place. I help out every now and then." I must have looked as surprised as I felt, because he shrugged a shoulder and continued, "Senior year's not that hard. I've done my SATs, and most of the honors courses are behind me. Thought I'd make some pocket money for college."

My thoughts must have still been all over my face, because while pulling onto the freeway ramp, he answered the question that I was fighting not to say out loud. "It'll be nice not to have to hit my dad up for everything."

Okay. So it made sense-slightly.

As we continued north, my stomach began to resemble the hard, sickening ball that I used to feel on Halloween after a long day of eating candy. Which was totally ironic, because I hadn't eaten a chocolate bar since Dad and his mini-Almond Joys had vacated our house.

I did, however, accept a stick of Juicy Fruit when Jared pulled a pack from his glove compartment. My steely mouth needed moistening-and something to do. Funny, though ... I couldn't remember ever seeing Jared chew gum before.

"What's with the gum?" I had to ask.

"Somebody left it in my car after we left the daycare center job last weekend."

"Out in Sepulveda?" I asked. People from wood shop and several other clubs had donated supplies and energy to help rebuild play equipment lost in a fire.

He nodded. "A bunch of people rode with me."

I imagined that with this Camaro, he'd had to turn riders away. And from Alison's stories about her rule-following brother, he had stayed to the legal limit of one person per seat belt. He wasn't the type to take unnecessary risks, or put himself in the spotlight in any way, for that matter. Like last year, following the spring show, he had gotten a standing ovation. But not for onstage action-for the scenery he'd sawed and painted for the production. Alison told me later that he'd played it down, but their parents had been thrilled.

Parents were like that. At least, the ones who remembered you were alive were.

Which reminded me, I had one more teeny, tiny favor to ask from Jared. "It would be nice," I said, and tried not to wince, "if you came inside my dad's house with me. He'll sort of expect that, since you drove me all the way there."

He paused for a long moment. "What, he doesn't realize you're trading your favors for this ride?"

A smile gleamed in his eye but didn't keep me from giving his upper arm a punch. Which was harder than I'd expected. His muscle, that is. Maybe those saws and hammers were heavier than they looked.

"Ow," he said, tightening his hold on the steering wheel. "Remind me not to spread down-and-dirty rumors about you."

I knew he was joking, but he was less irritating than when he treated me like a kid-so you take what you can get, right?

And I had paid him. Thirty bucks more than covered things.

"So," Jared said. "After the h.e.l.lo? I, what, disappear? I mean, you need time alone to talk about ... whatever it is you need to talk about, right?"

I nodded. And looked out the window at the ivycovered freeway walls, the rolling brown hills in the distance. I knew I needed to fess up-I'd probably need him to take me to the bank afterward. It would be so much easier to just get it all done at once.

But Jared was a rich kid. And not a heart-on-his-sleeve rich kid like his sister, who helped organize the school's Thanksgiving food drive, and who one time gave a homeless woman a twenty-dollar bill out of her allowance.

He'd judge me. He'd judge Mom.

I blew out a sigh.

"Yeah," I answered. "If you could hang around for a few minutes, then take off to go get a c.o.ke or something, and wait for me out front. That would be great."

I slumped down in my seat.

My dad's house was on a semicircular street of newish two-story houses that all looked the same. Every house had a name written on the mailbox. I half expected the box outside Dad's place to say midlife crisis.

As I moved up his walk, my hands felt fresh-from-the-freezer cold.

Jared's voice cut through my wall of anxiety. "Am I supposed to be, you know, anything more than your driver? Your boyfriend or something?"

It occurred to me to laugh. But my humor had frozen along with my nerves. "Just be you."

I pressed the buzzer and the door opened. Immediately. And there was Dad, like he'd been waiting for me.

My gaze locked with his-squinty blue eyes behind wire-framed gla.s.ses-and for a strange moment I went through a quick thaw. He was my dad, after all, the guy who'd let me sit on his lap at dinner, eat the food off his plate. Who'd a.s.sured me that thunder wasn't clouds b.u.mping together. Who'd taught me how to float in the pool ...

Then a noise erupted just below his chin, and my gaze followed.

And there she was. My replacement.

"Nicolette," Dad said, so warmly I was sure that he'd been practicing. Then he actually placed the kid down by his feet and gave me the hug I'd been dreading.

"Hey, Dad," I managed, playing the game, and gave him a squeeze.

He felt warm and strong, and still smelled like a piney aftershave. A good smell. Part of my brain told me I should hate him even more for being so alive, rather than a person who'd ceased to exist in my life. But soon enough, the monster made a whining noise, we dropped our arms, and guess who was the center of attention again.

"Hasn't she gotten big?" Dad said, his smile widening. "Two years old last month."

The living room was stark beige, and the ceiling went on forever. My mother would have cozied the place up with pillows and dried floral arrangements or something, but obviously Dad was no longer into warm and fuzzy.

We made small talk about the drive and school. So far it was as pleasant as an inner-ear infection. Then Jared excused himself to "go fill up the tank." I wanted to slip out behind him, but he quickly disappeared, and then it was just Dad, the parasite, and me. One big happy family.

Dad zapped on the TV and Autumn slid off his lap and waddled toward the tube, saying something about a character named Dora.

In the perfect version of my life, this would be when my dad and I would have an incredible conversation ending with him begging my forgiveness and handing me a check for, say, the entire balance my mom owed to the bank. Then he'd say that he was leaving Caffeine and their rug rat and coming back to Mom and me.

Because wasn't Dad the one who'd taught me if you were going to dream, to dream big?

His lips pressed together. "So what's up?"

I just went for it. "I need money. Mom's gotten behind on the mortgage and I think the bank's going to take the house."

"What does your mother think?"

The words came out of me in a hollow whisper, the voice of a stranger: "She's scared."

He glanced down.

Then I told him exactly how much I wanted ... a sum I'd calculated quite fairly, I thought, figuring on this month's payment and last, in the hopes that the clean slate would give Mom the confidence to close a property before the bill came next month.

"Would if I could, kiddo. But I don't have it."

From my Intro to Business cla.s.s, I recalled lessons on transferring funds, cashing in stocks. Those things took time. "Okay. Well, when can you get it to me?"

He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "I don't think you understand. I don't have the money." Little lines splintered out from his eyes, accentuating his frown, making me think he was telling the truth.

Which was crazy. He'd been a successful computer programmer for more years than I'd been alive. Could he have possibly sunk every penny into this beige castle?

Or was it a lie?

I probably should have just shrugged and walked out. Or played my ace: threaten to move in with them if Mom lost the house.

Instead, with anxiety churning in me so fiercely I could hardly see, I leaned my elbows on my knees, and looked him dead in the eye. "If Autumn needed the money, you'd find it for her."

My words hanging in the air, I waited for him to react, apologize, make a denial. Something that would give me leverage.

Instead, he knocked the breath right out of me.

"You know," he said, "you're right."

Wad up a fistful of the pristine crinoline and shove it down your father's throat until he gags, chokes, and becomes as stuffed as a Thanksgiving turkey.

I balled my fists at my sides, praying for inner strength. I'd known, deep down, he loved her more, but to hear him admit it, so easily, without shame ... wow. It hurt a thousand times worse than any spike drill or lap run Coach Luther had ever put me through.

"Autumn is a toddler," my dad went on, all steelytoned and paternal. "The only reason she'd need money would be life and death. Copayment on surgery or something."

I leapt to my feet, tottering a little in my heeled sandals. "This is life and death, too, Dad. Don't you see?It'll be the end of Mom's sanity and the end of my life as I know it!"

After a long inhale, Dad rose and stared down into my eyes. "And your mother is okay with taking money from me?"

"She has no idea I'm here. I was ...," I said, then reminded myself to think positive, "I am going to take the money to the bank myself. Then afterward, tell her I deposited what I had left over from the money Grandma left me."

Okay-truth? Grandma's money was long gone, taken out of the ATM in twenty-dollar bills all last year, before I'd blown the rest on The Dress. But I'd known better than to admit all that to Mom, so it was reasonable for her to believe I still had some.

"Look," I said, speaking over the thundering of my heart, trying to sound adult and levelheaded. "You pay Mom the bare minimum of child support. No alimony. You owe us this." My voice caught. "You owe me this."

After a moment, he nodded. "You're probably right."

I was?

Well, of course I was!

He disappeared, then returned with a slender checkbook and pen. "How about I make it out to the bank?"

I tried to feel joy or triumph, but it was impossible to isolate any one feeling. "Yes, the name-"

"I know. I'm the one who secured the mortgage."

He tore the check out and handed it to me. "Wait until Friday to deposit this. I'll have it covered by then."

I didn't know from where, or how. I didn't really care.

"Take it into the bank yourself. Get a receipt. And mail it back to me."

I wanted to get mad at him for trying to take charge, and for demanding proof that I did the right thing with his money, but I was too busy trying to swallow the lump in my throat. Which wasn't easy. Not because the lump was so huge, but because the resentment, relief, and the load of other feelings weren't just in my throat, but teeming throughout my entire body.

I walked back toward the entry hall, managing a goodbye wave at the two-year-old menace. She glanced over, her hair dark and glossy like Caffeine's, her blue eyes dulled by the TV, and for an instant she actually looked cute.

Dad followed, hot on my heels. "Nicki? I really hope you didn't mean what you said earlier, that you think I care more about Autumn than you. What I feel is exactly the same. You're both my daughters, even if I live with her."

Everything inside me tightened. I knew then why he'd given me the money. Not because of Mom or me or the possibility of us becoming dest.i.tute. Because I'd rubbed his nose in his bias-I'd made him acknowledge out loud that he played favorites.

But I'd gotten what I wanted, so I was willing to be nice.

"Okay, Dad," I managed. "Sure." I peeked out of the rectangular window beside his door and saw Jared's car.

"I-I've got to go."

"Call me. Tell me how this works out." He squeezed my arm and looked into my eyes. For a second I thought he was going to tell me he loved me. Then he let me go. "And drive carefully."

I can't remember the walk from the house to the car, but suddenly there I was on the curb, reaching for the door handle. The door popped open as if on its own, Jared inside, stretching over the gearshift.

I slid in, touched by his unexpected chivalry. I looked at him to say thanks, and something puppy-dog warm in his eyes gazed back at me. Implying ... I don't know ... that he cared about how it had all gone?

And how did I reward this? I burst into tears.

OmiG.o.d.

I turned away. Only to feel his hand gently stroke my hair. I wanted to lurch away. I mean, this was Jared. The guy who wouldn't talk to me in front of anyone at school. Who made me pay him to drive me around.

I was crying. In his car. And he was doing exactly what I was scared of. He was pitying me.

For the rest of the school year, whether on the bleachers or in the halls, whether I was pretending to see him or not-I'd know he'd seen me like this.