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this--as you--it's just not the same."

I closed my eyes, too annoyed to respond. "She's going to ask about the hair," I said finally. "And the cigarettes. Make something up. Say it's a social studies experiment." It was a lame cover story, but it was all I could think of.

"I'm not going to smoke in front of her."

"It doesn't matter. You smell!"

Her brow wrinkled. "That was cruel."

I covered my face with my hands. "Aargh!" I took a few deep breaths and tried again. "Evelyn. You have to go home. Now."

"I don't feel ready to meet her." Her mouth quivered. "Besides, I've been stuck in that house for forty-two years. Do you really begrudge me a brief change of scenery?"

I gestured at the Dumpster. "Some scenery. Couldn't you find someplace a little nicer?"

She shrugged. "I was craving licorice. Besides, I had to buy another phone card, anyway."

"No more marathon phone sessions with Roger," I warned.

She smiled like an angel. "I'll be asleep by ten o'clock. I promise."

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***

20

Evelyn is pissing me off, but there was no way she was going to ruin this evening for me. Tomorrow I'd be back to my old body and my boring life. Until then, I was going to make every second count.

"Maybe we should go with Claire," Nate said as we watched her wave good-bye to her Dumpster pals.

"She'll be fine." I waved my hand dismissively.

"We should probably make sure she gets home all right."

"What are you worried about? No one is going to hurt her." I swallowed. "Claire is big and strong. Remember? She's like a guy." And now, thanks to Evelyn, I looked like a guy in drag.

"I shouldn't have said that."

No,
I thought.
You shouldn't have.

"What I meant, I guess, is that hanging out with Claire is like hanging out with my guy friends. Easy, you know?" He took my hand and pulled me in the direction of Evelyn's--well, my--

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retreating back. "How about if we follow behind? Just till she gets to her house."

I tried to turn off at the public beach, but Nate tugged me toward my street. Of course, I wanted to make sure Evelyn got home safely, but time with Nate was running out, and she'd already wasted too much of the evening.

I didn't think Evelyn knew we were following her, but when she reached the front door, she turned and blew us a kiss. "You kids have a swell time tonight!"

"Unbelievable," I muttered.

Nate waved back. When she'd disappeared inside the house, he asked, "Do you want to see my favorite place?"

I looked into his blue eyes and smiled. "I bet I know what it is."

"You think it's the beach."

I shook my head. "I went for a walk the other day and found this cove. There were fishing boats there. And a pier. Buoys and gulls. It was just really peaceful."

"Kimberley Cove--that's it!" Nate's eyes sparkled. "You're amazing."

(Disclosure: a couple of months earlier, I'd run into Nate on the pier, and he'd mentioned that the cove was his favorite spot in town. I went back every day for a week, but he never showed.)

"Sometimes I feel like ..." He took a deep breath. "I feel like I've known you forever, like, maybe in a different life or something."

I squeezed his hand. "Funny. I feel that way too."

At the cove, we walked onto the pier, claimed a bench, and

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finally opened the food bag. I tried not to think about Evelyn, who would be eating an identical burrito with my worried mother.

"Thanks for going with me to find Claire," I said.

"I didn't realize the two of you were so close," Nate said. "Didn't you just meet?"

"Yeah, but it feels like we've been friends for a long time." I watched a seagull battle a crab at the water's edge. "Claire and me--I guess you could say we're a lot alike."

"Yeah?" He squinted like he didn't see it. Then he smiled. "Maybe she's another friend from a former life."

The sky had turned a dusty pink. Small fishing boats entered the harbor, their wakes forming pink Vs behind them. The air smelled of salt and fish and gasoline.

We didn't talk much as we ate our lukewarm burritos, which felt right, somehow (the silence, not the burritos).

Finally, Nate crumpled up his wrapper. "My dad used to take me here when I was little. Back when he was still my dad."

"He's not your dad anymore?"

He shrugged. "He is, but I hardly ever see him. Spring break, New Year's, a week or two at the beginning of summer vacation. He moved to Chicago after he and my mom split three years ago. He's got another kid now--Christian. He just turned one. He's okay, I guess. But it's weird, when I see my dad, it feels like I'm borrowing him, like he really belongs to Christian."

I chewed my burrito slowly.
Which is worse,
I wondered:
to
never have a father or to have one and then lose him?

"I'm hardly ever allowed to see my dad," I said, thinking of

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Larissa's letters from her father. I'd been thinking about Larissa's father a lot, which seemed strange since I'd never even met the guy. I told Nate what I knew: the missed alimony, the drinking problem, now under control. "He really wants to see me," I said.

"Does he know that your mother went on vacation and left you?" Nate asked.

"I don't think so."

He stood up and stretched. "Because I doubt that's allowed. The courts are pretty picky. If they hear that your mother took off, they might let you see your father." He held out his hand. I took it and stood up. We strolled back toward the shore.

"My mother is going to sell our house when I leave for college," he said. "It's part of their agreement."

I nodded, a lump forming in my throat. Nate would leave for college in two years. It seemed too soon. "Where do you want to go to school?"

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter where I want to go. All that matters is who gives me the most scholarship money." He put his arm around me, and our pace slowed. "I don't just swim for fun."

There was a clam shack at the beginning of the pier. We inhaled the aroma of greasy seafood.

"Maybe we should have skipped the burritos and had fried clams instead," he said.

"It's not too late," I said. "We could split a clam roll."

Nate squeezed my shoulders. "I'm so glad you have an appetite. I hate it when girls eat like rabbits."

I smiled. "I'm just lucky. I have a really fast metabolism."

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***

21

Here's what I thought when I walked into the Ice Cube House:

I will never love another boy the way

I love Nate. I don't want to go back to my old life.

I shouldn't have eaten the clam roll.

I am in big, big trouble.

I had come in from the road because it seemed less conspicuous than climbing up from the beach. The front door was kept locked at all times, but I knew the code: 1-2-3-4-5. Clever. What thief would ever guess that one?

Before opening the door, I gave Nate a final wave good-bye. He was standing by the curb, holding the red sweatshirt I had given back. My lips still felt warm from our final kiss. I wouldn't let him walk me to the door: too dangerous. I wouldn't give him

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my cell phone or e-mail: even more dangerous. I had his e-mail on a slip of paper in my pocket.

I'd been hoping that the Sealys had gone out for dinner (I envisioned Mr. Sealy reading his newspaper in the middle of a restaurant), but the screaming and wailing hit me the moment I opened the door. They were all in the white, white living room with its soaring ceilings, Prescott sprawled on the concrete floor, pounding it with his fists, Cameron clutching his mother's waist and sobbing. Mrs. Sealy stood stock-still, hands over her face, tears leaking out the edges, while Mr. Sealy sat at the stainless-steel table, typing on a laptop and acting as if nothing was wrong.

"Where were you?" Mrs. Sealy shrieked when she saw me.

"Out?" I said.

"I needed you! The boys are overtired and cranky, and they've been just awful! It's one tantrum after another." Her voice cracked. "I can't do this on my own, I just can't!"

"Sorry?" I said, as if that would take care of everything.

Mr. Sealy continued to type. Prescott continued to scream. Mrs. Sealy grabbed Cameron's hands and pried them away from her waist. "Larissa's going to put you to bed," she told him without looking at me. "She's going to put you to bed
now."

"I don't wanna go to bed!" Prescott howled.

"I need to lie down," Mrs. Sealy said, stumbling toward the stairs. "My head! Oh, my God--my head."

"MOMMY!" Cameron shrieked, running after her.

"Mommy needs to lie down!" She ran up the shaky stairs. Above us, the door slammed.

Cameron crumpled to the floor. He sat there, slouched and

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crying, though not as loudly as before. Prescott let out an animal wail, but his volume was dying down, as if he'd run out of energy.

"Well," Mr. Sealy said, finally looking up. He closed his laptop and pushed back his chair. "I think I'll go out."

"Okay," I said. I expected Prescott to protest, but he had grown almost lifeless.

Mr. Sealy stood and plucked his keys off the shiny counter. "See you later."

The boys and I stared at the door for a moment after Mr. Sealy closed it behind him. Then they turned to me with wary expressions.

"Who wants to hear a mermaid story?" I asked, feeling desperate. I didn't know any mermaid stories. Actually, I didn't know any stories at all. When I babysat around town, I usually read Dr. Seuss or something, but if there was a single book in the Ice Cube House, I hadn't seen it. To make things worse, my stomach felt more awful by the minute. It was bad enough that Larissa was allergic to cats. I had a horrible suspicion that she was allergic to clams too.

The boys hadn't answered my question, but at least they were quiet. Clearly, they wanted to hear the story, but they didn't want to give in too easily.

"Okay," Cameron said, finally.

"You can only hear a mermaid story if you're in your pajamas and your teeth are brushed." Prescott opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. "It's the rule of the sea."

Prescott squinted at me, not convinced that a story was worth brushing his teeth. Were mermaids not exciting enough? Did he

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need a little violence? "There are pirates in the story," I said. "Okay?"

He took a deep breath and then let it out loudly. "Okay."

This was my story:

"Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved the ocean so much that she wished she could swim underwater with the fish and the dolphins and never come up for air."

"Dolphins come up for air," Cameron interrupted. "I've seen them."

I'd tucked the boys into their matching twin beds and was sitting on the floor between them.

"I never said they didn't. I just said the girl didn't want to have to come up for air. So, anyway, one night the girl went to sleep, and when she woke up she was at the bottom of the ocean--and she could breathe! She saw beautiful fish--orange fish and blue fish and silver fish. When she looked down, she saw that she had grown a big fish tail where her legs used to be. A dolphin swam by. She grabbed his fin, and he took her for a ride."

"Were there sharks?" Cameron asked.

"No sharks."

"There would be sharks," Prescott said. I ignored him.

"So, anyway," I continued, "the girl lived underwater for two days and had the most wonderful time, but then she started to miss life on land. She missed the sunset and she missed her school, but most of all she missed her mother. So she went to sleep, and when she woke up she was just a girl again. The end."

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Not bad,
I thought. Not
bad at all.
I stood up and gave each boy a kiss on the forehead.

"You forgot the pirates," Prescott said.

"Pirates. Right." Would I never get out of here? "When the girl was underwater, she found a huge treasure chest that pirates had left behind. She kept some of the gold. After that, she and her mother were really rich so they took a vacation in Hawaii. The end."

The pains in my stomach were growing sharper. I felt like I was going to throw up.

"No fair," Prescott said. "Treaure's not the same as pirates."

"Okay," I said. "Fine." I took a deep breath and put a protective hand on my belly. "When the pirates discovered that the girl had stolen the treasure, they set sail for Hawaii, where they found her taking surf lessons. They grabbed her and took her on board the ship and made her walk the plank, and she drowned. The end."

"But she's a mermaid!" Cameron gasped. "Mermaids can't drowned!"

"Drown," I said. "No'd' on the end unless you're using the past tense. She wasn't a mermaid anymore, remember? She was just a girl. So she drowned." I shrugged. Cameron started to cry.

"I was just kidding!" I said. "Geez! Okay, you're right. She turned into a mermaid again and her dolphin friend came and gave her a ride back to her home, and she and her mother lived happily ever after."

"I like it better when she dies," Prescott mumbled.

***