But I’d always worn my hair short, and the only boy I’d ever been interested in wasn’t exactly one my mom approved of….

“Jess?”

I turned my head. Had someone said my name?

“Jess Mastriani?”

There it was again. I looked around and saw a woman standing on the curb, her arm through the arm of a dark-haired guy in an IZOD and jeans.

“Oh my God, thatis you!” the woman cried, when I flipped up the glass shield on my helmet to get a better look at her. “Don’t you recognize me, Jess? It’s me, Karen Sue Hankey!”

I stared at her. Itwas Karen Sue. Only she was looking much, much different than the last time I’d seen her.

Then again, considering the fact that one of the last times I’d seen her, her nose had still been in a splint from when I’d broken it, this wasn’t much of a surprise.

Still, she looked totally different than she had in high school. She had done something to straighten her hair, and had ditched her usual frills for a sophisticated sleeveless sheath of some kind, in cream.

And obviously, she’d had her nose done.

“God, I can’t believe it’s you,” Karen Sue enthused. “Scott, look who it is! Jessica Mastriani. You remember, the one I told you I went to high school with? Lightning Girl? The one that television show is based on.”

Scott—whom I took to be some kind of frat guy Karen Sue had brought home from whatever Ivy League college she was attending, in order to meet her parents—drawled, “Oh, sure. Jessica Mastriani. I’ve read all about you, of course, and the incredible things you’ve done for our country. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

I just stared at them. The last time I’d seen Karen Sue—well, close to the last time, anyway—I’d had my fist in her face. And now she was acting like we’d been the best of friends?

This is what happens when you get even a little bit of fame. Everyone—even your sworn enemies—tries to make nice with you.

“You do remember me, don’t you, Jess?” Karen Sue didn’t look worried. She let out one of her annoying, tinkly laughs. “I’d heard you lost your powers, and all, but nobody said you’d lost your memory! Listen, what are you doing tomorrow morning? Want to have brunch? Maybe we could do some shopping after. Call me. I’m at my parents’ for the week. Just visiting down from Vassar.”

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.”