“I’m going to go work out,” Kent said to Eric. “Want to go to the gym?”

Eric hesitated, then shook his head, his good mood now long gone. If his mother was scared about being up in Wisconsin without his father during the week, then that would be that. And given that his mother was scared of practically everything, the possibility that she’d wind up just refusing to go even if someone did find them a house was all too real. “I think I’ll just go home, too,” he said.

Once again Kent read his mood. “Ah, who needs the gym,” he said, clapping Eric on the shoulder. “Let’s grab a Coke, then go over to my house and see if my mom’s found your folks a house yet.”

Eric shrugged. Better to hang with Kent right now than go home, where he might well be stuck with his ten-year-old sister all summer, once again spending endless days mowing and trimming the lawn while his mom went out to lunch with her friends and his father worked and Marci would stick to him like glue, constantly asking her ten-year-old’s questions while he was thinking his sixteen-year-old’s thoughts.

While his friends were at Phantom Lake, fishing and swimming and waterskiing.

And getting laid.

Without him.

Falling in beside Kent, Eric felt the summer already slipping away even though it hadn’t yet actually begun.

MERRILL BREWSTER WAS just turning the last bag of the week’s groceries over to Marguerite when the kitchen door slammed open — making Marguerite almost jump out of the maid’s uniform she insisted on wearing, even though Merrill had pleaded with her not to. Ellen Newell appeared in the doorway, a grin spread across her face and something hidden behind her back.

“Guess what I have!” Ellen demanded. “You’re going to love it.”

Merrill’s eyes narrowed as she ran through the possibilities. With Ellen, everything was always wonderful, and everyone was always going to love everything, so she could be talking about almost anything. Except that whatever it was, was small enough to be held in one hand.