"Hey, you know how Dort is trying to get me to come and stay with her for a weekend. I'm sure her folks would be glad to have me stay with them while you're away and…"

Dort was Joey's younger sister.

"Well, actually we didn't think it would be right to do that," her father said. "So we thought maybe you might like to stay with your brother, Les, while we were away."

Amy blinked. With Les? Her emotions were mixed. For one thing, it meant interrupting a summer of growing sexual education and experimentation. For another, Les was almost ten years older than she was and would probably treat her more like a daughter than a kid sister. Neither thought exactly thrilled her.

On the other hand, Les lived in New York City. She had never seen New York City. Hell, she'd never been to any place larger than Columbus.

"Gee, how would Les feel about it?" she asked. Her brother wrote regularly, but Amy was sure that a handsome young man, with a good job in New York, wouldn't want his social life cramped by a kid sister.

"It was his idea," her mother answered. "He suggested it when we called to tell him the good news."

"Of course, your mother hinted, subtly."

"'Subtly'?" Amy echoed.

"Yes," her father replied, chuckling. "She told him that if he didn't offer to let you stay with him, it would mean poor little Amy would be the only one stuck here in Belleville while the rest of us were out globe trotting. She said we would have to pass up the chance of a lifetime after all those years of working and scraping and slaving to take care of the family…"

Amy was laughing. She knew how good her mother was at the guilt routine.

"And Les very generously insisted that you stay with him," her mother concluded with a straight face.

"Your mother could out sell every one of my salespeople in between baking cookies and doing the laundry."