Back To U

chapter Eleven

Sometimes mistakes are made even in the best kitchens.





Gwen covered the big bases first. No violent crimes had been committed against her girl. Missy had, of course, committed none. Gwen knew she hadn’t screwed her child up that much. No drug or alcohol problems. No pregnancy, thank god.

Missy sat hiccupping on the couch. "Austin said he needed to be alone, but he needed to be alone with Kari. She waitressed on the weekends. She’s lots older and has a regular job and works at night to make extra money. Can you believe that? Extra money? What’s that about?"

Gwen shrugged. "I’m sure I don’t know. And I’m sorry about Austin, but what about the band?"

"I left."

"You left the band? Honey, I thought that was what you really wanted. You gave up going to college for it."

"I did want it. I so did, Mom."

"Then what are you doing here, Missy?" She stopped herself. "Sorry, M."

"No, it’s just Missy. Austin called me M." She began to cry again. "I can’t go on without Austin. You know what it’s like, Mom. It’s like he was my whole life."

Gwen felt ill. She’d just been given an F in demonstrating how to live to her very own daughter.

"I was going home, and Grandma told me you weren’t there. She didn’t say anything before and then to just come to her house because there was something I needed to know, and I’m like, tell me now, Grandma. It really scared me. And you were here. I got on the bus and came here because… What for?" Missy looked around the lounge. "What are you doing at Belmar?"

Gwen decided to ignore the disbelief in her daughter's voice. "I’m finishing my Associate’s degree by taking a psychology class."

"Oh." Missy seemed to take in the room for the first time. "I guess it makes sense. You thought if Dad didn’t come back you’d have to, you know, work. You must be the oldest person here."

"I’m sure I’m not."

Missy looked doubtful. "Well, it’s just till December. And I talked to Dad." She smiled then, the first one Gwen had seen. "He was totally alone." Missy sighed. "Good thing, huh? You had nothing to do at home, and now you’re, I guess, hanging out here, but whatever Dad had going, I think it’s over. I didn’t think so before, but I think he really could come back."

Gwen pictured Missy, all the amazing potential of her waiting in an empty house for Austin to come back. Over my dead body rolled through her head, followed by cold day in hell, and the worst, monkey see, monkey do. "I’m in the cooking program."

"You’re what?"

She may, in fact, have all three clichés proven true about her. She may die trying and end up in hell looking like a monkey, but she had to defend herself for Missy’s own good. "I have the top test score for second year students."

"Really?" Missy gave her the I’m humoring you look.

"I do."

"Well, that’s nice."

Nice? Isn’t that exactly the kind of thing Steve would have said to her? All those years of him handing her those mild-mannered compliments, and she’d never considered that nice wasn’t much of a compliment. To be fair, it would have also been the best thing she would have said to herself. That’s nice, Gwen. Well, she wanted to say something more emphatic about her own life, like holy shit, Gwen, you’re failing a cooking program!

She’d done caretaking and nobody needed that anymore, especially the mostly grown, somewhat pouty daughter she’d taught to put a tool like Austin at the center of her life. She was going to change that for both of them. "I’m going to be a chef."

"Like a cook? You already are. And you’re good, Mom. All my friends said so." Her lip quivered. "And Austin."

"No, like a professional chef."

"Good one, Mom." Missy looked out into the hall. "A girl at the desk told me that was your room, but where are you really staying?"

"I’m living in that room. And I’m becoming a chef."

"You’re a super good cook. Dad says so. I worked in a restaurant, and some really bad food comes out of some pretty good kitchens. Yours is lots better."

"No. I’m not going to cook for Dad. I’m not going to wait for either of you to come home so I can feed you. I love you, Missy, and I’m going to become a chef. For me." That may be part lie and part truth, but she wasn’t going to tell the girl she might be doing even more for her. Missy didn’t seem to be under-indulged.

Missy’s face set in the stubborn way she’d mastered from her father, Gwen liked to think. "I don’t want you to do that, Mom. What’s going on?"

"I don’t really know. But I think I’ve been wrong, maybe about a lot of things, maybe about some things. But I’m really good at this, and I think I’m going to find out how good."

"I have a headache."

Gwen smiled. They had that in common. "I’ll show you where the aspirin is."

"Show me?"

Gwen headed back to her room, knew Missy was following her and thinking about all the fussing and cooing that usually accompanied the distribution of pain relievers. Maybe Missy could relieve some of her own.





Gwen hadn’t slept like a log. She missed it, the sense of freedom, the deep dive into R.E.M. when she knew that no one who needed her was there to need her. But all night she’d listened to Missy breathing and worried and wondered and fussed over the girl in her head.

She’d tried to minimize the fussing she’d actually done. It had called on all her reserves to put Missy in the other bed, the one she’d made up with the spare sheet and an extra blanket. She felt terrible not giving up the comforter.

The guilt of using her daughter’s college goods weighed on her even when it became clear she’d really picked them out for herself, but she was claiming them now. She didn’t want to muddy the waters by giving up her own life so easily. It wasn’t a life so much as the start of one, the edge, the sliver, the crack o' dawn.

Alright, who was she kidding? She didn’t have a clue what her life was, but it was morning so she headed for the shower and hoped her head would clear once she got in it. Maybe when she returned, Missy would be up and happy and getting on with her life with such strength and vigor that Gwen could give up on hers.



"And I’m out of shampoo and conditioner. Toothpaste. Tampons. And that dental floss you always get me. I don’t know what kind it is, you know, the fluffy one that gets smaller when you pull on it? That is great floss. I’ll need some of that. You should get two because I go through it pretty fast."

Gwen reached for her purse and took out a twenty dollar bill. "Here."

"Thanks." Missy jammed it into her cell phone case.

"That’s for whatever you need. The store is over the bridge on the east side of campus."

"What?"

"I’m going to my classes. I have a couple of meal coupons on the desk you can use in the cafeteria. I’m usually back by about three. I have a date tonight, and if you need more money, you’ll have to call your father. Don’t tell him hi for me." She walked out the door with her red leather student bag slung over her shoulder and felt herself shake all the way to the elevator.





"There’s something in her eye. We’ll be right back." Gwen pulled Deb down the hallway and into her office. The last thing Deb needed was to tear up in front of the whole class. Once they’d cleared the doorjamb, she saw Deb lean in to hug her with her lips pursed as if holding in a real crying jag, and Gwen clapped her hands once. Deb’s head went back, but she took in a deep breath, and nodded in agreement.

Gwen pointed back toward the kitchen. "If I’d known you were going to fall apart, I wouldn’t have told you in class."

"I didn’t know. I just really love teaching, and I thought this program... It’s... Sorry, Gwen, not your problem. I just... you’re not just some student here. You’re..." Deb blew her nose.

"Old, I know, the only one you can talk to. Well, ditto for me, Deb, but I’m a wreck too, so hold yourself together or I’ll come unhinged with you."

Deb studied her. "You look fine. What’s going on?"

"Besides that I’m now enrolled in a chef’s training program I never intended to be? How about my husband, who gave me divorce papers, showed up in my dorm room Saturday night?"

"He doesn’t want to lose you. You’re great."

"I’m not great. I’m a train wreck." She tipped her head to the side. "His quote. And the lecture he gave me did me no good because I train-wrecked even more by spending the weekend at the Curtis."

"It’s a little shabby but not a bad place."

"I ended up in bed with a man."

"Is his name Ty?"

"Ty? No. Worse." Really? Was Ty a better choice than Max? "Kind of worse. This man is at least my age. What were you even thinking guessing Ty?"

"He’s got a thing for you, and he’s very handsome. And he knows his spices."

"He does. He completely introduced me to Icelandic seasonings." She thought about all that Deb had said. "He does not have a thing for me. Ty? You’re crazy. Not him."

Deb wiggled her eyebrows. "Not him yet."

"Not him ever. The one that it was… and we didn’t sleep-together sleep-together. You know what I mean."

"Yes, but I’m going back to the kitchen if the story’s gonna be boring."

"No, it’s not. He’s my college boyfriend. College from the first time around. He’s the guy I dated before Steve. The one I left or who really left me. But at any rate, he's the major first love of my life I did not share my life with, and now it’s very weird, and tonight he’s making me dinner."

"Okay, that’s better. The sex will be tonight."

"No, I have to get back to the dorm because my daughter will know if I don’t come home."

"You’re being paranoid now. How could she know?"

"She’s staying with me."

"That’s not good."

"She needs to be home…" Gwen shrugged, felt the weight of her own failure. "This is the closest she can get right now, or I can, for that matter." She heard a rap on the doorjamb, and she and Deb jumped, their hands defensively over their hearts.

Ty eyed them as if trying to figure out what they were up to and put his hand on his chest. "If you’re done doing the pledge of allegiance, the lamb’s ready."

Deb gave him a little wave, but he didn’t go. "We’ll be right there. Gotta copy off the recipe for the lamb kabobs."

"Lamb," Gwen made a face. "We’ve done a dozen lamb recipes already today. You are very, very thorough, Deb, but I think you may have rounded the sheepy bend."

"Chef Gaspard wants us to work through all these recipes." Deb’s forehead wrinkled as she patted the bulging file folder. "She bought twice as much lamb as any program in the country could use. It’s half our semester’s budget."

Ty smiled. "Then there must be a good reason for it." He headed back to the kitchen and, god help her, she did check out his butt.

Deb laughed. "Not him yet."





The address Max had given her, four-hundred Cedar Avenue was in the U. district, so she’d decided to walk. It couldn’t be far from her dorm, and Missy did own the car. Missy had also disappeared with it, and rightly so. In fact, Missy had disappeared in general. Her things were in the room, but she’d gone off in a huff when Gwen had given her a twenty and encouraged her to run her own errands.

Leaving the edge of campus, Gwen crossed into the well-loved older neighborhood that surrounded Belmar. She was glad to be on foot and had come to love walking again. She did so much of it on campus, always with her bag strapped on like she was setting out on a great trek. Adults usually missed out on that, driving for errands, work, entertainment. But even something as small as getting milk at the store felt like an adventure on foot, although October was getting a little chilly.

She steadied a bottle of wine under her arm and zipped her coat an inch higher. Fall had always held the motion of falling to her, like summer fell into winter. One fall, a really long time before, she’d fallen in love, hadn’t she? She tried to remember what street Max’s parents had lived on. If she covered enough ground, she knew she'd eventually spot the large brick Dean’s house. It probably still had the historic marker out front, but she couldn’t pull the address out of her memory.

When she reached the four-hundred block of Cedar, she felt nervous, more nervous than she’d been earlier when she’d taken a shower to get the lamb aroma out of her hair and shaved her legs even though she completely one-hundred percent didn’t need to because no one was going to see, feel, or even think about her legs.

She also felt more nervous than when she’d gotten dressed, and getting dressed had been pretty upsetting. She’d tried on three sweaters, one accidentally in a shade related to pink, salmon technically, but he wouldn’t make that distinction. She’d put on her own jeans because the ones she’d bought for Missy were lower and could, if she leaned real far over or sneezed while reaching into a refrigerator, for example, expose the animal print underwear her mother had picked out.

Seeing the houses... four-hundreds every one, made her heart race. Then she saw the sweet bungalow. All bungalows were, she supposed, so this one wasn’t anything special. It needed some attention, certainly. Its once bright blue trim had faded. But the porch invited her with its width and charming scattering of golden leaves. The door stood red, just as it should, flanked on either side by leaded glass windows perfectly balanced. Max had accidentally rented a honey.

She climbed the stairs and didn't letting herself think, just knocked. She really wanted to see the inside of the house, and that was the rationalization she'd be sticking with.

And then Max opened the door. He wore a dark grey turtleneck that brought out the dark streaks in his blond hair, something she would notice if she were the kind of woman who noticed those things. His jeans were light from so many washings he might have owned them when she first met him, but he wouldn’t have looked like a grown man in them back then. He hadn’t been all the way there yet. And he hadn’t ever smelled like some citrusy soap that was enough to make her mouth water.

Dear god, she did not knock on the door to see the inside of the bungalow. She handed him her coat and watched him scan the length of her body. She closed her eyes like a small child who wishfully thought that if they couldn’t see, the other person couldn’t see them. "Talk about lamb."

She opened her eyes to see Max’s head tilted to the side. "Were we?"

"Nope." She gave him the bottle of wine and walked past him. If she were a lamb to the slaughter, she might as well have it over with and get back to failing the rest of her life and further disappointing her daughter.

She stopped in a living room that was the perfect size. It was smaller than her house, the one she’d left temporarily, and sometimes knocked around in, but it was larger than her dorm room, which she actually knocked around in because the desk jutted out a couple of inches farther than it ought to. But his perfect-sized living room looked not fully moved into and that was vintage Max.

There was one thing unusual for the old Max, well, the young one she’d known. This time he'd attempted to make the place comfortable. A worn quilt in polka dots and paisley lay bunched up at the foot of the couch, and there were a couple of pictures hung, although many were stacked against the side wall near the fireplace. It was a start. And maybe more of a start than Max had managed before in his long-time bachelor nomad existence.

She turned to him. "I tried to remember what street you lived on." She should have qualified that with twenty years ago. He must have lived on many, many streets in between the two houses near Belmar.

"Eucalyptus."

She smiled. He’d known exactly what she was asking. "The Dean’s house." And their first date that she’d thought was a date but was really him ambushing his parents with an uninvited dinner guest.

This time Max smiled. "Surprised you, didn’t I?"

They’d all been surprised. She’d been surprised he’d called. He’d been surprised when she kissed him up against his car. Well, that had taken them both by surprise. And his parents. She hadn’t even asked and hardly anyone she knew still had both of them anymore. "Your parents..."

Max let out a puff of air that would have been a sigh had it been any louder. "Dad died about ten years ago. Heart attack. He was a pretty serious guy, as you know."

She could see him at the dinner table in a tie before he left for a phone call, intense in his way. "And your Mom?"

Max hesitated. "This summer."

"I’m sorry."

"Cancer. Quickly. I came to help out," he shrugged, "What I could do at the end. And then I stayed to take care of things and..."

"That’s why you’re here now."

"Yes, and there’s..."

A timer beeped in the kitchen, and he shrugged in apology and left her there. She followed slowly, making her way through the dining room, the table nicely set. There were place mats, which impressed her, and the dishes matched. No flowers, natch, but the blue pottery said more Max than furnished house. The wine glasses were empty, and she'd need to fix that pronto if she was going to get through the evening without jumping out of her skin from nerves. But the water glasses were full. Ice even. Maybe Max had domesticated some. Maybe she lived in a dorm, and her standards were low. She followed him into the kitchen and looked around. "May I?"

He invited her to check out the dinner with a flourish of his hand.

She admired the mixed green salad waiting in the wooden salad bowl, tongs beside it, and what appeared to be a homemade vinaigrette in a small glass bowl. She picked up a miniature silver whisk and looked at him in question.

"And still I get to keep my man card."

She gave the dressing a stir, smelled the sweet tang of balsamic vinegar and noticed the bits of peppered bacon. "Most of the world's chefs are male."

"Most of the world’s chefs are a*sholes."

"Really?" He’d said it with such intensity that she didn’t doubt he had examples. "Well, I guess you’ve traveled the world and would know."

"Yeah. We'll talk..."

"An odd sexism, I think. I mean, most cooking domestically is done by women. We have the job of preparing food for free. And then when there's a chance to really make a living doing it, a good living that for some involves fame and fortune, bam, it's a man."

She spotted a simple risotto, "Impressive. Where's the main course, card carrying man?"

"On the grill," he quickly moved to the back door. "Damn!"

She followed him out, the screen door banging behind her. The cold air chilled her immediately, and the temperature seemed to be dropping, but late October always teetered a few degrees from snow. She crossed her arms to retain some heat and watched Max pull the kettle lid off a charcoal grill where two massive salmon steaks sizzled and smoked. She caught the fragrance of ginger, maybe lime.

Max flipped the first one, a little scorched, but scorched was a serious improvement over the last grill experience she’d had with him. He turned the other one over, perfect, and leaned against the porch rail. "You're thinking about the last time I cooked for you."

"Oh, is that what you did?"

He laughed. "I was very smooth back then, very skilled."

"You almost burned down a house."

"The house was in no danger, just the porch and some of the siding. You’re the one who loved wine coolers." He tipped his head, an attempt to shift blame that she wasn’t going to fall for.

"Not on my chicken."

"Seemed like it would make a good marinade."

"Seemed like it would make a good fire starter."

"Gave me a chance to be a hero and rescue you from the blaze."

She could see him, tanned arms in some ripped up T-shirt, rushing the flaming grill. "You pushed it on the lawn to keep the railing from going up in flames. I was never in danger."

He seemed to laugh at himself. "I didn't think that chicken would ever go out."

It had, it had been on fire a long time. "Remember when the neighbor's dog rushed in and burned his tongue trying to eat it?"

"I'm lucky he didn't die of smoke inhalation. They did not go down easily."

She sighed. Weren’t young mistakes so great? Most of them. Most of them were only stumbles on the way to figuring things out. "Well, you learned to cook. Mostly you did. The salmon should have been taken off about five minutes ago."

"Oh," Max grabbed the tongs, and pulled the fish off, plated it, and motioned with a couple of tong snaps toward the door.





She sat back from the best dessert money could buy. Real fat ice cream. She’d forgotten, after years of frozen yogurt, how good it could be. "That was a wonderful dinner, thank you, Max. I'm not sleeping with you."

"You're welcome. I didn't ask."

She felt her eyebrows come together. What was his game? "You--"

"More coffee?"

He refilled her cup before she could answer, and she decided to ignore his ridiculous denial. "I just think that things are complicated."

"They are. Cream?"

"No. Thank you. You don't even know how complicated my life is right now. My daughter is here. In my room. I couldn't even stay here tonight."

"That's great."

"It's great that I can't stay over?"

"Again. I didn't ask you. And why wouldn't it be great that your daughter is visiting?"

"Well, it is. But... would you quit saying that you didn't ask?"

"But I didn't."

He’d had his teeth on her jammie tie the weekend before, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t invited her over, and there’d been a look or two. "Your eyes did."

"This sounds like the sort of thinking a date rapist employs. Am I in danger?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Is she here to stay for a while?"

"Who?" She tried to follow his side of the conversation, but it didn’t make any sense. "Missy? I don't know. She just broke up with her boyfriend, and she's not sure what she's doing." She held up her hand to stop him from commenting. "I know what you're thinking."

"You do?"

"You're thinking that she's just like me, that she picked a tool because I did, and when he dumped her, she came running because she doesn't know what to do now because I've always taken care of her, over taken care of her. Okay, it's true. You'd think a mother couldn't do too much for a child. But she could, she really could. You think maybe I screwed her up. Badly. But you don’t know her. She's smart and wonderful. She has a beautiful voice. And she's now kind of, well, a little bit pissy. I'm not sure when that happened, but she's a really great person. She always has been, and now she's just not who she could be."

She stopped and studied Max, who listened to her like he was really listening, like he felt something about what she had to say. Like he heard. It almost took her breath away.

He waited, and when she just watched him, he smiled. "She's your girl, Gwen. She'll find her way. You found yours."

She snorted. He had apparently not heard a word she’d said about her daughter’s life or anything Ellen had blabbed about hers. She wished the females in her family had a genetic pre-disposition to find their way, but they were three generations of women derailed by ridiculous taste in men. At least her mother and her daughter had picked exciting ones. She studied Max. Well, she’d been knocked off track by one exciting one and one insurance salesman.

"Gwen, you did find your way." He said it with such conviction, she wanted to believe him. "You're just finding a new way now. Nothing takes away from what you've done the past twenty years, and that was raising a child and giving her a home. And regardless of what a tool Steve was and is," he raised his hand, "Sorry. But I know you had to have been a good wife. You couldn't be less. It's just not your way."

Holy Hell. The one person on the planet she’d genuinely screwed things up with thought she’d lived her life well. "Wow. First dinner and now you're insightful and kind."

"And for the record I wasn't thinking any of those things you thought I was thinking." He met her eyes so directly she knew why he could win at poker. "But I’m a little worried."

She pointed the aha finger at him. "I knew it."

"Damn straight. I don't know how I'm going to get you out of my house before you do something we'll both regret." He stood to clear the empty bowls.

Oh, so she was the wolf in his warped little scenario. Even if she were... "You wouldn’t regret anything I could do to you."

He stood beside her, picked up her bowl. "My life is very complicated right now."

She laughed and was sorry to encourage him because he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "I'm not kidding." And then he left for the kitchen.

She felt a mild embarrassment that grew the longer she sat there. Had he really just rejected her? It wasn’t like Max to be rational about sex. Hell, it wasn’t like any guy in the history of guys to be rational about sex. He was using reverse psychology on her, the a*shole, being nice to deliberately confuse her. Well, she had an A in psychology, and he had so picked the wrong mark.

She sashayed into the kitchen, sashayed being the only way she could describe the extra hip motion some women did so naturally. She may not be that kind of woman, and she wasn’t claiming to nail it completely, but she felt she was close.

He stood at the sink rinsing dishes and missed the show, so she came up behind him and pressed her body against his back.

He froze, and she heard a glass fill to overflowing at the bottom of the sink. After a long run of rejection, that was more like it. If she could sashay, she could... She put her hands in his front pockets, but kept them to his hip bones. She didn't posses that much boldness, although she could feel the fabric tighten and that was encouraging. She kissed him on the back of the neck, and it was so warm and delicious, she bit the muscle at the side, right where it went into his broad shoulders. The man was a perfect triangle.

Without any thought in her head, she slipped her hands from his pockets and traced the line from his shoulders down to the narrow of his waist. She stopped at his jean clad butt, squeezed, and sighed. A woman could break a nail on this man. She squeezed again then stepped back and blew out a long breath. She’d better go while he still had his virtue because she was in danger of not being in control of hers.

She bolted out of the kitchen, grabbed her coat, and yelled over her shoulder on her way out, "Thanks for dinner."

He heard the door slam before he moved. Or breathed. If he hadn't been so immobilized by the rush of pure desire, he would have chased her down and nailed her on the porch, right under him or over him or in whatever position they first made contact, and it was his front porch. There were cars going by and neighbors, some them he’d even known from his childhood and still he would have taken Gwen right against the wood. His… The porch’s…

He tried to stop the movie in his head, the lovely porn one that was only going to torture him. He could and would concentrate on what he was doing at the sink, yeah, rinsing dishes and trying, for once in his life, to be noble. The right thing to do was to avoid complicating her life with sex, his life with sex. The two of them had a messy history and a messy present.

He really had wanted dinner and talking. Those were definitely two things he wanted. She may think he was all about sex, and while he couldn't think of anything else at the moment, he had, a couple of times during the evening, had other thoughts, like that she was smart and funny and as warm as always. Why she thought caretaking was her worst quality was beyond him. More people should be afflicted with that illness. She was just a giving kind of woman. She'd always been generous, with friends, with family, in bed…

He turned the sprayer on and hit the last plate. He ought to turn it on cold and put it down his pants, if he could fit anything else in them at the moment.

Damn. That woman was either the best or the worst thing that had ever happened to him. He was beginning to think she was both.





The rest of her week passed in a haze of lamb and sexual frustration. She’d never thought either would happen to her. She’d come from such a nice family. Isn’t that what people said? Well, not about her. Her dad was gone and Ellen, while not mean, certainly, was a little too wild to be called nice by anybody’s standards.

Watching her floor number light up, she waited for the elevator doors to open, stepped out, and caught a whiff of her hair. She pulled a corky strand closer. Whew, it was very Greek of her to be perfumed with souvlaki. She needed a shower and a Friday afternoon nap... that lasted until Sunday. But first, she needed to check on Missy.

For nearly a week, Missy had been either asleep or gone. The meal coupons were missing, so she’d been eating in the cafeteria. Gwen suspected she’d headed there at odd times to avoid sitting across a table from her mother. Sometimes Missy took her guitar and played in the car. Gwen had spotted her more than once in the parking lot. She’d claimed the graduation present, and Gwen hoped that the next semester she’d claim the college money as well.

It would work out. She and Steve, regardless of anything else, had never been troubled by money conflicts. She sent out a little wish that he didn’t have that kind of luck with the new woman. Regardless, Missy’s college money was safe, and she and Steve would divide up the other assets. She didn’t want to think about it in any detail, the savings, the house. She’d have to let all kinds of security go if she stayed at Belmar and started a career. But there’d be enough. With Steve there’d always been enough.

She passed the hallway leading to the lounge and saw a football game on the big screen and the top of a couple of baseball hats. She would have kept going but something didn’t seem right. It was too quiet. The game was on mute and so were the boys. Heading into the lounge, she saw Jason, large and draped across the club chair, looking like he might cry. "Hey, fellas, team losing?"

Jason sighed. "No, we’re up."

Bryan and Hayden seemed just as unhappy. "Well, that explains the mood. Geeze, nothing worse than your team winning. Because..."

Bryan, slumped in the corner of the sectional, seemed to barely rally enough to answer. "We were cut."

Gwen studied the game more closely and saw a tiger striped logo at the top of the screen. "By the Bengals?"

"By Chi Omikron."

Chi Omikron? Probably not an honor society. Jason and Bryan wouldn’t want to be in that, and Hayden would be crowned their king. Then she remembered the tailgate party, the boys so eager. "I’m sorry. You wanted to pledge a fraternity?"

Bryan sat up straighter. "Not a fraternity, Chi Omikron, the best fraternity at Belmar, probably anywhere."

Hayden, good posture as always, turned from the game. "They picked the first round of freshman pledges, the usual guys who always get picked. The Chi’s won’t be giving up any more slots."

Jason jerked and the legs of his chair scritched on the linoleum. "It sucks to be a freshman. We aren’t even gonna get to go to the Halloween party. The biggest night of the whole friggin’ year."

Had Halloween really replaced Christmas? New Year’s Eve? Where had she been? Home too much to notice obviously. "Wish I could help, guys. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. Hey, have you seen a new girl around here?"

Hayden gave it some real thought, but Bryan perked up instantly. "Is she hot?"

Gwen shook her head. "I don’t want to know."

Bryan tipped his head in confusion, but Gwen waved it off. "Hang in there, guys. These are the best years of your life."

"That’s just mean, Venus." Jason closed his eyes.

"Sorry." She smiled at him anyway. What she’d said was true, and that was the worst kind of mean, wasn’t it?