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minute Mom and Mrs. Krantz left, her demeanor had completely transformed. Her calm, saintly gaze gave way to a keen-eyed stare and wry smile. And her sugary voice was gone, replaced by the perpetually bored monotone of the ultracool set.
    “You going to help?” she asked.
    I sat down beside her and pulled a bottle of rum out of the box. “So, where’d you get all this?” I asked.
    “From my dad’s liquor cabinet.”
    “Really? Won’t he see that it’s missing?” I knew I sounded like a total thumb sucker, but I didn’t care. I just had to know. In my house I couldn’t roll my eyes without Mom finding out and nagging me about it.
    Christine made a little snorting sound. “Yeah, right. Like he’d care. As long as no one touches the scotch. That’s all he drinks. Luckily I hate that crap.”
    I nodded as if I totally understood. “I bet you’re glad he had that surgery today, huh?” I said, trying to regain cool points. “You didn’t have to worry he might notice all this stuff.”
    She looked at me with both sympathy and amusement. “He didn’t have surgery today. I just made that up.”
    “Oh.”
    “Besides, he knows I can take care of myself,” she said, frowning. She grabbed another two bottles and noisily plunked them beside the others. “
And
he had a golf game he didn’t want to miss.”
    I wasn’t sure what to say. It was clear she had parent issues, but then so did I. Plus, I was afraid I was making a pathetic first impression. For some reason talking with Christine made me feel about five years younger and short fifty IQ points.
    “What about
your
dad?” she asked. “Where is he today?”
    “At work,” I said.
    “And I take it your mom doesn’t work and instead runs her kids’ lives?”
    “Well . . . yeah.” I guessed that was one way of putting it. “Is it the same with yours?”
    She gave me an ironic and slightly scary smile. “Oh no. Not my mumsie. She’s in Costa Rica with her new husband.”
    Again I wasn’t sure what to say.
I’m sorry
seemed too presumptuous. And the standard social courtesies, like
I see
or
Is that so?
didn’t really seem to fit here. In fact, I was pretty sure I should never resort to polite society banter with her.
    Luckily we finished unpacking the booze at that point and Christine announced it was time for a break. She mixed up a couple of drinks, some sort of juice with a little bit of rum, and we sat down in the living room—me on the big flowered sofa and Christine in the harvest gold armchair.
    “Okay, questions,” she said, setting her drink on the coffee table. “Where do you go to school? Who do you hang out with? And what do you do for fun?”
    I swished my drink and watched the ice cubes whirl around the glass. I was used to these sorts of inquiries—these half-cloaked attempts to figure out my worth as a human being. In my circle, they were more along the lines of “Who’s your boyfriend and what does he drive?” I could answer the question of my school, but not the others. Mainly because I didn’t know anymore.
    I must have taken too long to answer because Christine made a little exasperated noise. “Man, I should have made coffee instead. Are you stoned or something?”
    “Sorry.”
    “Oh no. Don’t tell me. You miss your boyfriend, right?”
    I stared at her in alarm. “What makes you say that? Why do you think I have a boyfriend?”
    “Please. Pretty trendies like you always have boyfriends. It’s like those Barbie sets where you get two for the price of one. You date all through high school and college. Then you get married. You quit teaching to raise the kids, and you all live happily ever after in a big plastic dream home with your painted smiles, perfect hair, and expensive tans.”
    My eyes narrowed in a stern glare. What a judgmental bitch! How could she make so many cynical assumptions after knowing me only half an hour? But I was also a little spooked. She’d just described my dad and mom to the last