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be?
    But just as I was kind of getting the guts up to go, “Oh, yeah, and that Paul Slater dude, remember him? He showed up in my homeroom this morning,” Brad shrieked up the stairs that dinner was ready.
    Since my stepdad has this big thing about all of us gathering as a family at mealtimes and breaking bread together, I was forced to leave Jesse’s side at that point—not that he seemed to care—and go downstairs and actually converse with the household…a major sacrifice, considering what I could be doing instead: making myself available for more kisses from the man of my dreams.
    Tonight, however, like most nights, didn’t look as if it was going to yield any passionate embraces, so I went glumly down the stairs. Andy had prepared steak fajitas, one of his best dishes. I had to give my mother credit for finding a guy who was not only handy around the house but who was also practically a gourmet cook. Given that my mom and I had basically lived on take-out food back before she’d remarried, this was definitely an improvement.
    The fact, however, that Mr. Fix-It had come with three teenaged sons? That part I was still sort of iffy about.
    Brad burped as I entered the dining room. Only he had mastered the art of burping words. The word he burped as I walked in was “ Loser. ”
    “You’re one to talk,” was my witty rejoinder.
    “Brad,” Andy said severely. “Go and get the sour cream, please.”
    Rolling his eyes, Brad slid out from his place at the table and trudged back into the kitchen.
    “Hi, Susie,” my mother said, coming up and ruffling my hair affectionately. “How was your first day back?”
    Only my mother, out of all the human beings on the planet, is allowed to call me Susie. Fortunately I had already made this abundantly clear to my stepbrothers, so that they did not even snicker when she did it anymore.
    I didn’t feel it would have been appropriate to have answered my mother’s question truthfully. After all, she is unaware of the fact that her only child is a liaison between the living and the dead. She is not acquainted with Paul, or with the fact that he once tried to kill me, nor is she aware of the existence of Jesse. My mother merely thinks that I am a late bloomer, a wallflower who will come into her own soon enough, and then have boyfriends to spare. Which is surprisingly naïve for a woman who works as a television news journalist, even if it is only for a local affiliate.
    Sometimes I envy my mom. It must be nice to live on her planet.
    “My day was all right,” was how I responded to my mother’s question.
    “’S not going to be so good tomorrow,” Brad pointed out, as he came back with the sour cream.
    My mother had taken her seat at one end of the table and was flipping out her napkin. We use only cloth napkins. Another Andy-ism. It is more ecologically responsible and makes the presentation of the meal way more Martha Stewart.
    “Really?” Mom said, her eyebrows, dark as mine, rose. “How so?”
    “Tomorrow’s when we give the nominations for student body government,” Brad said, sliding back into his place. “And Suze is going down as VP.”
    Flipping out my own napkin and laying it delicately across my lap—along with the giant head of Max, the Ackermans’ dog, who spent every meal with his muzzle resting on my thigh, waiting for whatever might fall from my fork and into my lap, a practice I was now so used to, I hardly even noticed anymore—I said, in response to my mother’s questioning gaze, “I have no idea what he’s talking about.”
    Brad looked innocent. “Kelly didn’t catch you after school?”
    Not exactly, given that I’d been in detention after school, something Brad knew perfectly well. He intended to torture me about it for a while though, you could tell.
    “No,” I said. “Why?”
    “Well, Kel’s already asked someone else to be her running mate this year. That new guy, Paul Whatsit.” Brad shrugged his shoulders, from which his