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you are.” Leslie stands behind me and gives my shoulder a light squeeze. “You’re normally so punctual. We were starting to get worried.”
    “I’m sorry—”
    “No, don’t be.” She pinches his arm playfully. “I’m teasing. What do you have there?”
    “This”—my dad thrust the Godiva bag at her—“is to thank you for your invitation.”
    “Oh, no thanks needed,” Leslie says, opening the bag. “I’m just so glad you could come. Wow, Godiva.” She smiles brightly at him. “Thank you. That’s very nice.”
    “Well.” My father clears his throat the way that he always does when he’s extremely nervous. “Let’s just say that I haven’t been invited out in a real long time. Thank you,” he finishes quietly.
    “I’m glad you could make it, Joe.” Leslie touches his hand lightly. “And I like your costume,” she says sincerely. “The book is a nice touch.”
    “Is my mom flirting with your dad?” Marisol whispers to me.
    “I don’t think so,” I whisper back, my stomach suddenly turning. Is Marisol crazy?
    “It looks like flirting to me. And I think your dad is flirting back.”
    “That’s not flirting. That’s being polite.”
    “No,” Marisol says sweetly, “that’s flirting.”
    I follow Marisol’s gaze. What is she seeing that I’m not? Two grown adults can go out to a coed gathering without it meaning SOMETHING. Yeah, sure, my dad was still standing in Marisol’s foyer wearing the same sheepish grin he walked in with. And, sure, Leslie’s hand was lingering uncomfortably close to my dad’s hand so that if they sneezed, they might accidentally touch. But when did that constitute flirting?
    OMG, are they flirting?
    “Okay, girls.” Leslie kisses Marisol gently on the forehead and hugs me tightly. Which totally pisses me off. Not at Leslie, but at Marisol. I mean, how could Marisol imply that her mother—her wonderful mother—might try to steal, I mean flirt with, my dad?
    “Okay. Susie”—my dad pats me twice on the back—“be good, and don’t eat all the candy.”
    “I won’t,” I promise, grabbing him by the collar and unexpectedly digging my face into his shoulder.
    “Oh, okay.” My dad places two more awkward pats on my back. “Okay.”
    “Remember, don’t let any strangers in the house. Don’t open the door for anyone who doesn’t have children, and”—Leslie smiles at the both of us—“no boys.”
    “Okay, Mom.” Marisol shoves them toward the door.
    “And lock the—”
    “Door,” Marisol finishes, slamming the door shut. “Finally.”
    “Finally,” I repeat.
    “Boys,” she says.
    “As if.”
    “So, our parents, huh?”
    “Whatever,” I mumble, looking out the window. My dad is helping Leslie into the passenger side of his car.
    “Let’s put in a movie,” Marisol yells from the family room.
    “Coming,” I yell back, but I can’t…not until they’ve driven away.

TEN
a definite connection
    “i’m ready to quit.”
    One hour later, Marisol and I have handed out nearly three-fourths of the candy, and I’m having the time of my life. All the little kids love my costume. They keep calling me Alice and tugging on my blond wig.
    “Why?” I’m totally not ready to give up the fun.
    “’Cause,” Marisol whines. “We’re not going to have enough candy for all the movies. And I’m sick of seeing kids that we know from school.”
    Marisol does have a point there. So far we’ve seen at least ten kids from OG. Some were actually trick-or-treating, which was ridiculous, so we didn’t open the door for them. And others were with a younger sibling. Lisa, a girl from my trig class, showed up with her niece.
    “Yeah, well they haven’t all been so bad,” I say, adjusting my wig. “Lisa was nice. But you are right about the candy. We’re running out.” No leftover candy was a possibility that I had not considered, and one, I was sure, that I could not live with. “Okay, we’ll do just one more.”
    “You’re