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calls my parents Mira and Doug, she’s been doing it since she was six.
    “So what’s this I hear about a road trip?” my mom asks, trying to sound cool.
    “Cat 3 hurricane is headed to coastal Connecticut,” Emily pronounces like an Aaron Sorkin character. “I figure Ran and I get on the front lines with the pre-storm relief effort. Not only a morally and spiritually nice thing to do, but a final boon to our college applications. Makes for some great essay material, too.”
    “Just what the Ivies like to see,” my mom says, literally nudging me with her elbow.
    “Are you serious?” I ask.
    “Yes,” they say in unison, causing my mother to giggle.
    “Seriously, Ran,” Emily says. “This is like getting in on the ground floor pre-Sandy. If those Jersey kids could have foreseen what was going to happen in their state and do what we’re about to do, not only could they have prevented a lot of damage, but right now they’d be packing their bags for Stanford and Columbia.”
    “Mm-hm,” my mother says, nodding like a bobblehead doll.
    “So…” I say to my mother, “you’re cool with me and Emily driving to some small coastal fishing town where a major hurricane’s about to hit? Just the two of us?”
    “I think it’s a fab ulous idea,” my mom says, beaming. “It’s exactly what your sister did the summer between her junior and senior years. And,” she stresses, grabbing Emily’s arm for emphasis, “I know that Morgan’s time at LifeBuilders is what gave her the edge with Princeton Admissions.”
    Emily nods vigorously, raising her eyebrows at me. “Exactly.”
    I shake my head and absently check my Facebook page on my phone, to see if anyone liked the photo I posted of me and Emily at Pinkberry. Nothing.
    My mother sighs. “Frankly, I’m jealous of you two. Reminds me of my high school and college volunteering days. Of course, we had real causes back then: the AIDS crisis, feeding Ethiopia, women’s rights and the glass ceiling.” She looks almost nostalgic, as if she longs for a time when things were so bad people had to march in the streets to fix them. “Helping your fellow man— and woman —can take various guises. Hurricane Sandy should be a lesson to us all. Grab what you can, girls. These opportunities are few and far between for your generation.”
    “…Okay?” I say, confused yet resigned, not really wanting to go, not really having a better alternative. Though I tried to convince my parents that working at the stables and riding all summer would be the best use of my time, they weren’t buying it. My dad insisted that I find a job “in a real office.” When I dragged my heels through April and May and complained that nothing was available, he found a spot for me at his hedge fund organizing files and restocking the supply closet. But even that thrill-a-minute internship ended last week. With three more weeks until school starts and my parents putting the kibosh on long days at the barn, I need some thing to do other than help my mom around the house with her never-ending ‘project board.’ Volunteering for an impending hurricane suddenly sounds like a great idea. “Guess I should grab my stuff.”
    I dig into my closet, looking for my Hunter rain boots while Emily and my mom jabber about our upcoming adventure.
    “Oh!” my mother exclaims. “You girls should look up Theodore Hutchins. The governor’s chief of staff.”
    “Do you know him?” Emily asks, her radar for inside connections on high alert.
    “Dougie and Theo went to Exeter together! But oh, it’s not Theo, it’s, um… Ted or Teddy. That’s it! Teddy. Teddy Hutchins. You should introduce yourself, Rani.”
    “Yeah, Rani,” Emily parrots.
    “Not gonna happen,” I say, tossing my boots behind me, head still in the closet. I stand and begin searching for the big yellow rain slicker that I never wear.
    “What? Why not, sweetie?”
    “Because it’s totally lame.”
    “Your father knows him. It