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because her life looked like one of her commercials. A red-hot model on her way to becoming a Hollywood star.
    And he was proud to be seen with her because she was so cool. They went everywhere together—to beaches, amusement parks, movies, Red Sox games. She even took him once to a street in Manchester where they were shooting a scene from a movie in which she had a part. He waited behind the cameras with the production people while she did her lines. It was a small walk-on, but it was fun. And when it was over, she introduced him to the stars and the director. All the cool things he did with her, never his dad.
    Even though she was his stepmother and he called her Mom, Lila was more like his big sister—thirty-six years old and still young at heart, she would say. She dressed in tight hip-hugger jeans and miniskirts, funky stockings and tops, hair scarves, funny hats. Or she wore cutoffs, T-shirts, and sandals. Almost every week they went to a movie. She once said her favorite of all time was a French film called Jules et Jim, which was about two guys in love with the same woman. Nothing he’d be interested in at his age.
    Lila had been in his life since she began dating his father, Kirk, five years ago. His own mother had died of cancer when he was four. Because Kirk was an airline pilot and away from home more days than he wasn’t, he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Fremont, New Hampshire, about fifteen miles away. It was only when Kirk married Lila that he moved back home to Derry. He had taken to Lila immediately. She was the mother he had never really known. And for a while his best friend.
    It was a beautiful late summer morning, and the air was warm and clear, the sky a radiant blue with scrappy clouds scudding toward the horizon. It was a little before eight o’clock, and they were on U.S. Route 1 where Lila was taking him to day camp on the New Hampshire shore just north of Hampton Beach. Then she would drive to Portsmouth to do a photo shoot.
    â€œHey, do I look okay?” she asked, glancing at him full face. She made an exaggerated smile to show all her even white teeth.
    â€œYeah. You look fine.”
    â€œWell, you’re my best critic, so you can tell me the truth.” She fluffed up her hair.
    â€œSo, what’ll you be doing at the shoot?” He liked using such language.
    She turned the radio down in the middle of “Bad Moon Rising.” “Would you believe, they’re going to have me polishing a car.”
    â€œPolishing a car?”
    â€œIt’s for a car wax, Simoniz. Nothing too fancy, but it should be fun.”
    â€œBut you’ll get all dirty.”
    She laughed. “No, I’m going to change. And I won’t really be polishing the car, just posing with a rag.”
    â€œWhat’ll you wear?”
    â€œI think they’re planning on having me in a bathing suit. Probably a bikini.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œA two-piece bathing suit. Kind of silly, if you ask me, but I guess it sells car wax.”
    At home they had several photo albums full of magazine ads she had done for clothing and laundry detergent. Several were in bathing suits. She also had secret albums she once showed him of artists’ sketches in charcoal and pen when she used to pose in the nude. Another of photographs in black-and-white. He once overheard his father claim in a heated moment that Lila would “lift her skirt for every Tom, Dick, or Harry.”
    â€œYour father thinks I’m crazy, but it pays well. Besides, maybe somebody in the movies will see it and like what they see.”
    He had also overheard Kirk say that she should stick to local plays and summer stock, that chasing after every little ad was crazy. He had used that word several times. Crazy . Sometimes psycho. Once he said that she “wasn’t dealing with a full deck.”
    â€œWhen you going to be in a movie again?” he asked.
    â€œI