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simultaneously intrigued and afraid -- a combination I've grown used to over the past year with Frankie.
    "It's perfect. We're in California for twenty-three days, right?" She does some quick calculations on her fingers, looking up at the ceiling to concentrate. "If we allow three days for arrival, exploration, and strategy, that leaves us eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Twenty days, give or take."
    "Twenty days for what ?"
    "Twenty boys."
    I think she's joking, but her eyes are set. I must stop this madness before she has us buying the family pack of condoms at the pharmacy.
    "Frankie, I'm not sleeping with twenty guys, and neither are you!" She laughs. "Come on, Anna. I just meant that if we could meet a boy a day, and maybe do a little test-drive, certainly you could ditch the A.A. at some point, right? We can even make it a contest. Whoever gets the most prospects -- wins."
    While the yellow-daisy-swimsuit Anna would never have agreed to such a scandalous contest, the crazy girl in the mirror wearing the olive bikini can't crush Frankie's sincere smile. It's ear to ear, almost all the way to her bright blue eyes, and before I can even think about what a bad idea it is, our mission is in motion.
    "Twenty days," I say, overjoyed at her lasting enthusiasm. "Twenty boys. I'm in."
    Frankie wiggles her eyebrow and takes one more look at our bikini reflections, nodding her approval.
    I smile and nod back, challenge accepted.
    Cue the movie announcer guy.
    Somewhere along the California seashore, a strange wind blows over the ocean, and twenty oblivious boys simultaneously look up from their surfboards.
    six
    As the days turn into the final hours before the trip, whenever I think about Frankie's twenty-boy contest, I can't ignore the prickly feeling in my stomach that accompanies Matt's face, fading and disappointed.
    I never saw you in a bikini, I imagine him saying.
    You didn't live long enough, I think.
    But twenty, Anna? Does it have to be twenty? What about five? Or three? Or one?
    What do you care? You're dead, remember?
    I shake my head and pack the last few items on my list. Unless Dad has a last-minute change of heart, we leave tomorrow morning.
    "Dead boys don't talk, Anna," I say out loud. "Remember?"
    "What?" Mom does her signature knock-while-already-opening move on my bedroom door. "Did you say something, hon?"
    "Um, no, just reviewing my packing list." I see Dad behind her and hope they haven't been standing there long. Then I see the serious look on their faces and swallow hard, hoping they're just here to remind me about sunscreen and lifeguards and generally being an all-around well-behaved girl for Uncle Red and Aunt Jayne.
    "Can we talk for a minute?" Dad asks, making himself comfortable on my desk chair.
    "Um, okay." I remove and refold a few things from my bag to create the illusion that I'm busy.
    "So, Frankie's smoking again," he says.
    I can't tell if it's a question or a statement, so I play dumb. "What do you mean?"
    "I came home between open houses today and saw her," he says. Dad's in real estate, so his schedule can be unpredictable. Frankie should know -- her window faces our house. It's been a few months since the last time he busted her, when he grilled me about my nonexistent smoking habits and made me promise I'd get her to quit.
    "She just -- she found -- it's just that -- I don't know, Dad." I give up. The only excuse I can think of is the truth -- she's broken. Until someone can figure out how to fix her, what else can she do?
    Dad sighs. "Anna, do you think maybe the trip is something the Perinos need to do together, as a family ?"
    "They are going as a family," I remind him. His line of questioning makes me nervous. When the Perinos first invited me, it took some convincing to secure Dad's permission. Before Matt died, Dad already struggled with such "living on the edge" activities as me going outside with wet hair in the winter, taking off my sneakers without untying them, and going to bed