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sent it, she cocked her head and regarded her sent folder. Making threats wasn’t anything special coming from, say, Lex or Venus, but she knew she lacked a certain amount of fear factor in her cousin’s eyes.

    She sent another email:

    I mean it!!!! Call me!!!!

    She knew he was on his computer because she got onto Facebook and saw he was online and “available to chat.” However, mere seconds after she had signed into Facebook, he signed off of chat.

    Coward.

    Ten minutes. He was deliberately ignoring her. Even the picture of him with the Polwarth sheep hadn’t been enough to force him to call her.

    Jenn glowered at her laptop screen, then stood up and paced her bedroom, avoiding the pile of cookbooks on the floor and also the box containing new baking pans she’d bought to make Trish’s wedding cake.

    She didn’t really want to send the pictures to Larry’s dorm-mates. Which Larry probably knew. If Venus had sent the email, Larry would have been dialing before the last picture even downloaded. Maybe Jenn should have asked Venus …

    No, this was her problem. She had to stop relying on her cousins all the time to help her and be her “muscle.” She needed to develop some “muscle” too.

    Fine. He’d called her bluff. She’d up the ante.

    She called his mother, Aunt Glenda.

    “Hi Aunt Glenda!”

    “Oh, hello Jenn.” A little guarded in her tone. Was Jenn really surprised? The news that Jenn wasn’t going to work at the restaurant had probably reached Aunt Glenda within seconds of Jenn getting off the phone with Aunty Aikiko last week.

    Jenn put on her brightest, I’m such a properly obedient Asian niece I’ll scrub your bathroom floor with a toothbrush voice. “Aunty, I’m going to San Jose State this afternoon, and I know how much you hate driving in downtown San Jose, so I wondered if there was anything you wanted me to take to Larry at his dorm?”

    It earned her a grudging, “That’s very nice of you, Jenn. In fact, I do have a load of laundry Larry needs right away.”

    “Great! I’ll come by and pick it up in a few minutes. Is there anything else?” She gave a thoughtful pause. “Any special memento Larry might have forgotten in his room that he might need?”

    Aunty always treated Larry, her only son, as if he still couldn’t feed himself with a fork if she weren’t there to help him. Now, Jenn counted on it. “Is there any kind of memento Larry might need for exams next week?”

    “There are exams next week?”

    “My cousin Mimi said they were soon.” If “soon” meant six weeks away.

    “Oh, he always gets so stressed when there are exams. Last time, he bought so many pizzas for all-nighters that he needed to borrow money.”

    Pizzas, huh? More like drinkable sustenance. “Is there anything I could bring him to help him?”

    “Oh, I have the perfect thing. When he was in high school, he’d lie on his yellow pony rug in the living room to study.”

    “Wonderful.” Even Jenn hadn’t known about the yellow pony rug, although Larry had let slip once that he had a lucky charm for when he had to study for finals in his senior year. “Aunty, why don’t you call him and let him know I’ll be by this afternoon with his laundry and the yellow pony rug.”

    “I’ll do that right now. Thanks, Jenn.”

    Jenn hung up her cell phone and counted the seconds. Fifteen seconds for Aunty to ask how he was doing, another twenty seconds while she rambled on and Larry tried to get her off the phone, then ten seconds when Aunty remembered why she’d called her darling boy and told him about the laundry. And the yellow pony. Five seconds for Larry to realize what Jenn had done and give some excuse for needing to get off the phone right away—maybe a fire drill or an email from his professor.

    Her phone rang. Caller ID: Larry

    “I was thinking of draping the rug across the couch in your dorm’s common room,” Jenn said. “Maybe with a note pinned to it saying,