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  I stared back at her wordlessly.

  “Congratulations, Parker,” she said. “You’re one of the chosen.”

  Four years later, her words still haunted me.

  Chosen for what?

  “Well, hello, Parker,” Myrna says when I arrive. “Still haven’t tried the sushi platter after all these years, have you?”

  I shrug and take my usual seat in front of her desk, the sign about her “98% Track Record” staring back at me. The first meeting was the only one Mom and Dad were allowed to attend. Myrna insisted we meet alone—just her and me—after that.

  “This is all about trust and you’re going to have to trust me,” she told them. “And, in return for your trust, I promise I will get Parker to the top.”

  The top of what?

  “So how’s it going?” she asks.

  “Fine.” Standard answer.

  “We’re almost there, you know, all your hard work is about to pay off big time.”

  I grunt.

  “Parker,” she says, leaning forward. “It’s almost over. We don’t want to trip at the finish line, do we?”

  I say nothing in response.

  She gazes at me for a few seconds in silence, and when she speaks again, her tone is softer. “I know it’s hard, Parker. I know it’s a lot of pressure. But I’m only doing what you asked me to do. Remember when you scored 1570 on your SATs and you were so proud of yourself and I told you to re-take them? Well, you got a perfect 1600 after you re-took them. I know what’s best for you, Parker.”

  I shake my head. “No, you don’t.”

  Her mouth falls open. “What? My job is to get you into the school of your dreams. The rest is up to you.”

  I exhale loudly. I’m so tired of this. All of it. “I was asked be the editor of a new teen section at the New Jersey Jewish Ledger.”

  “You already have too much,” Myrna says. “It sounds terrific, but you don’t need it. You said no, right?”

  “I can’t say no,” I say, and it feels great to say this out loud, to impose this weight on someone else for a change.

  Myrna cocks her head to the side. “You don’t need it, Parker. You have too much already.”

  “What do you know about what I need?”

  I get up, seeing red—no, seeing the pie case at Perkins.

  “Parker. Hold on. Wait!”

  I walk out.

  –––––

  I drive toward the industrial area by the bridge, past go-go bars and girly clubs, toward a Starbucks in a massive shopping center overflowing with SUVs and minivans. A guy in an orange vest mutters to himself as he rounds up Wal-Mart shopping carts into impossibly long blue snakes. Moms drag screaming kids to Sam’s Club for bulk bargains. I swerve to avoid a near-collision with a white van hemorrhaging Girl Scouts in front of the Rag Shop.

  My cell rings. Myrna Katz and Associates. I shut it off.

  I order three coffees—venti, black—and head home, taking the long way past miles of yellow-brown cornfields. When I get there, I find Danielle and Rachel in our home-theater room.

  Dad had our cavernous basement remodeled a while back to look like one of those old movie palaces you see in glossy coffee-table books. There’s a huge silver screen, a state-of-the-art projector, a blow-your-eardrums-away sound system, framed movie posters of classic films like The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, and Casablanca, and even an old-fashioned, red-and-gold popcorn cart that Mom rescued from a rotting boardwalk pier in Asbury Park. Mom also found three flea-bitten rows of faded, blue-velvet seats in a cow town in Montana, with gilded arm rests carved to look like lion’s heads. They were restored to their original blue splendor by a movie-seat expert in Brooklyn.

  It’s cool, actually, though it’s never accomplished Dad’s goal of having weekly Family Movie Nights. Danielle and I like to use the room. It’s dark and quiet, and the seats are comfortable. Foxy and Spaz are always asking me to throw a party here.

  “Lights Out and Make Out City,” Spaz says.

  “That could be our theme,” Foxy adds. “Girls like themes.”

  “If I had a home theater, I wouldn’t let it go to waste,” Spaz tells me once a week, most obnoxiously.

  “Ohhh, McDreamy,” Rachel murmurs when I walk in.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey, yourself,” Rachel replies. “We got nomination forms for Senior Sex Symbol today. You’re so going to win, Parker.”

  I give her a forced smile. Senior Sex Symbol is an annual fundraiser for our local chapter of the American Red Cross. I notice Danielle eyeing one of my coffees. I should offer it to her, but I got three for a reason. I have a calc quiz tomorrow; it’s going to be a long night.

  “Well, see ya later,” I say, and go up to my room.

  I turn on my cell. Three messages from Myrna.

  I turn it off again.

  78 days before

  Danielle

  “Your brother’s so cool and so hot!”

  Rachel says

  as we’re standing in front of the bulletin boards

  deciding what to join.

  Everything on the bulletin boards

  already has my brother’s name

  and time served on it, in an ink only I can see.

  Amnesty International

  Chess Club

  Digital Art Club

  Environmental Club

  Future Physicians

  Inner Voices

  Mock Trial

  Peer to Peer

  Peanut Butter and Jelly Club

  Philosophy Club

  Ping Pong Club

  Science Olympiad

  Yearbook Club

  “Do you know, like, how lucky you are?”

  Rachel asks me.

  “To be his sister? That everybody knows it?”

  I want to tell Rachel I’d give anything

  to go to a school

  in which my brother didn’t come before me.

  It’s been that way since nursery school at temple.

  How can a person think something is so great

  when in reality it’s so bad?

  I’d change my name

  to something even more Jewish-sounding

  like Sadie Perlmutter

  just to have the chance

  to do something in which

  I wasn’t being compared to Parker Rabinowitz.

  Or how about

  Parker-Rabinowitz’s-Little-Sister-Who-Otherwise-Doesn’t-Have-A-Name?

  Parker

  I have trouble with my calc quiz. It’s my last class of the day, and I have to run to youth group afterward, then peer leadership, then Big Brothers/Big Sisters. I call Myrna on the way.

  “Parker, thank goodness, I was going to give it till the end of the day, then I was going to get in touch with your parents. I haven’t lost a client yet and I’m not about to lose you. So, whatever it is, we can work it out. Talk to me.”

  “It was nothing,” I reply flatly. “I was just a little tired yesterday. I’m sorry.”

  “I know there are a lot of pressures on you, Parker, but we’re almost at the end.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you sure that’s all it was?”

  I hesitate. “Yeah.”

  “All right, then, I’ll see you at your next appointment. Call me if you need me.”

  Click. Dial tone.

  I know Myrna’s a busy woman with a million other clients, but I wish she’d asked me that just one more time.

  –––––

  Instead of heading to youth group, I drive to the development where Julianne lives. It’s old, probably even historic, and the houses are the kind that
architecture magazines put on their covers. Julianne’s has fat white columns and a giant sloping lawn. When I get there, though, there are no lights on at her house, and I realize I’m displaying stalking behavior by being here unannounced like this. This isn’t the kind of neighborhood where people would hesitate to call the cops to report a strange car. That’s all I need, for Dad to get a call from a desk sergeant asking him to bail me out.

  So I leave, but I make myself say it out loud: “I’m going to ask out Julianne.”

  77 days before

  Danielle

  “Who do you think Parker

  secretly crushes?”

  Rachel asks me

  after we vote

  for Senior Sex Symbol

  in homeroom.

  I almost want to say,

  “You, honey,”

  just to shut her up.

  Parker doesn’t secretly crush anyone

  or if he does

  he hides it pretty well.

  I remember the first time

  Parker brought a girl home

  for his eighth grade dance.

  Mom took him shopping

  at Sam’s in Livingstone

  for the perfect suit.

  His date, Dianne Levy,

  wore lavender-lace ruffles.

  I helped Parker choose a corsage

  from the catalog at the florist’s.

  Bicolored orchids with a spray of ribbon.

  Mom told him he had great taste.

  She snapped pictures

  of him trying to pin it to Dianne’s dress

  in front of the river-rock fireplace in our living room.

  The obligatory, before-the-dance, parental photo shoot.

  Dad got impatient,

  I guess,

  because he snatched the corsage

  out of Parker’s hands

  and tried pinning it

  to Dianne himself.

  When that didn’t work, he shook it hard.

  A shower of blossoms

  bled across

  Dianne’s lavender-dyed satin pumps.

  Her lower lip trembled.

  Parker gazed down at the floor.

  I started to say, “Dad … ”

  Parker said Dianne avoided him

  for the rest of the year.

  I didn’t go to my eighth grade dance

  because nobody asked me.

  76 days before

  Parker

  We get our calc quizzes back and there’s a big fat red C on mine.

  I have track and peer leadership and Key Club, but I get that tickle in my throat again, and I go to the parking lot, and I get in my car, and I drive.

  I end up in Julianne’s neighborhood again. Only this time she’s sitting outside, on her porch, wrapped up in a blanket. I can’t get myself out of my car fast enough, and I trip over my feet and make a complete fool of myself, but I don’t care. When she sees me, she starts for the house.

  “Julianne! Julianne!” I call like a lunatic, racing toward her.

  She turns toward me, but holds her arms against her chest protectively as if I’m a mugger who’s going to hurt her.

  “What do you want from me, Parker?” she asks when I frantically climb the porch stairs and stop in front of her.

  I lower my head. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want me … to be your girlfriend?”

  Her tone is so hopeful, and I can’t help feeling like I don’t deserve it. I take a step forward, then stop myself.

  “I’m … I’m afraid,” I say.

  Why did I say that?

  She looks at me questioningly. “Afraid? Of what? Of me? I’m not going to gouge your eyes out, Parker. I’m harmless. Really.”

  I smile a little. “I’m … I’m afraid you won’t like me.”

  The real me.

  She laughs. “Not like you? But I do like you. I like you a lot.”

  “I like you too, Julianne,” I say. “I think … that … I … I love you.”

  Oh. My. God.

  Julianne gazes at me for ages. Then she steps forward, slides her arms around my neck, and kisses me.

  –––––

  I’ve missed track, and if I don’t get myself back to school, I’ll miss peer leadership. I drive to Spaz’s house instead.

  The doorbell’s one of those longish-tinkling ones, the kind that chimes a few opening notes from a forgettable old song. Spaz answers it himself. He’s still in his Best Buy uniform, which means he just got off work.

  “Hey,” he says, letting me inside as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for me to be on his doorstep.

  We sit down on a zebra-print sofa in the living room. Without any warm-up, I say, “I asked out Julianne.”

  “About time, dude.”

  “Yeah,” I say, not sure why I found it necessary to drive all the way here and give Spaz this piece of information.

  “If you’d waited much longer, someone might’ve beat you to it,” he says with a half-smile.

  So that’s it. Like those animals on nature shows peeing on stuff to protect their turf.

  “She’s not Jewish,” I say, trying to imagine me and Spaz locking horns or antlers or whatever we’d lock if we were animals going at it on those shows.

  He shrugs. “Neither am I.”

  That has nothing to do with anything. I think of the way Amber kissed Spaz at that party in the barn, and my hot new shiksa suddenly feels like a consolation prize. Or is my new status with Julianne some kind of strategy?

  “I’m a big believer in carpe diem,” Spaz says.

  “Seize the day?”

  “Yup.”

  I wish I could set aside our rivalry for just one minute to have a real conversation with him. “How do you do it, Spaz?” I murmur.

  “How do I do what?”

  “You know … pressure.”

  This is the closest I’ve ever come. When Spaz doesn’t answer, though, I lose my nerve.

  “Forget it,” I say, feeling enraged with him—and myself.

  “No, hold on, dude, I know what you mean,” Spaz says. “It’s, like, my parents were freaking, ’cause my college consultant says I’m not gonna get into my first choice. But we decided that’s okay ’cause it’s more important for me to be happy.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, it’s in a voice devoid of its usual boredom. “You’re gonna be valedictorian, Parker. Your SATs are perfect, and you’ve got a legacy at Princeton.”

  I clearly hear the admiration in Spaz’s words, and even the envy, and for a moment I feel victorious. But then I fumble.

  “Princeton’s picky about Jersey people,” I say.

  “Okay, so you’ll go to Harvard or Yale,” he says, and it’s still in that same envious-defeatist-desperation voice.

  I shake my head. “No good.”

  He sits up and gestures wildly with his hands. “You’re putting the pressure on yourself, Parker. What’s the problem?”

  They say guys don’t like to talk about their feelings, but Spaz is actually one guy who does. Still, I change the subject.

  “Ever do any tutoring, Spaz?”

  “You need help with something, Parker?”

  I bristle. That word.

  “I don’t need help with anything,” I say, surprising myself with this automatic belligerence. It’s like a reflex, like when the doctor hits your knee with that stupid hammer. Beyond control.

  “Is it calc?” Spaz persists.

  “It’s nothing,” I say, getting up. “Forget it.”

  –––––

  I could still make Key Club, but I decide to just go ho
me. Mom’s at the house when I get there.

  “Parker?”

  “Mom?”

  “What are you doing here?” we both ask at the same time.

  We stare at one another silently, a few feet apart, as if we’re facing off in an old Western.

  “How was school?” Mom finally asks, falling back on the old standby.

  “Fine,” I reply, doing the same.

  I stand there, and instead of quickly climbing the stairs to my room, shutting my door, shutting her out, I wait. For what? For small talk about Sisterhood? For an explanation as to why she’s home? For an actual conversation in which my mother takes a normal interest in me?

  I study Mom. And I realize this: she looks old. I don’t usually pay attention to this kind of stuff, but now I see things I’ve missed. Wrinkles around her eyes, a droop in her smile, almost a resignation in her expression.

  Is my mother unhappy?

  What makes her unhappy?

  Dad?

  If my father makes me miserable, and if he makes Danielle miserable, doesn’t it logically follow that he makes Mom miserable too?

  Well, that’s her business. I’ve got my own problems. I start to go.

  “Parker?”

  For a moment, I panic, thinking she’s discovered something about me. But that’s impossible. I’m careful.

  “A girl called for you,” she says.

  Well, now, this is cryptic. Lots of girls call me. Usually they call my cell, but sometimes they call the house.

  “Julianne?” I ask.

  Mom nods. And smiles. “Is she your girlfriend?”

  My cheeks get hot, but I don’t know why this embarrasses me. “Yeah,” I say. “She’s my girlfriend.”

  I’m still getting used to saying that.

  “You’ve never had a girlfriend,” Mom says.

  I’m shocked Mom would even know this. Maybe she pays more attention than I thought.

  “Yeah,” I answer. “She’s the first.”

  Mom grins. Me getting a girlfriend has made her happy? “I want to meet her. Maybe you could bring her by.”