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"So you have a good relationship with him?"

"Oh. sure. We're buddies. He comes to all the games when I'm starting quarterback. Once he even took a red-eye flight to get there in time and paid for a high-premium ticket. too."

"That's very nice. Brody. I'm happy for you." He nodded and poured himself another beer. "Don't drink too much," I warned,

"Hey, if you saw how much beer we consume in school, you wouldn't worry. You develop an immunity or something. I think. I've downed a sixpack on my own lots of times."

"I just don't want you to get sick or be unable to drive." I said.

"I've been thinking about that. If you don't mind. I'll stay over tonight. Sleep in my usual room, of course."

My heart pounded out its warnings like drums sending messages about impending disaster.

"I don't think your mother is going to be happy about that. Brody."

"She hasn't called yet?" he asked.

"No."

"That Alison, If she found that note and dumped it again so I would get into trouble. I'll wring her spoiled neck."

"You'd better call your mother. Brody. Please."

"Sure. I'll call," he promised. He took another long sip of his beer and sat back, studying me.

"What?" I asked.

"There's something I've always wondered about. My mother never gives me a straight answer."

"Oh.'" I looked down quickly, pretending interest in my food.

"How did Mother get to know you, to recommend you for that program that set you up here with Grandmother Hudson? I never even knew my mother was involved in anything l

ike that. The closest she gets to minority problems is attending the Young Republican teas."

I continued to look down. I felt like a spider, weaving a web of lies. Only instead of some innocent fly being caught. I would surely catch myself. How much longer did I have to weave?

"I don't know what she has told you," I said cautiously.

"Practically nothing. I know she convinced Grandmother to give you a try and Grandmother apparently liked you from the start."

"It was just a program at the school for students who exhibited promise." I began. One day I was called into the principal's office and your mother interviewed me. I guess you can call it that. Next thing I knew, I was recommended. The rest you know."

"I just can't figure out when my mother did all that. She actually went to a school?"

"Maybe it wasn't all that much to do. Maybe some friend of hers told her about the program and she thought it would be a good idea."

"Too many maybe's," Brody shot back at me. He opened another beer. I glanced at him, my heart pounding. Some lies are so thin you can see right through them. I thought.

"I remember how surprised my father was about it," he continued. He practically gulped his beer now: it obviously made him nervous to talk about me. too. "What surprised him the most was how quickly my mother had made all the arrangements for you, and how easily she had talked my grandmother into taking you in.

"My grandmother was very particular about people coming to see her, much less live with her. I think she held a record for firing maids. No

salesperson would dare come within one hundred yards of this property."

"She was sick. She needed someone else in the house," I explained.

"A teenager? I know how Grandmother Hudson thought about today's teenagers. She used to say she would have had to hire a lion tamer if she was a mother of a young person today."