CHAPTER ONE

Colleen

Colleen Bradley hung up the phone—a tiny beep at the push of a fake on-screen button, as opposed to the satisfying slam of a good old plastic receiver—and rubbed her eyes in exasperation.

An hour and a half.

An hour and a half she had just spent on hold with that stupid hold music playing, and then the second she got a real person and not a robot, she was transferred, heard half a hopeful ring, and the call got dropped.

In front of her lay a pile of bills and papers. The satellite TV contract was up, and she needed to reup their service, after she first checked to see if there were any unadvertised specials. Last month, their phone bill was higher than it should have been, and she’d had to call and talk to them about it. The dryer was barely working, and she would have to schedule an appointment for someone to come look at it. And to top it all off, the basement carpet was all messed up from her son not letting the dog out before going to sleep, even though Colleen had warned him about that: If he didn’t let him out, the dog would ruin the carpet. Lo and behold … Her life felt like a series of single steps forward and being shoved back three.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love and want her son—of course she did!—but maybe she’d spoiled him and created her own problem. (“Monsters are created,” her mother used to say.) Maybe she’d made it too easy for him not to keep up his end of things, like letting the dog out, and now she was paying the price for the “laziness” of constantly telling him, “Forget it, I’ll just do it myself,” and then not following through in time.

Then again, Jay was the reason she had the life she did. She would never, ever forget that.

She took a deep breath and—determined to clear her in-box and knock at least that one thing off her to-do list—opened her e-mail.

Junk.

Junk.

Coupons for Pottery Barn. As if she could afford that, even with coupons.

Restoration Hardware?

They always lured her in with their beauty, but who could pay that much for a sofa?

An e-mail from her father. She’d read that later.

An e-mail from … Jay’s vice principal?

She hoped it was a group e-mail, school spam, but as she feared, it was addressed to her alone, and about Jay specifically. His lack of motivation, bored attitude in class, failing grades even though he had the intelligence—they all knew that—to be doing much better and excelling in AP classes.

She sighed.

How many times had they had this conversation? A hundred? Two hundred? She felt her own frustrations with the school’s increasing expectation of parental involvement in homework—she herself had always skated her way through junior high and high school doing her homework on her bed, usually while on the phone—but she was still willing to do what was necessary. Yet every time she asked Jay if he had any homework, he said it was done and she believed him.

Maybe it was just easier to believe him.

The truth was, she felt like his poor grades were her own fault. That is, Jay was responsible for his own laziness, but if she’d been hearing this story about someone else’s kid, she’d be saying the mom had to be on top of things, no matter what. Kid failing? No more computer. No more Xbox. No more privileges until he got his grades up. It was obvious.

But what was he doing now? Playing games on the computer with his friends over Skype. She could hear him. She hated the nonstop gaming, but it was easier to pretend she didn’t notice than to have the fight about it.

It was one more ball she was dropping. At this point, she’d dropped so many that in her mind, her life looked like a tennis court after group tennis lessons for ten first-graders.

She had to get her act together and start doing what needed to be done.

Now Vice Principal Richards wanted to meet with her and Kevin (she already knew he’d be too busy at work to show) and all Jay’s teachers before the end of term, which was two weeks away.

“Jay!” She yelled down from where she sat and just waited, too tired to get up and summon him for yet another Unpleasant Talk.

Finally, “Yeah?”

“Come here!”

After a longer-than-necessary wait, the tall, lanky fourteen-year-old came sauntering in. “What’s up?”

“Got an e-mail from Vice Principal Richards.” She gestured at the computer screen as if that would put the fear of God into him.

He quirked a smile. “How is he?”

“Not funny. You’ve got D’s in two classes and an F in one.”

“A’s in the other three.”

“You think that makes up for it?”

“It averages out to a mid-C.”

“Jay.” She put her head in her hands for a moment, then looked back at him soberly. “Now I have to go in and talk to every one of your teachers, your guidance counselor, and Mr. Richards.”

“Just don’t go.”

“I can’t just not go. That’s the attitude—that right there—that’s getting you in trouble. Do the work, Jay. Do. The. Work. It’s almost summer vacation, you’ve got, like, three days to turn this stuff in. Being a student is your only job—can you just get it done?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll try.”

“No. No trying—just do it. Or you won’t be going to Cooperstown with Dad.” Empty threat; they both knew it. There was no way in the world she could cancel that trip now.

But they both pretended to believe it.

“I’m forwarding this e-mail to you, it’s got your missed assignments on it. You can still pass without having to go to summer school. Go work on whatever isn’t done now.”

“Fine.”

He went back downstairs and she waited tensely for a few minutes, then heard exactly what she expected: the sound of the computer starting up again.

So it wasn’t that she was just being a persnickety old Felix Unger when she went into the kitchen and saw the mess; it was that she had completely had it with feeling like she was constantly taking one step forward only to be shoved back fourteen.

“Jay!” she yelled, eyeing the sink, the precarious pile of Fiestaware she’d gotten piece by piece off eBay and in antique and thrift stores, according to what she could afford at any given time. Some of the plates were chipped, one of the bowls had the mold-green remains of what was probably once Life cereal—and that was the one on top, so God only knew what the ones below looked like.

She didn’t want to know.

“Jay!” she yelled again, then went to the top of the basement door and added, “Get up here. Again.”

Her son responded with something muffled and indistinguishable from down and behind the rec room door.

“I can’t hear you, come here!” Usually she had to go to them when she couldn’t hear them, Jay or even Kevin. The onus was always on her to go hear, rather than on them to come be heard.

She waited about thirty beats and was half ready to go...