“I’m babysitting.”

I look around again. “Where’s the baby? In the toolbox?”

He tips his head at me, acknowledging the joke. “Naptime,” he explains. “George and Patsy. Mom’s grocery shopping. It takes her hours.”

“I’ll bet.” Prying my eyes from his face, I notice his T-shirt is sticky with sweat at the collar and under the arms.

“Are you thirsty?” I ask.

Broad smile. “I am. But I’m not about to take my life in my hands and ask you to get me something to drink. I know your mom’s new boyfriend is a marked man for ordering you to serve.”

“I’m thirsty too. And hot. My mom makes good lemonade.” I stand up and start backing away.

“Samantha.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Come back, okay?”

I look at him a second, nod, then go into the house, shower, thereby discovering that Tracy’s perfidiously used up all my conditioner again, change into shorts and a tank top, and come back with two huge plastic cups full of lemonade and clinking ice.

When I walk up the driveway, Jase has his back to me, doing something to one of the wheels, but he turns as my flip-flops slap close.

I hand him the lemonade. He looks at it the way I’m realizing Jase Garrett looks at everything—carefully, noticing.

“Wow. She even freezes little pieces of lemon peel and mint in the ice cubes. And makes them out of lemonade.”

“She’s kind of a perfectionist. Watching her make this is like science lab.”

He drains the entire thing in one gulp, then reaches for the other cup.

“That’s mine,” I say.

“Oh, jeez. Of course. Sorry. I am thirsty.”

I extend my arm with the lemonade. “You can have it. There’s always more.”

He shakes his head. “I would never deprive you.”

I feel my stomach do that weird little flip-flop thing you hear about. Not good. This is our second conversation. Not good at all, Samantha.

Just then I hear the roar of a car pulling into our driveway. “Yo, Samantha!”

It’s Flip. He cuts the engine, then strides over to us.

“Hey, Flip,” Jase calls.

“You know him?”

“He dated my sister Alice last year.”

Flip immediately says to me, “Don’t tell Tracy.”

Jase glances at me for clarification.

“My sister’s very possessive,” I explain.

“Hugely,” Flip adds.

“Resents her boyfriends’ past girlfriends,” I say.

“Big-time,” agrees Flip.

“Niiice,” Jase says.

Flip looks defensive. “But she is loyal. No sleeping with my tennis partner.”

Jase winces. “You knew what you were getting into with Alice, man.”

I glance back and forth between them.

Flip says, “So…I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“We don’t,” I say, at the same time Jase answers, “Yup.”

“Okay. Whatever.” Flip waves his hands, clearly uninterested. “So where’s Trace?”

“I’m supposed to tell you she’s busy all day,” I admit. My sister: master of playing hard to get. Even when she’s already gotten.

“Cool. So where is she really?”

“Stony Bay Beach.”

“I’m there.” Flip turns to go.

“Bring her People magazine and a coconut FrozFruit,” I call after him. “Then you’re golden.”

When I turn back to Jase, he’s again beaming at me. “You’re nice.” He sounds pleased, as if he hadn’t expected this aspect of my personality.

“Not really. Better for me if she’s happy. Then she borrows fewer of my clothes. You know sisters.”

“Yup. But mine don’t borrow my clothes.”

Abruptly I hear a loud screaming, wailing, banshee-like sound. I jump, wide-eyed.

Jase points to the baby monitor plugged in by the garage door. “George.” He starts heading into the house, then turns back, gesturing me to follow.

Just like that, I’m going into the Garretts’, after all these years.

Thank God Mom works late.

The first thing that hits me is the color. Our kitchen’s white and silver-gray everywhere—the walls, the granite countertops, the Sub-Zero, the Bosch dishwasher. The Garretts’ walls are sunny yellow. The curtains are that same yellow with green leaves on them. But everything else is a riot of different colors. The fridge is covered with paintings and drawings, with more taped on the walls. Cans of Play-Doh and stuffed animals and boxes of cereal clutter the green Formica counters. Dishes teeter high in the sink. There’s a table big enough for all the Garretts to eat at, but not big enough to contain the piles of newspapers and magazines and socks and snack wrappers and swim goggles, half-eaten apples and banana peels.

George meets us before we’re halfway through the kitchen. He’s holding a large plastic triceratops, wearing nothing but a shirt that says Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. That’s to say, no pants, no underwear.

“Whoa, buddy.” Jase bends down, indicating the naked half of his brother with a wave of his hand. “What happened there?”

George, still tear-streaked but no longer screaming, takes a deep breath. He has wavy brown hair too, but the big eyes swimming with tears are blue. “I dreamed about black holes.”

“Gotcha.” Jase nods, straightening up. “Is the whole bed wet?”

George nods guiltily, then peeps under spiky damp eyelashes at me. “Who’s that?”

“The girl next door. Samantha. She probably knows all about black holes.”

George eyes me suspiciously. “Do you?”

“Well,” I say, “I, um, know that they’re stars that used up all their fuel and then collapsed inward, due to the pull of their own gravity, and, um, that once anything falls into them it disappears from the visible universe.”

George starts screaming again.

Jase scoops him up, bare bottom and all. “She also knows that there are none anywhere near Connecticut. Don’t you, Samantha?”

I feel horrible. “Not even in our universe,” I tell him hastily, although I’m pretty sure there’s one in the Milky Way.

“There’s one in the Milky Way,” sobs George.