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never saw him again after that night, doesn’t even know his name, but she swears she’d recognize that creamy, Swiss-chocolate skin and that perfectly chiseled chin anywhere.
    As a result, my skin is chocolate milk—a shade caught somewhere between mocha and latte. A far cry from creamy Swiss chocolate. And an even farther cry from my mother’s porcelain white.
    She says I sort of look like him, that my chin sort of juts out the way his did and that’s where I got my egg-shaped face. She also says I have his dark, nut-brown lips and his even darker mahogany-brown eyes. I’m not sure. I don’t know who I look like, or if I even look like anyone.
    I just know that my blood is always red.
    “Where’s your mother?” Luke asks.
    “Out. Tupperware meeting.” Keeping her status as Diamond Manager requires her to be out a lot.
    “Well then, what are you doing later? How about we run down to Movie Mayhem and rent ourselves some Stephen Kings?” Stephen King’s my favorite. He knows this.
    “What for?”
    “Just want to spend some time with my girl.”
    “Whatever.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean? You used to like to spend time with me.”
    “Yeah, well, I also used to like to chew aluminum foil, and I don’t do that anymore, do I?”
    To this, he snaps his fingers back and forth over his head, homegirl style. “What’s the mat-ter, Ho-mey?” he raps. “Chick — chick-chick — chick-ah. Chew-chew-chew. Don’t wanna hang loose with your Uncle Luke? Chick — chick-chick — chew. Chew-chew-chew. Spin some disks? Watch some flicks?”
    “So cool,” I say, interrupting, not able to hide my smile. I make the L-for-Loser sign with my hand and place it up to my forehead.
    “You used to think so. Maybe that’s just it; maybe you’re too cool now.” He touches my shirt collar to make me look, and when I do, he does that corny finger-glide-up-your-face bit. It’s so stupid; I can’t help but laugh.
    “It’s good to see you smile,” he says. “For the past couple weeks I’ve been wondering if you lost your teeth.”
    Has it been that long?
    He keeps me there for a couple minutes, rambling about how I remind him of his (long-lost) daughter, with my rusty voice and tight black corkscrew curls; how he used to take her fishing at some lake, and why don’t we go. And I don’t really mind listening to him and his dumb stories, even though I’ve heard them all before. It kind of makes me feel like I’m somebody else. Like I’ve been burped out onto the set of some made-for-TV movie, where I’m the typical girl-with-a-problem and he’s the overprotective dad. Not Luke the Puke.
    “Sadie’s waiting for me,” I say, looking toward his watch, picturing time melting away like those double dips. “Are you gonna give me the ice cream money or not?”
    He shrugs, a stupid grin on his face, like he’s having fun, dangling money over my head. “If you do a little something for me,” he says finally.
    I nod, feel my face fall, saggy like his. Like someone’s clicked the channel back to reality TV and I’m Maria all over again.
    Back in my room, Sadie’s still there. She’s sitting on the bed, using up all my blueberry nail polish. “Go outside and hide in the bushes underneath my window. No peeking in.”
    “Why do I have to go outside?” She’s trying to cover up those pathetic little smiles with the blue.
    “Because I said so.” I position myself in the doorway to show her that I mean business. “Just say good-bye, slam the door, and wait for me there. Then we’ll go.”
    Sadie’s bottom lip quivers. “Why?”
    “Because you want to go to Scoops. And if you want to go to Scoops, you have to do what I say.”
    “Why can’t I just wait here?”
    “I mean it,” I insist, ignoring her question. “No peeking. I’ll know if you do.”
    Sadie palms the nail polish and makes her way, slowly but surely, down the hallway, into the kitchen, and out the back door.
    The chair in the family room