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clear. So I stuck it beside the grill, then slipped inside just as the shimmering lights from Nate’s pool cut off, leaving everything dark between his house and ours.
    I didn’t see Jamie again as I climbed the stairs to my room. If I had, I wasn’t sure what I would have said to him. Maybe he had fallen for my flimsy excuse, aided and abetted by a pool boy who happened to be in the right place at what, for me anyway, turned out to be the wrong time. It was possible he was just that gullible. Unlike my sister, who knew from disappearing and could spot a lie, even a good one, a mile off. She also probably would have happily provided the boost I needed up and over that fence, or at least pointed the way to the gate, if only to be rid of me once and for all.
    I waited a full hour to slip back downstairs. When I eased open my door, though, there was my bag, sitting right there at my feet. It seemed impossible I hadn’t heard Jamie leave it there, but he had. For some reason, seeing it made me feel the worst I had all day, ashamed in a way I couldn’t even explain as I reached down, pulling it inside with me.

Chapter Two
    My mom hated to work. Far from a model employee, she had never had a job, at least in my recollection, that she actually enjoyed. Instead, in our house, work was a four-letter word, the official end of good times, something to be dreaded and bitched about and, whenever possible, avoided.
    Things might have been different if she was qualified for a glamorous occupation like travel agent or fashion designer. Instead, due to choices she’d made, as well as a few circumstances beyond her control, she’d always had low-level, minimum-wage, benefits-only-if-you’re-really-lucky kinds of jobs: waitress, retail, telemarketer, temp. Which was why, when she got hired on at Commercial Courier, it seemed like such a good thing. Sure, it wasn’t glamorous. But at least it was different.
    Commercial Courier called itself an “all-purpose delivery service,” but their primary business came from lost luggage. They had a small office at the airport where bags that had been routed to the wrong city or put onto the wrong plane would eventually end up, at which point one of their couriers would deliver them to their proper destination, whether it be a hotel or the bag owner’s home.
    Before Commercial, my mom had been working as a receptionist in an insurance office, a job she hated because it required the two things she hated above all else: getting up early and dealing with people. When her bosses let her go after six months, she’d spent a couple of weeks sleeping in and grumbling before finally hauling out the classifieds, where she spotted the ad for Commercial. DELIVERY DRIVERS NEEDED, it said. WORK INDEPENDENTLY, DAYS OR NIGHTS. She never would have called any job perfect, but just at a glance, it seemed pretty close. So she called and set up an interview. Two days later, she had a job.
    Or, we did. The truth was, my mom was not a very good navigator. I’d suspected she was slightly dyslexic, as she was always mixing up her right and left, something that definitely would have been a problem for a job that relied almost entirely on following written driving directions. Luckily, though, her shift didn’t start until five p.m., which meant that I could ride along with her, an arrangement that I’d assumed at first would only last for the initial few days, until she got the hang of things. Instead, we became coworkers, eight hours a day, five days a week, just her and me in her banged-up Subaru, reuniting people with their possessions.
    Our night always started at the airport. Once the bags were stacked and packed in the car, she’d hand over the sheet of addresses and directions, and we’d set off, hitting the nearby hotels first before venturing farther to neighborhoods and individual homes.
    People had one of two reactions when we arrived with their lost luggage. Either they were really happy and grateful,