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know. We don’t talk about anything besides English.” And barely that. With three meetings behind us (two of them filled with my emotional instability), Danny and I had barely had time to discuss The Scarlet Letter, let alone his relationship status.
    “Hey”—she cocks her head to the side—“do you think you could ask? If you don’t mind…” Again, she smiles.
    “Well, I don’t really think that would be appropriate. You know,” I explain lamely, “a violation of the student/tutor relationship.”
    “Yeah, that’s true, but…it’s not like you’re getting paid. I mean the position is totally volunteer, right? And asking personal questions is how you get to know someone better, which is important to a working relationship.” Tamara closes the deal like a true politician.
    I paste on a stiff smile and debate whether I feel queasy because Jessica has just thrown the car into park or because the idea of Danny with thousand-watt Tamara is nauseating?
    “Susie,” José screams, his body halfway out the car window, “you’re holding up the line!”
    Which seems to always be my problem, I think. “I have to go.” I leap to my feet and take five grateful steps forward before Tamara calls out to me.
    “Susie,” she says, “please.”
    It’s sad, really, because that’s all it takes. One simple please and I freeze.
    “Please,” she repeats again.
    I crumble. “Fine, I’ll see what I can do.”
    “Oh!” Tamara rushes forward and gives me a forceful hug. “Thanks, like a million times. I mean it.”
    “You’re welcome,” I say. And despite myself, I can’t believe how nice it feels to hear those words— thanks and please —from someone other than Marisol. It’s like—
    “Susie, c’mon!” Jose waves me in like an air traffic controller.
    It’s like…driving in reverse with your eyes closed.

EIGHT
just maybe…a connection
    after failing my driver’s ed exam, getting a c on my trig test, and debating for the thousandth time whether Tamara and Danny might possibly have a future together, I come to one and only one conclusion: I never want to leave my bed. Ever.
    That is, until my dad decides to attack my bedroom door with the raw force of his writer’s knuckles. Then, I want to get out of bed for the sole purpose of killing.
    “Come on, Susie.” My dad says, followed by two sharp raps on the buckling pressboard. “Susie, get up.”
    Question: if your daughter’s light is out, her door is closed, and other than for the fart that she let rip (and I mean rip) half an hour ago, you haven’t heard a peep out of her for the LAST FIVE HOURS, what do you think she might be doing?
    Answer: SLEEPING. I’M SLEEPING.
    Isn’t it obvious?
    “Susie?” There is a knuckle scrape, followed by an irritating pound, pound.
    Apparently not.
    “Dad,” I moan, “I’m tired!”
    “Susie,” my dad growls, “I’m on a call. You have a visitor.” His tone is short, which is surprising because I never knew that automatic-pilot dads come preprogrammed with two settings.
    “Fine.” I fight to focus on the light slipping underneath the cracks of my bedroom door. “I’m awake.”
    “Good.” I hear him retreat down the hall to the study.
    I glance at Mr. Swims-A-Lot, the neon-green goldfish clock that my mom bought me for my ninth birthday. It’s eight forty-five p.m. School ended at two-thirty, and only now is Marisol responding to my S.O.S. cry for help (one e-mail, two voice mails, and a dire handwritten note scribbled in purple highlighter).
    “Marisol,” I mutter, stopping at my father’s study to listen to his important phone call.
    “Yeah,” I hear him murmur. “Uh-huh. That’s a very good idea. I understand, Leslie.”
    His important phone call is Leslie? Marisol’s mom, Leslie?
    “Marisol,” I say, popping a breath mint into my mouth as I walk through our U-shaped house and step around the corner of the family room and into the foyer, “why is your mom talking to my dad on