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graduate, seems unlikely. Unless of course
I
invite
him
.
    But again,
eew
.
    “I think I should go home now,” I said, the next time we both came up for air.
    “That,” Rob said, resting his forehead against mine and breathing hard, “would probably be a good idea.”
    So I went in and said thank you to Rob’s mom, who was sitting on the couch with Just-Call-Me-Gary watching TV in a snuggly sort of position that, had Rob seen it, might just have sent him over the edge. Fortunately, however, he did not see it. And I did not tell him about it, either.
    “Well,” I said to him, as I climbed behind the wheel of my mom’s car. “Seeing as how we aren’t broken up anymore, do you want to do something Saturday? Like go see a movie or whatever?”
    “Gosh, I don’t know,” Rob said. “I thought you might be busy with your good friend Joanne.”
    “Look,” I said. It was so cold out that my breath was coming out in little white puffs, but I didn’t care. “My parents have a lot to deal with right now. I mean, there’s the restaurant, and Mike dropping out of Harvard… .”
    “You’re never going to tell them about me, are you?” Rob’s gray eyes bore into me.
    “Just let me give them a chance to adjust to the idea,” I said. “I mean, there’s the whole thing with Douglas and his job, and Great-aunt Rose, and—”
    “And you and the psychic thing,” he reminded me, with just the faintest trace of bitterness. “Don’t forget you and the psychic thing.”
    “Right,” I said. “Me and the psychic thing.” The one thing I could never forget, no matter how much I tried.
    “Look, you better get going,” Rob said, straightening up. “I’ll follow behind, and make sure you get home okay.”
    “You don’t have to—”
    “Mastriani,” he said. “Just shut up and drive.”
    And so I did.
    Only it turned out we didn’t get very far.

C H A P T E R
4
    N ot, may I point here and now, because of my poor driving skills. As I think I’ve stated before, I am an extremely good driver.
    But I didn’t know that at first. That I wasn’t being pulled over on account of my driving ability, or lack thereof. All I knew was one minute I was cruising along the dark, empty country road that ran from Rob’s house back into town, with Rob purring along behind me on his Indian. And the next, I rounded a curve to find the entire road blocked off by emergency vehicles—county sheriff’s SUVs, police cruisers, highway patrol … even an ambulance. My face was bathed in flashing red and white. All I could think was,
Whoa! I was only going eighty, I swear!
    Of course it was a forty-mile-an-hour zone. But come on. It was Thanksgiving, for crying out loud. There hadn’t been another soul on the road for the past ten miles… .
    A skinny sheriff’s deputy waved me to the shoulder. I obeyed, my palms sweaty.
My God
, was all I could think.
All this because I was driving without a license? Who knew they were so strict?
    The officer who strolled up to the car after I pulled over was one I recognized from the night Mastriani’s burned down. I didn’t remember his name, but I knew he was a nice guy—the kind of guy who maybe wouldn’t bust my chops too badly for driving illegally. He shined a flashlight first on me, then into the backseat of my mom’s car. I hoped he didn’t think the stuff my mom had in the backseat—boxes of cassette tapes by Carly Simon and Billy Joel, and some videos of romantic comedies she kept forgetting to return to Blockbuster—were mine. I am so not the Carly Simon,
Sleepless in Seattle
type.
    “Jessica, isn’t it?” the cop said, when I put the window down. “Aren’t you Joe Mastriani’s daughter?”
    “Yes, sir,” I said. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Rob pull up right behind me on his Indian. His long legs were stretched out so that his feet rested on the ground, keeping him and the bike upright while he waited for me to get waved through the roadblock. Rob was gazing