"Okay, Mom," I said. "I got it the first time."

"It's just something I feel very strongly about," she said.

I looked at her. It wasn't that she appeared … well, guilty. But she definitely knew something. Something she wasn't letting on.

This was not particularly surprising. A television journalist, my mother was often privy to information not necessarily meant for release to the public. She wasn't one of those reporters you hear about, either, who'd do anything to get the "big" story. If a cop told my mother something – and they often do; my mother, even though she's forty-something, is still pretty hot, and just about anybody would tell her anything she wanted to know if she licked her lips enough – he could depend on her not mentioning it on air if he asked her not to. That's just how she is.

I wondered what, exactly, she knew about Michael Meducci and the accident that had killed the four Angels.

Enough, apparently, to keep her from wanting me to hang around with him.

I didn't exactly think she was being particularly unfair to him, either. I couldn't help remembering what Michael had said in the car, right before pulling back out onto the highway: They were just taking up space.

Suddenly, I didn't blame those kids so much for trying to drown him.

"Okay Mom," I said. "I get it."

Apparently satisfied, my mother turned back to her salmon, which Andy had grilled to perfection and served with a delicate dill sauce.

"So how are you going to break it to him?" Gina asked a half hour later as she helped me load the dishwasher after dinner – having brushed aside my mother's insistence that, as a guest, she did not have to do this.

"I don't know," I said hesitantly. "You know, the whole Clark Kent thing aside – "

"Geeky on the outside, dreamy in the middle?"

"Yeah. In spite of that – which is hard to resist, believe me – he's still kind of got this quality that strikes me as…"

"Stalkery?" Gina said, rinsing the salad bowl before handing it to me to put in the dishwasher rack.

"Maybe that's it. I don't know."

"It was very stalkery how he showed up here last night," she said. "Without even calling first. Any guy ever tried to do that to me" – she waved her fingers in the air and then snapped them – "and he is so gone."

I shrugged. It was different back east, of course. In the city, you simply do not stop by someone's place without calling first. In California, I'd noticed, "drive-bys" were more socially acceptable.

"But don't even act," Gina went on, "like you care, Simon. You don't like that guy. I don't know what, exactly, you've got going on with him, but it definitely isn't anything gonadal."

I thought, fleetingly, of how pleasantly surprised we'd all been when Michael had taken his shirt off. "It might have been," I said with a sigh.

"Please." Gina handed me a fistful of silverware. "You and Supergeek? No. Now, tell me. What is going on with you and this guy?"

I looked down at the silverware I'd been shoving into the dishwasher. "I don't know," I said. I couldn't tell her the truth, of course. "There's just … I've got this feeling that there's more to this accident thing than he's letting on. My mom seems to know something about it. Did you notice?"

"I noticed," Gina said, not really grimly, but not happily, either.

"Well, so … I just can't help wondering what really happened. The night of the wreck. Because … well, that wasn't a jellyfish this afternoon, you know."

Gina just nodded. "I didn't think so. I suppose this all has something to do with that mediator thing, huh?"

"Sort of," I said uncomfortably.

"Right. Which might also explain that little mishap with the fingernail polish the other night?"

I couldn't say anything. I just kept thrusting the silverware into the plastic compartments in the dishwasher door. Forks, spoons, knives.

"All right." Gina turned off the water in the sink and dried her hands on a dishtowel. "What do you want me to do?"

I blinked at her. "Do? You? Nothing."

"Come on. I know you, Simon. You didn't miss homeroom seventy-nine times last year because you were enjoying a leisurely breakfast over at the Mickey D's. I know perfectly well you were out there fighting the undead, making this world a safer place for children, and all that. So what do you want me to do? Cover for you?"

I bit my lip. "Well," I said hesitantly.

"Look, don't worry about me. Jake said he'd take me on his delivery run – which holds a certain appeal, if you can stand getting down and dirty in a car full of pepperoni and pineapple pizzas. But if you want, I can stay here and hang with Brad. He's invited me to a video screening of his favorite movie of all time."

I sucked in my breath. "Not Hellraiser III …?"

"Indeed."

Gratitude washed over me like one of those waves that had knocked me senseless. "You would do that for me?"

"For you, Simon, anything. So what's it going to be?"

"Okay." I threw down the dishtowel I'd been holding. "If you would just stay here and pretend like I'm upstairs in my room with cramps, I will worship you forever. They don't ask questions about cramps. Say that I'm in the bathtub, and then maybe a little while later, say I went to bed early. If anyone calls, will you take it for me?"

"As you wish, Queen Midol."

"Oh, Gina." I grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. "You are the best. You understand? The best. Don't throw yourself away on my stepbrothers: you could do so much better."

"You just don't see it," Gina said, shaking her head wonderingly. "Your stepbrothers are hot. Well, except for that little red-headed one. And hey – " This she added as I was headed to the phone to make a call to Father Dominic. " – I expect compensation, you know."

I blinked at her. "You know I only get twenty bucks a week allowance, but you can have it – "

Gina made a face. "I don't want your money. But a thorough explanation would be nice. You never would give me one. You always just dodged the question. But this time, you owe me." She narrowed her eyes. "I mean, I am going to sit through a screening of Hellraiser III for you. You owe me big time. And yes," she added, before I could open my mouth, "I won't tell anybody. I promise not to call the Enquirer or Ripley’s Believe It or Not."