“But. . . you said we were going to play Parcheezi. . .”

“Tell me what game Steph Landry and I used to play in the big dirt pile they made while they were digging my family’s pool, back when we were both seven, or I’ll know you’re an alien replacement and you’ve got the real Steph up in your mother ship!” I glared at him. “G.I. Joe meets Spelunker Barbie,” I said. “And stop being so ridiculous. We have to go. We’re going to end up at a bad table for lunch.”

“So Uncle Stuart is marrying that lady? Mom says she's going to be our aunt Amy. She's okay except she would't try any peanut butter M&M chocolate chip fudge cookies. They were good- you ate five, remember? But she said she was on a special diet, and couldn't eat something called carbs. We told her we didn't put any carbs in our cookies, just M&Ms, but she said M&Ms were carbs.Uncle Mitch, what's carbs?email to Uncle Mitch from Haily and Brittany”

“oh my god, she said are you going to be reasonable about this?”

“You just said you were sorry."..."I was only apologizing," he said stiffly, "for startling you. The applause was to compliment you on the improvement in your life-saving techniques since the last time you-”

“You know in sixth grade, when they made all of us girls go into this other room and watch a video about getting our periods and stuff? I bet while we were gone, the boys were watching a video about how to look at each other in that infuriating way.”

“I don't know everything," she said. Her eyes were filling with tears. "If I knew everything, would I have gotten into this mess in the first place? I certainly don't know why you assume I'm going to drop everything and fly off to Antigua with you. I don't even know what I'm doing her. I don't know why we haven't talked in two weeks. And the worst part is, if I do go to Antigua with you, I don't know if I'll ever want to come back. I'm pretty sure I'll want to stay there with you forever." She was crying so hard, she couldn't even see him. "And the fact that I just said that out loud is even scarier to me than vampires.”