I failed my geography test, so Bill helped me with my homework instead of the other way around. That was funny. But when my mother came downstairs to check on us she saw that our heads really were absorbed in our lessons.

When Mama announced she was going out, for the first time I wondered if she had a secret boyfriend. She told me once that she took pride that she had never allowed random men around us when we were growing up. But I knew that my mother could not have stayed ...