Summer’s over—almost. In two weeks we’ll be back in school. Two days from now Su-bok and Ling will be back home. I’m having a sleepover tonight at my place, to say good-bye to them and to have a little fun before school starts up again.

I invited Zora. She said no. But Mai, Subok, Ling, Ming, and Sato are here. The boys can’t stay overnight, though.

“Dr. Mitchell,” Sato says, sitting next to me in the swing. “How come you always wear the same pants?”

Dr. Mitchell’s sitting next to Momma. He laughs. “Not the same pants. The same color pants.”

Sato tells Momma she needs to hook Dr. Mitchell up with some different color pants. “Make him hip. Not like . . . you know.”

Momma tells Sato that she likes her man just the way he is. We all look at her. “Somebody’s getting married,” Ja’nae hollers.

Ling, Mai, and Su-bok make the words into a song, and sing ’em over and over again. My eyes stay on Dr. Mitchell. A few minutes later, he takes me by the hand and down the steps. “Help me with the food.”

It’s almost ten o’clock and we ain’t ate yet. The grill is full of half-cooked burgers and chicken wings. A carved-out melon filled with fruit and bowls of pretzels and chips is sitting on the table.

“I didn’t want you to hear this from your mom.”

My heart skips.

“Zora and I are going on vacation. Just the two of us.”

Dr. Mitchell wants to take me and Momma, but since me and Zora still aren’t getting along so well, he can’t do it. And he doesn’t think it’s fair to Zora to take me if that’ll make her have a bad time.

I slide the spatula under the cheeseburger, right when Dr. Mitchell wraps his arms around me.

“If you tell me what happened, we can make this whole thing right again. And all of us can go on vacation together.”

My hands shake.

Sato leans over the railing. “They’d fire you, if you worked at Burger King.”

Dr. Mitchell asks him to give us another minute. Then he fans the smoke and looks into my eyes. “A thousand locks won’t keep you safe if you let the boogeyman make your bed.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about.

His mother used to say that, he says. It means that you can’t feel safe if you keep the things that scare you locked inside. You gotta talk about ’em to let ’em go.

I bite my lip and put three more frozen burgers on the grill. Ten minutes later Dr. Mitchell heads for the gate.

I’m so ready to lie again. But then I think about Mai’s dad. How he stands by her no matter what. “I took—I stole Zora’s money,” I say.

I’m waiting for Dr. Mitchell to tell Momma he don’t wanna be bothered with us no more. He clears his throat. “Keep talking.”

I’m trying to explain why I stole the money. He asks how I could do something like that. I turn away so I don’t have to look at him.

“Can a brother get a chicken wing ’fore he die out here?” Sato says, hollering over at us.

Momma comes in the yard. She looks at us and says maybe we should take a walk. I wait for Dr. Mitchell to say he ain’t going nowhere with me. But he’s got me by the elbow, leading me through the gate and into his car.

We drive to his house, not talking at all. “I told her I was sorry. But she’s still mad, kinda.”

He gets out the car and opens my door. “I am so disappointed in you.”

I reach in my pocket and hold my money. “I . . .”

Dr. Mitchell says he knows I’ve been through a lot. But I ain’t the only one who’s had it hard. So I got a lot nerve stealing, especially when Momma’s out there working every day to give me a good life.

He don’t wanna see us no more, I think to myself. Then he opens the front door and calls up the stairs for Zora. When she comes down, I pull out thirty dollars and hand it to him right in front of her. “I owe you ten more.”

Dr Mitchell don’t want the money. He says he don’t want Zora to take it. He wants us to know he’s disappointed in both of us. Me, for stealing. And her for not letting him know sooner, so this whole thing coulda been over with.

I point to Zora. “She didn’t want you to hate me.”

He looks at me, then at her. “You’re like a daughter to me. I couldn’t hate you, just like I couldn’t hate Zora.”

I tell Zora again that I’m sorry for stealing from her, and for trying to keep her dad all to myself. I know it’s gonna take a while before we’re friends again. But I can wait.

Dr. Mitchell wants to head back to our place. Zora still don’t wanna go. Her dad doesn’t force her. On the way out the door I lay thirty dollars and some change on the coffee table. Nothing good comes of bad money, I say to myself. Then I shut the door and follow Dr. Mitchell to his car.