Propositioned by the Playboy. Cara Colter

He was pretty quiet on the drive home, but when I asked him if anything was wrong, he looked surprised and said, no everything was great, and how did I enjoy work today.

      The truth? I really like working with my uncle. I love Miss Maple’s tree house. I never, ever thought about the future before. I’m not one of those kids who always dreamed about being a fireman when I grew up.

      Getting through each day seemed like a big enough undertaking to me.

      But working with my uncle made me realize I like building things. And he says I’m good at it, too. When I suggested a way to change the steps so that they would work better, he said I was a genius. And one thing about my uncle, you can trust that when he says something like that, he means it.

      If he did have a fight with Miss Maple, I’m really glad he didn’t tell me about it. My mom always told me everything that was going on in her life, and if you think it feels good knowing all about grown-up problems, think again. Still, it’s kind of funny, because I thought I wanted Uncle Ben and Miss Maple not to get along, but now that they aren’t I feel worried about that.

      When we got home, the phone was ringing and my uncle picked it up and gave it to me. The only person I could think of who would call me is my mom, so I nearly dropped the phone when it was Mary Kay Narsunchuk. She said that the planetarium was having a special show called Constellation Prize and would I like to go with her?

      At first I thought it was a joke, like if I listened hard enough I would hear her girlfriends laughing in the background, but I didn’t hear a sound.

      “Why are you asking me?” I said, trying to sound cool and not too suspicious.

      “Because you are the smartest person I know,” she said, and I liked her saying that, even though we don’t really know each other. And then she said she liked it that I protected the frog against Casper, even though she doesn’t really like frogs.

      She told me she hates Casper, which means we have something in common already.

      Her mom picked me up at Uncle Ben’s house and drove us to the planetarium, which was kind of dorky. I’ve been taking public transit by myself since I was six, and I don’t really think the planetarium is in a rough neighborhood, so I thought the warnings to stand right outside the door when she came back to pick us up were hilarious, though I didn’t laugh, just said yes, ma’am.

      On the way in, I noticed Mary Kay is at least three inches taller than me, and had on really nice clothes, and that bad feeling started, like I’m not good enough. Then I told myself it wasn’t like it was a date or anything, and when she asked what I had done today I told her about building the tree house for Miss Maple, and she thought that was the coolest thing she had ever heard.

      The weirdest thing happened when we took our seats. The lights went out and she took my hand.

      That was all. But the stars came on in the pitch-blackness, like lighted diamonds piercing black velvet, and I thought, All of this is because of Kermit. The tree house, and being with Mary Kay right now, and her thinking I was smart, and not even seeming to notice I was way shorter than her, and not dressed so good, either.

      The stars above us made the universe look so immense. That’s when I had the weird feeling. That good could come from bad, and that maybe I was being looked after by the same thing that put the stars in the sky, and that maybe everything was going to be okay.

      It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt that way. Like I didn’t have to look after anything at all.

      And all that was nothing compared to what happened later. Believe me, my uncle Ben and Miss Maple were about the furthest thing from my mind.

      It was the first time Ben Anderson had had an evening to himself since Kyle had become a permanent part of his life. At first, watching his nephew go down the walk in front of the house and get into an upscale SUV, Ben felt heady with freedom.

      He cocked his head and listened. No steady thump of the bass beat from down the hall.

      “I could rent a movie, with bad language and violence,” he said out loud, contemplating his options. “Man stuff.” He beat his chest to get in the mood for man stuff, something he’d refrained from doing to avoid being scoffed at by his roomie.

      Strangely, he discovered he could feel ridiculous all by himself. It was the influence of the annoying Miss Maple. Somehow, even though he was all alone, he could just picture her eyebrows shooting up at chest beating.

      “I’ll show her,” he decided. “I’ll call Samantha.” But before he got to the phone he found his steps slowing at the thought of an evening with Samantha, pretty as she was. He’d given up on her even before Miss Maple, so imagine how dumb he’d find her now that he had someone to compare her to. Someone who could quote Aristotle, no less!

      “Okay,” he said. “Hillary, then.” But Hillary hadn’t had a moment of wonder for at least twenty-five years, and he didn’t feel in the mood for worldliness or cynicism.

      Pam had always been light-hearted, but he knew he’d find her giggling grating after the day Miss Maple had been hi-jacked by the compactor and he had heard her laughter. And seen her crinkle her nose.

      “Okay,” he said, annoyed with himself. “I’ll call the guys.”

      But lately the guys were on a campaign to get him back in the game, as they called it, and the very thought of that made him feel more tired than a day of pouring concrete.

      The truth was, once he stopped talking out loud, Ben thought the house felt oddly empty without Kyle. Ben had become accustomed to the bass boom in the background, the squeak of the refrigerator door, the feeling of being responsible for something other than himself.

      For a man who had never even succeeded at looking after a houseplant, the fact that he had taken to his guardian duties was a surprise.

      Maybe he was maturing. Becoming a better man.

      But then he thought of how he’d behaved this afternoon at Beth Maple’s, and he didn’t feel the least bit proud of himself.

      “I think I will rent a movie,” he said out loud, and reached for his jacket. At the movie store he picked up Jackals of the Desert a movie with a military theme, and a rating that would have never allowed him to watch it with Kyle, even though Kyle rolled his eyes at his uncle’s adherence to the rating system.

      But before he got to the cash register, he turned around and put the movie back on the shelf. There, under the bright lights of the video store, Ben faced the truth about himself.

      He was trying to run away, fill space, so that he didn’t have to look at an ugly fact about himself.

      He’d hurt her. He’d hurt Miss Maple.

      And he’d done it because telling her his sister was not going to make it, and feeling her hand rest, ever so slightly on his arm, had made him come face-to-face with a deeply uncomfortable feeling of sadness about his sister, and vulnerability toward Beth. He didn’t want to face his feelings. He didn’t actually even want to have feelings, messy, unwieldy things that they were.

      So, not facing his feelings was nothing new, but hurting someone else?

      Not okay.

      Especially not okay because it was her.

      By taking on the tree house project, Ben was trying to repair the damage that had been done to her, not cause more.

      All she’d done was touch him when he’d told her Carly wasn’t going to make it. But something in that touch had made him feel weak instead of strong. As if he could lay his head on her lap, and feel her fingers stroking his hair, and cry until there were no more tears.

      No wonder he’d lashed out at her. Cry? Ben Anderson did not cry. Still, he could now see that it had been childish to try to get his power back at her expense.

      “Man up,” he’d said to Kyle when Kyle had been trying