Remember When

showroom, but Gram said she wouldn't enjoy making things that way. Mom was so tired when she got home from work that she couldn't promise to do what he wanted. Oh, and Gram's a fantastic cook, too. She's really into 'natural,' homegrown stuff— natural food and homegrown veggies and fresh-picked flowers—only you never know whether she's going to decorate with it and put it on the table or put it on your plate. Either way, whatever she makes is just great.'

She paused to take a swallow from her can of Coke before she continued, 'Gramps loves to garden, and he experiments with ways to grow everything bigger and better. Most of all, he likes to build things.'

'What sort of things?' Diana asked, fascinated.

'He can build just about anything that can be made out of wood. He can make little rocking chairs for babies, or garden sheds that look like cottages, or tiny furniture for a dollhouse. Gram usually does the painting for him because she's the most artistic one. I can't wait for you to see the dollhouse he built for me! It has fifteen rooms and real shingles and flower boxes on the windows!'

'I'm really looking forward to meeting them. They sound terrific,' Diana replied, but Corey was distracted from that discussion by something that had bothered her since the first day she'd peeked into Diana's bedroom, before Diana came home from Europe. 'Diana,' Corey teased in a dire voice as she surveyed the relentless orderliness of the pretty room, 'didn't anyone ever tell you it's unhealthy to keep a bedroom this neat?'

Instead of making some sort of deserved rejoinder about Corey's sloppy habits, Diana took a dainty bite of her pretzel and thoughtfully looked around the room. 'It probably is,' she agreed. 'It could be because I have an artistic eye that appreciates symmetry and order. Or it could be because I'm obsessive-compulsive—'

Corey wrinkled her brow. 'What's 'obsessive-compulsive' mean?'

'Nuts.' Diana paused in her explanation to rub her fingertips free of pretzel dust. 'Crazy.'

'You're not wacko!' Corey stated loyally and emphatically, taking a bite of her own pretzel. It snapped in two, half of it landing in Diana's lap. Diana's pretzels never broke when she bit into them.

Diana picked it up and handed it back to her. 'It could be that I have a neurotic need to keep everything tidy as a way of controlling my surroundings, which was brought about because my mom died when I was little and then my grandparents died a few years later.'

'What does your mom dying have to do with why you file your shoes in alphabetical order?'

'The theory is that I think if I keep everything in perfect order and as pretty as possible, then my life will be like that and nothing else bad will happen.'

Corey was dumbstruck at the sheer absurdity of such a notion. 'Where'd you hear that junk?'

'From the therapist Dad took me to after my grandparents died. The shrink was supposed to help me 'work through' the grief of losing so many people so quickly.'

'What a jerk! He's supposed to help you, so he tells you all that stuff to scare you and make you think you're crazy?'

'No, he didn't tell me that. He told Dad, and I eavesdropped.'

'What did Dad tell him?'

'He told the shrink that he needed a shrink. See, in River Oaks, whenever parents think their kids are getting into trouble, or might someday, they take them to a shrink. Everybody told my dad he should do that and so he did.'

Corey digested that and then reverted to her earlier line of thinking. 'When I kidded you about being so neat, I was just trying to say that I think it's really amazing that we get along so great even though we're so different. I mean, sometimes I feel like a hopeless charity case who you've taken under your wing, even though I'll never be able to be like you. My grandma always says a leopard can't change its spots, and you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.'

'Charity case!' Diana sputtered. 'Sow's ear—but—but it isn't like that at all! I've learned lots of new stuff from you, and you have things that I wish I had.'

'Name one,' Corey said skeptically. 'I know it's not my grades or my breasts.'

Diana giggled and rolled her eyes; then she said very seriously, 'For starters, you have an adventurous side that I don't have.'

'One of my 'adventures' will probably land me in jail before I'm eighteen.'

'It will not!' Diana said. 'What I mean is, when you decide to do something—like take pictures from the top of that scaffolding on that new high-rise—you ignore the danger and just do it!'

'You went up there with me.'

'But I didn't want to. I was so scared my legs were shaking.'

'But you did it anyway.'

'That's what I mean. I never would have done that before. I wish I could be more like you.'

Corey considered that for a long moment; then her eyes began to sparkle with mischief. 'Well, if you want to be more like me, we should start with this bedroom.' She reached behind her head before Diana knew what she was up to.

'What do you mean?'

'Have you ever had a pillow fight?'

'No, wh—' The rest of her question was cut off by a fat pillow stuffed with goose down that landed on her head. Corey swiveled to the foot of the bed and ducked, expecting retribution, but Diana sat very quietly, munching on her pretzel, the pillow lying on her knees. 'I can't believe you did that,' she said, studying Corey with fascination.

Caught off-guard by her tranquil tone, Corey said, 'Why not?'

'Because it makes me have to— retaliate!'

Diana lunged so swiftly, and her aim was so good, that Corey didn't have time to duck. Laughing, she dived for another one of the pillows, and so did Diana. Five minutes later, when their concerned parents threw open the bedroom door, they had to peer through a blizzard of drifting feathers to locate the two teenage girls, who were lying on their backs in the middle of the bedroom, shrieking with laughter.

'What in the world is going on in here?' Mr. Foster said, sounding more alarmed than annoyed.

'Pillow fight,' Diana provided breathlessly. A feather was stuck to her lips, and she started to remove it with her thumb and forefinger.

'No, just spit it out,' Corey laughingly instructed her, and then demonstrated, forcing the feathers away from her lips with her breath and the tip of her tongue.

Diana followed suit, then dissolved into giggles at the expression on her father's face. While feathers floated around his head and settled onto his shoulders, he stood stock-still in his robe and pajamas, gaping at them beside Diana's new mom, who was trying to look stem and hide her laughter at the same time. 'We'll clean this mess up before we go to bed,' Diana promised.

'No we won't,' Corey stated implacably. 'First you have to sleep in this mess. If you can do that, then there's a slim chance that with more practice you could become a marvelous slob like me!'

Still lying on the floor, Diana turned her head toward Corey and choked back another giggle. 'Oh, do you really think so?'

'There's a chance,' Corey declared solemnly. 'If you truly, truly work at it.'

Robert Foster looked taken aback at the plan, but his wife put her hand on his sleeve and drew him out of the room, closing the door behind them. In the hallway, he looked at his new wife with a baffled expression. 'The girls made that mess, don't you think they should clean it up tonight?'

'Tomorrow is soon enough,' Mary Foster said.

'Those pillows are expensive. Diana should have thought of that ahead of time. It's reckless and irresponsible to have destroyed them, honey.'

'Bob,' she said softly, tucking her arm in his and marching him down the hall and into their bedroom suite. 'Diana, is the most responsible girl I've ever met.'

'I've taught her to be that way. It's important for an adult to be conscious of the consequences of their actions and to act accordingly.'

'Darling,' she whispered. 'She isn't an adult.'

He considered that while a mischievous grin lifted the corners of his mouth. 'You're right about that, but do you really think it's important that she also learn how to spit?'