“I’m going to be a reporter,” Tully said suddenly.

“That’s wonderful,” Mr. Mularkey said.

“There you are,” Kate said suddenly, coming up beside her. “Nice of everyone to tell me you were here,” she said loudly.

“I was just telling your mom and dad that I’m going to be a news reporter,” Tully said.

Mrs. Mularkey beamed at that. In her smile, Tully saw everything that had been missing in her life. “Isn’t that a grand dream, Katie?”

Kate looked confused for a moment. Then she hooked her arm through Tully’s and pulled her away from the living room and up the stairs. In her small attic bedroom, Kate went to the record player and flipped through a small stack of records. By the time she’d chosen one—Carole King’s Tapestry—and put it on, Tully was at the window, staring out at the lavender evening.

The surge of adrenaline she’d gotten from her announcement faded, leaving a quiet kind of sadness behind. She knew what she had to do now, but the thought of it made her sick.

Tell her the truth.

If you don’t, Mrs. Mularkey will.

“I got the new Seventeen and Tiger Beat,” Kate said, stretching out on the blue shag carpeting. “You want to read ‘em? We can take the ‘Can You Be Tony DeFranco’s Girlfriend?’ quiz.”

Tully lay down beside her. “Sure.”

“Jan-Michael Vincent is so foxy,” Kate said, flipping to a picture of the actor.

“I heard he lied to his girlfriend,” Tully said, daring a sideways glance.

“I hate liars.” Kate turned the page. “Are you really going to be a news reporter? You never told me that.”

“Yeah,” Tully said, really imagining it for the first time. Maybe she could be famous. Then everyone would admire her. “You’ll have to be one, too, though. ‘Cause we do everything together.”

“Me?”

“We’ll be a team like Woodward and Bernstein, only with better clothes. And prettier.”

“I don’t know—”

Tully bumped her. “Yes, you do. Mrs. Ramsdale told the whole class that you’re an excellent writer.”

Kate laughed. “That’s true. Okay. I’ll be a reporter, too.”

“When we get famous, we’ll tell Mike Wallace we couldn’t have done it without each other.”

After that, they fell silent, flipping through the magazines. Tully tried twice to bring up the subject of her mother, but both times Kate interrupted her, and then someone was yelling, “Dinner,” and her chance for coming clean had slipped away.

All through the best meal of her life, she felt the weight of her lie. By the time they’d cleared the table and washed and dried the dishes, she was stretched to the breaking point. Even dreaming about fame on television couldn’t ease her nerves.

“Hey, Mom,” Kate said, putting away the last white CorningWare plate, “Tully and me are going to ride our bikes down to the park, okay?”

“Tully and I,” her mother answered, reaching down into the magazine pouch of the La-Z-Boy’s arm for the TV guide. “And be back by eight.”