Free Friends Forever by Danielle Steel Page A

popular restaurant in the Napa Valley the year before.
    Jack was nice to her boys, and she was crazy about him. Brian was thriving on his attention and kindness to them, and although Billy grudgingly admitted that he was a nice guy, he felt an obligation to dislike him, in order to be loyal to his father. Billy spent as little time as possible with Jack and his mother, and spent most of his time with Gabby. Larry hardly ever made time to see him, he was always too busy, and he made no effort whatsoever to see Brian. He was having too much fun. And on weekends, when he wasn’t working at the restaurant in the city, Jack took Marilyn and Brian to his ranch in Napa, so he could check on things there. And sometimes he took them out on the bay on his boat, which Brian loved. He thought Jack was a hero. Marilyn was truly happy for the first time in years. She told Connie that she felt like a miracle had happened in her life. The only one resisting it was Billy, but she was sure he’d get used to Jack in time. Jack’s genuine niceness was impossible to resist.
    The biggest problem Billy had during junior year, other than his mother’s boyfriend and his father’s disappearance from his life, was that his grades suffered from all the changes he’d been through, and his adviser warned him that he would never get a football scholarship with his grades, no matter how well he played. He had no idea what to do about it, and junior year was crucial for his acceptance to college and getting a scholarship, which was his goal. It was an exciting year for him, and recruiters had come to watch him play since the beginning of junior year. Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, LSU, USC, and Notre Dame were all contenders, and desperate to have Billy accept their offers. Larry had put video clips of Billy’s best games on the Internet, which they all saw. But his adviser said he had no chance of getting in with his GPA as low as it was. It was crucial for him to get his grades up, so he could get into one of the schools recruiting him.
    Marilyn hired a tutor, who only made everything seem even more complicated to him. He complained about it to Izzie one day over lunch.
    “My father will kill me if I don’t play football in college,” Billy said glumly. Gabby had tried to help him do some of his assignments, but her grades weren’t stellar either. Gabby had never been a great student, and she didn’t want to go to college. All she wanted to do was go to L.A. after graduation and become an actress. It had been her dream since first grade, and now it was only a year away. But she was no help to Billy with his schoolwork.
    “Do you even want to play football in college?” Izzie asked him seriously, and he looked shocked at the question. “Or were you just going to do it for your father?” Izzie’s mother wanted her to go to law school, but it was the last thing she wanted. Although she admired what her father did at the ACLU, she knew it wasn’t for her. She had no idea what she wanted to do as a career. She had thought of teaching, or majoring in psychology, or maybe nursing, or the Peace Corps. She liked taking care of people, but she didn’t know what form she wanted it to take yet. She liked what Connie O’Hara did as a wife and mother. She was Izzie’s role model, and she had been a schoolteacher. But Izzie knew her mother would be upset if she didn’t choose a more glamorous career. Katherine wanted her to go to an Ivy League school, which Izzie didn’t want to do either, although her grades were good enough to get in. She wanted to stay in California, and her father told her to do what she wanted. He said she didn’t have to go to Harvard or Yale to get a good education, which was liberating for her, despite her mother’s pressure.
    “Of course I want to play football,” Billy said with a look of determination. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. What else would I do? They’re offering me a terrific deal at all those