Free Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot Page A

are you talking about?”
    “I don’t know.” For a minute, Chaz looks younger than his twenty-six years—which is only three years older than Shari and I are, and yet in so many ways, light-years older than that, even. I personally think that’s what comes of sending your kid off to boarding school during those integral tween and teen years. But maybe that’s just me. I can’t imagine having a kid and purposely sending him away, the way Chaz’s parents did, just because he was a little ADD. “She just can’t seem to stop talking about this new boss of hers.”
    “Pat?” I’ve heard the Pat stories ad nauseum myself. Every time I talk to Shari, it seems like she has another story about her intrepid new boss to share.
    But it isn’t a wonder, really, that Shari’s impressed by the woman. She has, after all, been instrumental in saving hundreds, maybe even thousands of women’s lives by getting them out of their abusive family situations and into new safe environments.
    “Yeah,” Chaz says, when I mention this. “I know all that. And I’m glad Shari likes her job, and all. It’s just…I hardly ever see her anymore. She’s always working. Not just nine to five, but evenings and some weekends, too.”
    “Well,” I say. Regrettably, I’m beginning to sober up already. “I’m sure she’s just trying to keep afloat. From what she says, the girl who had the job before her kind of left everything in a huge mess. She told me it would be months before she got it all straightened out.”
    “Yeah,” Chaz says. “She told me that, too.”
    “So,” I say. “You should be proud of her. She’s helping to make a difference.” Unlike me. And, I want to add, Chaz, who is only working on his Ph.D., after all. Although when he gets it, he intends to teach. Which is admirable. I mean, molding young minds, and all. Certainly more than I can say I’ll ever be doing.
    But young girls, they do get weary…
    Okay, I totally have to stop thinking of that song all the time.
    “I am proud of her,” Chaz says. “I just wish she could help make a difference fewer hours of the day, is all.”
    “Aw.” I smile at him. “You’re sweet. You wuv your girlfriend.”
    He shoots a sarcastic look at me. “Maybe you do have a personality disorder,” he says.
    I laugh and take a swing at him, but he ducks.
    “What about you and Luke?” he wants to know. “I mean, aside from the shameful secret you’re keeping from him—about your abject poverty—how are you two getting along?”
    “Great,” I say. I think about asking him what I should do about Luke’s mom. The guy who’d called—the one with the accent—had left another message, sounding wounded that Bibi hadn’t shown up to their meeting. Again, he didn’t leave a name, but again, he’d mentioned their standing appointment, and that he’d be waiting.
    I’d erased the message before Luke got home from class. It just didn’t seem to me like the kind of thing a guy would want to listen to. About his mother, that is.
    Of course, I was considering the fact that I hadn’t blabbed the whole thing out to Luke anyway the minute he walked through the door a sign of my newfound maturity and ability to keep my mouth shut.
    The fact that I’m not blabbing it to Chaz now is even further proof of my incredible New York sangfroid.
    Instead I say to Chaz conversationally, “I’m still doing the tiny woodland creature thing, and it seems to be working.”
    Chaz blinks at me. “The what ?”
    And I realize, belatedly, that I’ve been lulled into a false sense of comfort by his easygoing nature…so much so that I’ve started talking to him about stuff I normally reserve for Shari’s ears only! What am I doing, talking about my woodland creature theory with another GUY? Worse than just another guy—my boyfriend’s best friend ?
    “Uh, nothing,” I say quickly. “Things are fine with Luke.”
    “What’s the tiny woodland creature thing?” he wants to