"Honestly, I'm not quite the sanctimonious bitch you think I am," Angie said.

Tami took down another mug and poured Angie a cup. "Maybe we should get to know each other better." She handed Angie the mug. "It's not organic but I'm sure you can choke it down."

Angie followed Tami to the kitchen table, where they sat down across from one another like two boxers taking their place in their respective corners. Tami just looked at Angie for a minute and then said, "Your brother loves you, so you and I are going to get along."

"But you don't like me," Angie said deliberately.

"Maybe it's more that I don't know you."

[*]

"Were Aunt Angie and Mom fighting this morning?" Julie asked as she opened her miniature milk carton and shoved a straw in it. Before her rested a chocolate éclair and a powdered donut. Tami would scold Eric if she knew he let her have both, but there were benefits to Donuts with Dad.

He had two sausage and egg muffin sandwiches, after all, and a steaming cup of coffee before him. "Nah," he said, and bit into his first breakfast sandwich.

"Kind of sounded like they were." Julie ripped off a piece of éclair. "Do they hate each other?" She took a bite.

Eric swallowed. "No, they don't hate each other. They like each other fine."

"How come I haven't seen Aunt Angie since I was like six?"

"She was away at college, and then she was in Lithuania."

"Latvia," Julie corrected him. "How come we never see grandpa?"

"He was just at dinner last Thanksgiving."

"The Thanksgiving before last," she said.

"He's busy with his job and he lives all the way in Houston."

The truth was, Eric didn't like seeing his father. The man was polite enough to Tami, but he seemed to have little interest in her as an individual. He gave Julie generous gifts, but he wasn't the type of grandfather to get down on his knees on the floor and play with his grandkids. Whenever he could manage to corner Eric alone, he often had something critical to say about what Eric should have – but had not – accomplished. Eric's father had kept in excellent health, worked out an hour a day, and insisted he could outrun and out-throw Eric, who had "let himself grow soft in adulthood." What was more, sometime in the last decade, the man had begun dating women who weren't all that much older than Tami. Eric didn't want to hear about any of them, and he certainly didn't want to meet them.

"I like Aunt Angie," Julie told him. "She's interesting. She's seen so much of the world already. I want to take a gap year and backpack across Europe like she did."

"No," Eric said. "It's not a good idea to take off a year in the middle of college. You might get out of the habit of studying."

"Aunt Angie graduated toward the top of her class."

Eric was about to say, "But she's smart," when he realized that would imply Julie wasn't. Julie was smart. But there was something freakish about Angie's intelligence.

His little sister had skipped fifth grade and then later eighth grade. But between the year she took off between high school and college and the year she took off in the middle of college, and the fact that she'd changed her major twice, she hadn't graduated from NYU until she was 22.

Their father was furious Angie hadn't put that brain of hers to "better use." He'd told Eric, almost every time they talked on the phone, sooner or later, "You should have been in the NFL, and Angie should have been a surgeon." Angie should know what it felt like to be told she wasn't "doing anything" with her education. How could she say such a thing to Tami? Eric was suddenly annoyed with his sister and wondered if she and Tami were working things out or building bigger walls between each other.

He didn't want to think about the possibilities. "What's your favorite subject in school this year?" he asked Julie.

"How long is Aunt Angie staying?"

"I don't know," he answered, realizing for the first time that she hadn't actually said. He supposed he should ask. Surely she didn't plan to stay with them until she left for Africa in three months, but he supposed she didn't have a home anywhere. After all, she'd been out of the country for three years, and it wasn't as if she owned a house anywhere.

"I hope she stays a while." Julie tore off another piece of éclair. "She's totally cool."

"Your mother is pretty cool, too."

Julie's eyebrow shot up. "Mom?"

"Sure. You should tell her sometime."

Julie laughed.

[*]

"You're right, we don't know each other," Angie told Tami.

Most of Tami's memories of Angie were as a fourth grader. One in particular stuck in her mind. Tami and Eric were sitting on the couch in his basement in November of their senior year. The room was completely dark except for the glow of the television screen. Eric had asked her to "help him study" for a government test. She suspected he might have an ulterior motive, given that he had an A- in the class and she had a C+. (Tami had never bothered to study or do homework, being too busy as senior class president and Homecoming Queen and Mo's girlfriend.) She was ready to make out with Eric. She'd just broken up with Mo for cheating on her, and some petty, vengeful part of her hoped to hurt him by getting it on with one of his football buddies. She didn't know Eric well, as he was new to the school that year, but he was easy on the eyes and seemed interested in her. So when they wrapped up their study session and he asked her to stay and watch a TV show with him, she was expecting him to make his move. But for the next twenty minutes he just sat beside her, his shoulder an inch away from hers.

At long last he extended his arm cautiously across the back of the couch, but he still didn't lower it around her. So Tami deliberately laughed at something on the TV and patted his knee and leaned up against him – a hint of encouragement – and finally, finally – what was taking him so long? – Eric leaned down to kiss her. Just as their lips touched – and Tami felt a jolt of chemistry she had not at all anticipated - Angie appeared abruptly behind the couch and asked loudly, "Do y'all want some Oreos?" She held a half full package in her hand.

Eric had not received his baby sister's love offering kindly, but Tami was in tears from laughter after he chased Angie up the stairs.

Tami now looked across the table at Angie. "Maybe it's time we got to know each other."