"So do you mind if I ask what was with that phone call?"

"Dad calls sometimes," shrugs Andi. "Mom calls us when we're staying with him over summers, too, they get along, they just didn't want to be married anymore. A while ago he started volunteering for this Scouting-like thing called the Sharing and he wants us to check it out but I think it looks boring and Bella thinks it looks creepy."

"That's a slight exaggeration. I think their recruitment habits are creepy; the organization itself seems to just be barbecues and volunteer work. I just don't know why Charlie's so into it."

"Okay, what's creepy about their recruiting habits?"

"The fact that Charlie will not shut up about it? He's not this evangelistic about things, usually. We went fishing with him a couple times, it was boring, we never had to come along again. But for some reason he feels really strongly that we should go eat corn on the cob on the beach with a bunch of people he met through this group and make friends there and do stuff with them."

"...Yeah, that's a little weird," says Trouble.

"Yeah."

"Maybe it's a cult. But all their press says they're secular and nondenominational 'except insofar as indviduals among us feel moved to act for the common good by their faith'."

"I don't think they're a religious cult. Is there even such a thing as a secular cult?"

"Maybe they're secretly a cult," says Trouble. "You join up and it's all corn on the cob and community shit and then once you're in deep they're like 'by the way, have some kool-aid'."

"They have a disturbingly high retention rate."

"So they're a nice secret cult. Or a really, really nasty one."

"Anyway," says Bella, shaking her head, "I'm just hoping Charlie doesn't make an enormous fuss about it when we're actually at his house this summer. It's one thing when I can theoretically just hang up on him."

"Worst case scenario, we go eat some corn," shrugs Andi. "It's boring, but we just turn down all the neon-color liquids, yeah?"

Bella shakes her head. "I don't want to. It's not a bowl of salad, and I don't want to, and that used to matter more than it currently seems to to Charlie."

"Is there some kind of special exception for bowls of salad?" wonders Trouble.

"Renée is sincerely motivated by concern for our health when she makes us eat salad," says Bella. "Also, it is not a suspicious, new behavior that she developed after converting to Scientology or something."

"Also, everyone's parents make them eat vegetables," says Andi.

"Not so much," he says to Andi.

"What, do you just eat whatever you want at home?"

"Actually, I was thinking of Ethan."

"He eats whatever he wants?"

"Eats whatever he wants, does whatever he wants. His parents couldn't give a shit."

"That sounds conveniently depressing. Depressingly convenient? Convenient and also depressing?"

"Could be worse."