"Dating's not embarassing but if you don't want to talk about it I'll butt out."

Jeremy ducks his head. "You're fine. Dating is normal but being interrogated by your parents about it is not normal." 

Evelyn is clearly trying not to smirk. "Actually, love, it's very traditional to embarrass your teenager in front of their friends." She pretends to fill out imaginary paperwork. "Parenting box checked." 

Snrk. "Oh, hey, have you ever been to a summer camp and what kind was it and was it good?"

"Soccer camp is, like, fine? That one's not a sleepaway camp, it's just days. I did theatre camp summer after tenth grade and I think it would've been great if I were, uh, more of a theatre person. Also it was only for kids older than thirteen." 

"He went because of a girl," Evelyn says out of the corner of her mouth to Miranda, sotto voce. 

Jeremy is not even going to deign to respond to that one with a groan. 

"I'm pretty sure I'm lousy at both soccer and acting but I suppose that's not really a reason not to do them. Except inasmuch as one can't do literally everything and has to pick somehow." There's some kind of slogan or catchphrase or something one says when experiencing the "oh no I can't do everything at once" emotion but it appears to have been eaten by the memory eater and it was probably weird future internet slang anyway.

"I should look into the girl scout camp more, that one sounded fun. And less likely to have age rules than academic camps." Not that she's given up on the latter yet either. Some rules have moral force and some are a challenge.

"I never got to go to sleepaway camp when I was little," Jeremy says wistfully. "'Cause it was, like, literally the law that I had to see Dad every Friday. And I guess money was tighter before the mortgage was paid off. I can ask my friends for ideas, though." 

Evelyn would kind of prefer that Jeremy NOT bring up this ENTIRE TOPIC but he's allowed to talk about his childhood. "I think day camps probably have more flexible age rules than sleepover camps anyway," she offers. "There's an arts and crafts camp at the rec center, I think, and it's officially 'all ages'." 

"Yeah right, ""all ages"". High schoolers wouldn't be caught dead in the rec center, Mom." Jeremy turns to smile at Miranda. "It might be all right, though. Mom has nicer craft stuff, honestly, but she's hopeless at drawing and they actually have lessons over there. I remember I learned two point perspective once." 

She has no idea what to say about divorced parents and money issues but probably nobody expects her to. "Sorry you didn't get to go to sleepaway camps? Learning to draw sounds neat though. Also, where do high schoolers prefer to be caught dead?"

Shrug. "We hang out at someone's house, usually. Not here, Mom is too embarrassing. The mall, sometimes."

...He looks slightly stricken. "I can't take you with me! I like you, you're great. Just. We, uh. Talk about things that aren't appropriate for little kids. Sorry." 

"Hey, no worries, I get how having a little girl around would be a total awkward buzzkill." Actually now that she thinks about it, her listening to a bunch of teenagers talking about their love lives would be kinda fucked up the other direction too. However old she was last week was definitely old enough for the thought to be mega awkward. "We can hang out in some other context. And I like you too; you're pretty cool." So many boys his age would treat someone who looks like her like an inevitable annoyance or part of the furniture or possibly a mascot/pet.

"Yeah." Jeremy tucks his chin into his chest. "Thanks for being cool about it." 

"I'm so pleased you're thinking about including Miranda," Evelyn said. "Maybe you could have the study nights here instead of Paul's house? I'll provide the premium Steel snack service, and it's not like you can complain about Miranda being disruptive." 

"...I guess. We could do that for a couple weeks until there's another placement who's a screamer." Glance at Miranda. "- Sorry, don't mean to stress you out. It's only some foster kids who scream. But you could hang out with us and help us study if you want." 

"I'd love that!" She would not love a roommate who screams but she is zero in a position to complain about Evelyn taking in other people who need it at least as badly as she does and probably moreso.

...Actually Evelyn is going to put in a request to her supervising social worker that she NOT have a second placement in Miranda's age range until she's more settled, and ideally in some kind of school placement and not always at home. Having two kids near in age can be great, sometimes, but it's hit or miss, and Miranda actually seems more likely to get along well with an older kid. 

She asks Jeremy for help cleaning up, and suggests that they can watch some family television before Miranda's bedtime. "I'd been thinking of starting the new documentary show on the Discovery Channel, it's called How The Universe Works and it's about science. I bet Miranda would love it." 

This is not his mother's usual TV habit but Jeremy will refrain from embarrassing her, since Miranda probably would think it was pretty rad. 

Gosh it's like she's incredibly obvious and easy to read or something :D

"That sounds awesome! Mind if I grab some embroidery stuff from the crafts cabinet first so I have something to fidget with?" 

"No, of course not!" Needing something to occupy one's hands while listening or watching to something is an ADHD thing right? Miranda otherwise doesn't show any suspicious ADHD-type symptoms but Evelyn will make a quiet mental note of it anyway. 

The episode is about 40 minutes long and about the Big Bang. Jeremy is clearly sitting on his usual teenage tendency to point out all the ways that family activities are uncool, which Evelyn appreciates a lot. 

It's almost 7:30 again by the time they finish. Miranda can if she wants have 15 minutes of computer time again before Evelyn calls her upstairs to brush her teeth and get ready for bed. 

Miranda has no idea if she was ever diagnosed with ADHD but she can diagnose herself with "will bite her fingernails if she tries to focus on video content". 

Computer time sounds good and is it cool if she uses it to set up a Gmail account, she told Barb she was going to exchange email addresses and she should actually do that before she forgets. She won't give out her email to randos without permission.

...Evelyn doesn't think that's the sort of thing where an inexperienced or careless computer user could accidentally download something and give her computer a virus, but she'll send Jeremy over to supervise anyway. 

Jeremy is super non-sketchy and Miranda seems to know what she's doing but sure, Jeremy can hang out with her and make suggestions if she gets stuck on anything.