In the morning, SarahBeth was the last one up. She came out of Perry's bedroom when the others were already eating breakfast. Her hair was tied back and she was dressed simply in a T-shirt and jeans.

She came up and put a hand on Perry's shoulder. "Perry, I think we should go back to U-town. We really didn't give it a fair chance. I'm going, and I hope you'll come with me. But I think I'm going anyway." Vicki kicked her in the ankle. "I'm going anyway," she finished, "and I would really like it if you'd come with me."

Perry looked up at her for a moment, then put his hand on top of hers as he turned to the others.

"My non-monogamous, underage, incestuous, lesbian girlfriend and I would love to come," he said, holding her hand firmly as she tried to pull it away.

Jan Sleet, smiling, raised her mug in a kind of salute. "Perry," she said, "you're developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humor. We'll have to start being more careful around you."

Looking resigned, and blushing slightly, SarahBeth sat down beside Perry.

"Did you tell her?" Jan Sleet asked quietly as Perry and SarahBeth packed.

"Tell her what?" Vicki asked innocently.

"That Doc is taking time off to write her book and you're running U-town these days?"

Vicki smiled sheepishly and looked at the floor. "No," she said quietly.

Jan Sleet looked at her sternly.

"I didn't think she'd come if she knew," Vicki said quietly.

"So, you–"

"Yes, I did a SarahBeth on her. I was trying to get her to be straight with Perry," she laughed, "so to speak, and I did the same thing to her. Well, I always said that she and I were just alike."

"So, go tell her now. Before we leave."

Vicki scrunched up her shoulders. "But then she won't come. And I so want her to be there. Look, if she's nice for four hours in the car, she'll be ready to explode. This will give her something to explode about."

"How's Pat going to feel about this?" Marshall asked.

"This doesn't have anything to do with Pat. I don't want SarahBeth to be there with me, I just want her there."

SarahBeth came back in and hugged Vicki from behind. "By the way," she said, "congratulations on being elected leader, or however you people do it. We heard about it on the radio a couple of days ago."

She swept into the bedroom and Vicki made a face. "She drives me crazy, you know that?"

Jan laughed. "Maybe this should be our plan. We can just go door to door and win people over."

Vicki gestured at the bedroom door. "I'm not going to go door to door and do that to win people over."

Jan Sleet glanced at Marshall. "And neither are you, mister."

worse than the police