Sunday night supper with my mother was different that week. No matter how many times I showered and changed my clothes, I couldn't help thinking that I stilled smelled like the Abrams family garbage and that my mother would notice. After all, this was the woman who just by noticing a change in the guy's cologne, was able to expose a double agent who was selling black-market booby traps to rebels in Uzbakistan. So was it so hard to believe that she'd smell a strange boy's toothpaste on my fingers?
I sat through frozen pizza and bagged salad, trying not to think about the fresh vegetables and cartons of eggs that I knew filled the Abrams family refrigerator (or at the very least, their trash). I imagined his family sitting down to dinner together every night, someone saying grace, someone else asking him to pass the potatoes. I took another bite of my pizza. It was still cold in the center, but I smiled and told Mom it tasted good. There are some lies that even the most seasoned secret agents will believe.