With his mother in the hospital after a botched suicide attempt, fifteen-year-old Charlie goes to live with his mother's best friend, twenty-six-year-old Jolene. Somewhere in the midst of tickle fights and hugging and joking around, Jolene's guardianship of Charlie unravels, and soon they are both irrevocably lost in an affair that neither one is ready for, but that neither one is ready to resist. "A sharp, witty first novel."--Playboy; "A promising debut."--Publishers Weekly.