Brett helped her mother put the last of the Thanks giving dinner dishes into the dishwasher, even offering to help her father dry the pots and pans as he bent over the sink, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow. She’d been feeling protective of her parents since the alien Coopers had washed up on their shores, and she was finally, for maybe the first time in her life, beginning to truly appreciate Becki and Stuart Messerschmidt. And as excruciating as any sit-down with the Coopers could be, Thanksgiving dinner hadn’t been so bad. First, Sebastian had had a ten-minute conversation with her father about how TiVo could be the greatest invention of the twenty-first century. And when Mrs. Cooper had gasped when her mother unveiled the yams with a top layer of burnt marshmallows, just like Brett liked them, Sebastian had said, “You rock, Mrs. Messerschmidt.” All in all, her plan had worked perfectly. Right after a Brettinitiated discussion on which celebrity had the worst breast implants (Brett’s parents voted for Pamela Anderson, while Sebastian picked out Posh Spice), and right before the pumpkin pie was passed around, Mr.
