It happens every year.” Vanessa squared the stack again.

“Our hotel room was canceled by fax on Wednesday.”

Vanessa’s hand stopped on the paper.

It stopped for less than a second, and then it went on smoothing the corner flat.

“Hotels,” she said.

“I wouldn’t know the first thing about hotels.”

The copy on top of her stack was the semifinal bracket.

Eli and Owen sat at the top of the left column, the hard column, and both names had been circled twice in blue pen.