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Crosby and Jasmine are struggling to hide their love affair from… their son. Crosby finally tells Jasmine he really wants to be with her, not just fool around. She asks him to give her some time.
Adam and Kristina are working hard to teach Max how to be a friend. It's a struggle, and it affects his parents' social lives as well.
When Sydney's soccer coach quits, Julia steps in to take the lead. Let's talk about the important stuff: there's a tiny kid on the team who can breakdance. Julia talks big about how she's going to make it all about having fun, but it gets ugly when Raquel makes her feel competitive. Julia recruits Jabbar as a ringer. He's unstoppable!
When Sarah finds a pair of cufflinks that Zeek pawned, he claims they were stolen at the gym, but Sarah learns the truth: Zeek pawned them, along with a bunch of other stuff. She and Adam put the other siblings in the picture, and they confront their dad in front of Camille. He is forced to reveal his financial problems. It's more than just the money. Camille knows Zeek's been unfaithful. She asks Sarah not to tell anyone. Zeek goes to Adam's to stay for a while.
Steve is putting the moves, big time, on Haddie for sex. She breaks it off with him, and turns to Amber for support. Unfortunately, Steve also turns to Amber for support. Even more unfortunately, they hit it off.
Want more? The full recap starts right below! Crosby and Jasmine are blissfully sleeping in her bed when they are awakened by knocking at the bedroom door. It's Jabbar, looking for his mommy. The two adults freak out at the prospect of being busted by their own son, so Crosby does what any grown-up would do: he dives out the bedroom window, lands on his head, and awkwardly waves at a pack of old ladies walking down the sidewalk.Speaking of awkward, Adam and Kristina are arriving with Max at the Lessings' house for a barbecue. They try to psyche Max up for this experience, describing the Lessings' son, Noel (the hand-flapper), as "an interesting kid," and saying he might become a friend to Max. "Why do I need a friend?" Max asks. Adam says friends are fun. "Can you give me a reason why friends are fun?" Max asks, and the question is so basic and thus so hard to answer, it sends Kristina into like, verbal cross-stitch sampling: "Because they're friends. And friends are friends. And in order to be a friend, you have to have a friend." I think she meant that last one the other way around, but still. "Let's just try to have a good time," Adam says, and I wonder how they'll even remotely achieve that, considering their visits to the Lessing household was hell on Earth. Things don't seem to be going all that much better this time. The Lessings remain totally overwhelming. Mr. L has brought out his pride and joy, a new recumbent bike. This is complete with a yellow biking outfit, including a sweat band, which sort of makes me love him. Adam is cringing, but gamely sits on the thing when Mr. L insists. Kristina, meanwhile, is being emotionally engulfed by Mrs. L, who realizes she can't stop talking about Noel, who -- she says with tears in her eyes -- she just loves so much, she can't help herself. Worst of all, of course, is poor Max having to deal with Noel, who has wrapped him in an unbreakable half-Nelson of a bear hug and won't let go. "Dad! Can you get him to stop?" Max finally cries, and Adam pulls them apart. Noel is undaunted and drops to the ground yelling "Let's roll around!" which he immediately begins doing. I mean, it's a natural step to hug-choking. Max declines. Finally, Kristina steps in. "You know, Max isn't feeling well," she says, adding that they'll have to go. The Lessings worriedly ask if it's diarrhea, as Noel had that recently. Ugh. "Time to go!" Max announces, and they leave, awkwardly thanking their hosts for the nice time. The poor Lessings smile knowingly and hug each other.
Over at Julia's, Joel is ranting, having just learned that Sydney's soccer coach has quit three days before the season's start, citing work issues. "Utterly bogus," Joel snaps. "He just wants to coach the stars; he doesn't want to coach the loser team." Ah. This is the first the hyper-competitive Julia has heard about Sydney being on the "loser team." Joel amends that title to the "athletically-challenged" team. Julia says well, this guy quitting is a good thing -- Sydney doesn't need that kind of competitive energy around her, anyway. Um, yes, because I guess she gets enough of it at home? Anyway, Joel says, she needs some kind of energy -- the team needs a coach. Julia has a brainwave. "How 'bout if I do it?" she asks. Joel laughs, before realizing she's serious. "You don't think it's gonna be an issue, you know, if the team doesn't..." Julia: "Win?" Joel says yes, exactly. "We both know," he says, "you hate to lose." Julia takes issue with this. "I would love to coach a team of rejects!" she says. "Because it pisses me off that the world is divided up that way, at five years old!" Joel is not buying this, at all, and neither is Sydney. She's drawing flowers on her soccer ball when Julia announces this big idea, and forces a smile of dread.
In a pawn shop in town, Sarah has arrived with Drew (yay!) to shop for a used laptop for her Photoshop class. Why not just pile some money up on the ground and burn it? The store owner places an ancient behemoth of a laptop on the counter. "That's like, 10 years old," Drew warns her while the owner looks on. "Newer computers are slimmer; it's like a bait and switch." Sarah knows none of this. "Why don't you just look on craigslist?" Drew mutters to his mom, but the owner hears him. "How's your mother gonna look on craigslist if she doesn't have a computer?" he asks, angry. Drew shuts up, and Sarah goes down the counter where she sees some cufflinks that strike her interest. She asks the store owner to show them to her, and wonders aloud where he got them. They are elegant black cufflinks with the initial "Z" on them. She takes a picture of them with her phone. "Isn't a computer more important than some cufflinks?" Drew asks her. She says yeah, but it's weird... Zeek has come cufflinks just like these.
Amber is working at her job at the country club snack bar -- a job I had no idea she even had, but whatever -- when Haddie and Steve come in, laughing. "Amber!" Haddie says. "Do you work here, or something?" Oh, good. I wasn't the only one that didn't know. "Yeah, serving the ruling class," Amber says. "As usual." Though it is not a themed establishment, Amber seems to have had her hair and makeup done by someone who thought she was going to a costume party dressed as Evita Peron in 1946. Her lipstick is totally Jungle Red. She asks if she can get them something. "How 'bout two beers?" Steve asks, like a douche. "Steve..." Haddie says, nervously. "Unbelievable, Steve," Amber says, flatly, but then begins drawing the beers into paper cups. "You got a lot of nerve, you kids, comin' in here..." They smile. "You're amazing," Steve says. Amber says she knows, and won't even let Haddie pay for these contraband beers. She IS amazing. Amazingly stupid. But not more so than Haddie, who, when Steve goes to sit at a table, says she and Steve are there for a picnic on the golf course. They don't say what time of day it is, but uh... I can see people still outside, playing golf. Also, I don't know if you've spent any time on a golf course in the middle of the night, lately, but try going out on one after sundown and see how fast a fat security guard in a golf cart will come rolling up on you with his flash light. Not that this has happened to me recently, or anything. ANYWAY, Amber whispers to Haddie that Steve's whole picnic idea is "probably code for like, doing it." Haddie says no, surely not, but Amber says that she's seen couples going out there late with blankets and bottles and stuff, and she knows what's up. "He probably doesn't even know about it," Haddie says. "It's probably like an urban legend, or something..." Poor Haddie. Amber looks over to see Steve folding a huge blanket and stuffing it into his bag. "Yeah, that's a blanket," she says, looking worriedly at Haddie. "That's a blanket in that bag. Good luck." Haddie looks concerned.
Sarah is at HQ when Zeek comes through the kitchen in his workout clothes. She stops him and asks if he still has his famous Z cufflinks. She tells him about seeing ones just like them in a pawn shop. "Do you still have them?" she asks, showing him the picture she took, and he looks nervous. "A pawn shop," he says, tsking. "That figures." He tells her not to tell Camille, but that he lost them at his gym a month ago. As she promises not to tell, Camille comes in. "Promise what?" she asks, taking orange juice out of the fridge. "I... won't tell you that Dad's been drinking out of the carton again," Sarah says, thinking quickly. "Barbarian," Camille snarks, glaring at Zeek. But Zeek winks at his daughter. "Ya rat," he says, and leaves. Sarah smiles, but nevertheless looks quite worried.
Adam is at home, giving Max a lesson on how to be a good host. The first rule of being a good host is sharing, he reminds Max. "And, also, letting your guest choose what they want to do," he adds. Apparently a man from Adam's office is coming over for a cookout with his wife and son, David. "It would be nice if we all did our best to get along," Adam says. Max seems fine with this, and says okay. "So, let's say you and David are playing with your bugs," Adam says, "and he decides he doesn't want to play with bugs anymore. He wants to play basketball. What are you going to do?" Max knows the correct answer is: play basketball. Adam just wants to make sure they are on the same page. "Right," he says, "even if you want to..." Max: "Still play with bugs." Aw. Man, I really feel for Max and all kids like him. The kid is just trying to live among his bugs, man. "Can we stop talking about this, now?" he asks, simply. "You owe me a sticker for this." Adam: "You got it."
At the soccer field, the kids on Julia's team are sharing their special talents. Dudes, there is a tiny kid there, Brian, doing the electric boogaloo like I have never seen in my life. I have to rewind it 20 times. The team watches Brian in awe as Julia tells everyone how, this season, they are going to win every game. "No, we're not," a little smart-mouthed cutie shoots back. Au contraire, Julia says. They are going to win, because they are going to redefine winning as having fun and being a team. Brian finishes his clinic on awesomeness, and another little boy shares his special skill: doing something gross with chewing gum. Julia hears a whistle across the field and looks up to see another team practicing drills and looking like an efficient killing machine of five-year-old soccer stars. Wouldn't you know it? Their coach is Raquel. So much for living in peace or whatever she's always jabbering on about. Julia puts her hand on her hip and scowls.
It's dark when Steve pulls up in front of Haddie's house. "Look, Haddie," he says, as she seems to mope in the passenger seat. "I don't want to force you into anything that you don't want to do." Sure he does. He tells her he loves her, and Haddie sighs and apologizes for being so weird tonight. "That's okay," Steve says. "We can try again for week." Haddie's eyebrows shoot right off. "Well, you said," Steve tries, still in his best nice-guy tone, "well, you... indicated..." Haddie is mad now and asks if he's saying she lead him on. No, no, Steve backpeddles. He says all he's saying is that he cares about her, and so whenever she's ready, he'll just wait. "Steve," Haddie says, upset. "I'm not going to just... ripen... like a piece of fruit!" Steve says that's not what he's saying, but of course it totally is, even if he doesn't realize it. Haddie says she doesn't think this whole thing is working. "What whole thing?" Steve asks, incredulous. Haddie: "Like, us..." Steve asks why she would even say that. "You're just upset, obviously, right now," he says, trying to placate her, but oh, no, girlie ain't playing. "I'm upset," she says. "I'm not just upset." I pause to raise a fist in solidarity. Steve drops his game. "So, one minute, we're going from almost having sex to a break up?" Haddie is amazed at his ineptitude. "I care about you, I really do," she says extricating herself from the car. "But I feel like this is what I have to do right now." I love it.
The morning, Haddie stomps into and out of the kitchen, barely giving her parents the time of day. Adam asks Kristina if she's talked to Haddie about the break up. "They broke up," she says. "That's all I could get out of her." This isn't enough information for Adam. He wants to know who broke up with whom. "She broke up with him," Kristina says, making a sad face. Adam, on the other hand, is thrilled. "Good!" he says, and moves on, reminding her that the guy from work and his family are coming over. I keep calling him "the guy from work" because their name sounds like "The Genitalias" and it bothers me. Kristina asks what his deal is with these people, since he's reminded her 16 times about the cookout. Adam says he just thinks they're really going to get along with these people. "Max could have a new friend in David," he says. "These people are cool! They have potential to become top five friends, here! Top five!" Kristina rolls her eyes. "Top five. That's pretty cool, honey." Hee.
At HQ, Sarah is using her parents' computer, trying to figure out Photoshop for her class. She is justifiably frustrated, as anyone would be trying to learn it from scratch at a kitchen desktop computer. Camille comes in and attempts to commiserate as only a mother can -- by giving unwanted advice. "I think you're afraid of trying," she says. Sarah scoffs. "Now I'm afraid of trying?" she says. "You always said in high school I was afraid of failing! Which is it?" Sarah is just frustrated, but now Camille is offended. "It's your life," she says, Mom-style, and starts to walk out. "I'm just saying, Mom," Sarah says, trying to smooth it over, "what do you know about failure?" Camille looks at her over her glasses. "I'm acquainted with failure," she says. Sarah smiles. "No, Mom, like real failure," she says. "Not like, 'oh, my organic pastry dough didn't rise.' I mean, real failure." Camille tucks a shopping bag under her arm and gathers her keys in silence before sighing and asking Sarah if she's sure she doesn't need anything from the store. Sarah realizes she's said the wrong thing. "Hey, Mom, I'm just kidding," she calls after Camille, who has walked out of the kitchen without looking back.
In the hallway at school, Haddie brings Amber up to speed on the Steve situation. They exchange several "dudes," and "totallys" and Amber gives Haddie her full support for the break up. "If there's one thing I know," Amber says, "you don't wanna cash in your V-chip with a cliché. Or a jerk. Or a douche. So, I guess that rules out Steve."
Later, Sarah returns to the pawn shop. Messing with my mind, they have moved the camera to the other side of the counter, so that it looks like the entire store was flipped around. She reminds the owner of her visit the other day, and how she looked at the cufflinks. "Couldn't resist 'em, huh?" he asks, smiling. She says that actually, she was wondering if he would tell her who brought them in, because her dad thinks they might have been stolen from his gym. The store owner looks a little nervous and tells her it's policy not to reveal who brings in the stuff. "Please," she says, and he bends. He looks it up and tells her the cufflinks were pawned by Zeek Braverman. Sarah's heart breaks. "That's my dad," she says, smiling sadly. The owner pulls out a box containing the other items Zeek pawned. "It's probably a cash flow thing," he tells her, uncomfortable, and says Zeek will likely be back soon for her stuff. "How much?" she asks, holding up a baseball that was in the box. The guy says it's $400. Shocked, Sarah puts it back.
Mass confusion is occurring on the soccer field as Julia's team does their athletically-challenged best against their opponents. They lose 11-0, but Julia congratulates them anyway on a good effort. As she is talking about week's practice, Raquel comes over. "I love your kids," she says, condescending. "They are so cute." Julia jokes that if she came there scouting to forget about it. Raquel smiles. "No," she says. "I came to see if you wanted to take one of my players. We have so many good players. If you take one, it would make the game more fun," she says, pointing to the scoreboard. "For everyone." Surely it is only the presence of impressionable young minds that holds Julia back from cutting a bitch right here. But as she's considering whether or not she wants to risk going to jail for beating down Raquel, she looks over her shoulder to see none other than the inestimable Jabbar, who has come to watch the game and is now running around playing on the emptied field, kicking balls into the goal like a pro. She smiles, evilly, and bows to Raquel: "Namaste."
Meanwhile, Adam and Kristina are about to get a taste of their own medicine. Though Max is probably doing his best, his hosting duties are leaving a little to be desired. As his parents have fun chatting with the Genitalias, Max is wearing out young David's ears with facts about snout beetles. Finally, the kid has had enough and gets up to whisper something to his mom. Max runs over to Adam, kind of distressed. "I asked him if he wanted to play with other bugs," Max says, maybe realizing something has gone wrong. Guess what -- the Gs pull the same move on Adam and Kristina they just pulled on the Lessings. It stings. Mrs. G says David is not feeling well and, despite protests from everyone, they leave, saying they'll have to make it another time. Adam and Kristina are kind of left in the lurch, not knowing what to say. "Max, want me to look at some bugs with you?" Adam asks, as the Gs leave. But Max just looks sad, and shakes his head as he runs away. It breaks my heart.
In their bedroom, later, Adam and Kristina review. "I can't believe they would just leave like that," Adam says, particularly mad that the Gs did not even wait until Kristina brought out the apple crisp she made. "Honey," Kristina reminds him. "We did the same thing to the Lessings, remember?" Adam is incredulous. "What? So, we're relegated to the short bus, now?" he asks. "We have to hang out with people like the Lessings instead of cool people like the [Genitalias]?" Sidestepping the gross way he just bagged on the Lessings like they were somehow... less than... Kristina says that maybe this whole thing is not about them right now, maybe it's about Max. "Well," Adam asks, sort of justifiably, "can't it be just a little about us?" Kristina sighs and looks at him, kind of sad.
Over at Jasmine's a different bedroom scene is taking place. "So, what do you think?" she asks Crosby, in bed, laying her head on his chest. "Round three?" he asks, smiling. "I may have to hydrate or something, before..." Har har. No, she says, that's not what she was talking about. She wants to know what he thinks of Julia's suggestion that Jabbar play on her soccer team. Crosby laughs and says he would love to talk about it after he pees. He gets up and is tip-toeing to the bathroom in his drawers when Jabbar comes out of the bathroom. "Crosby...?" he says, sleepy. Crosby panics. "You tired?" he asks the yawning Jabbar. "You're still sleeping. This is a dream! I'm not really here." Jabbar nods. "Okay, Crosby," he whispers. "Should I go back to bed and make believe I didn't see you?" Crosby whispers that that is a good plan and Jabbar staggers back to bed. From the bedroom door, Jasmine sees this and rolls her eyes.
Amber is at the country club, eating nuts out of the bar snack bin when Steve shows up and joins her. "Did you talk to Haddie?" he asks. She tells him it's none of his biz. Steve gives her the sad face. He wasn't pressuring Haddie, he says. "I just wanted it to be... special." For some reason, Amber does not kick him in the shins. She says it just wasn't the right time for Haddie. "So, are you feeling more heartbroken," Amber asks. "Or, are you feeling rejected?" Steve says both, that the feelings are inseparable. No, Amber says. Heartbroken means you're sad you can't be with the person anymore; rejected is more like you're taking it personally and you're mad. "Wow," Steve says. "Where did all this wisdom come from?" Amber makes her eyes wide. "From Fresno, of course," she says. Steve: "The wisdom capitol of the world?" Amber: "Ah, yes, you've heard of it." Haa! But, wait a second, wait a second. Don't flirt with the guy your cousin just dumped for pressuring her into sex! Siiiiiigh. Amber! Don't do it. But, y'all, she's doing it. Or, actually, she's not really flirting, she's just generally being awesome and Steve finds it attractive. She says her wisdom also comes from her mom, who is a little crazy, and her dad not being around too much. "I guess you just have to figure stuff out for yourself when you're raised like that, you know?" she says, shrugging. Steve is impressed. She asks him what his parents are like. He says they're pretty normal, pointing out his dad who is walking by the window as they speak. "Actually, this last year," he says, "my dad got diagnosed with MS." Amber is surprised, and so is Steve. He has never told anyone that. She says she read that people with MS can benefit from horseback riding. Steve smiles, saying well, he doesn't think his dad will be doing any riding anytime soon, but thanks. "It was worth a shot," Amber says, laughing. (It's true, though, and how cool is that? You know what else is awesome? This thing about Parkinson's and bicycles. I love stuff like that.) "So," Steve asks, now that they are friends, "can you maybe pass a message on to Haddie for me?" Amber smirks. "No, dude," she says, "you gotta deal with your own stuff." With that, she pats his shoulder, tells him he's okay, and leaves him smiling.
At the shoe warehouse, Sarah has come to tell Adam about her pawn shop discoveries. She breaks it to him about the Reggie Jackson baseball being included in the pawned stuff. As she picks out boxes of shoes off the shelves, Adam says he didn't know about the pawning, but he did know that their dad has been in financial trouble. He tells her about the real estate investment. Sarah is shocked. Adam says he made Zeek promise to tell Camille, but they realize now that that hasn't happened. Sarah asks how bad Adam thinks it is. "It's bad enough for him to sell the Reggie Jackson ball," he says, "which I wanted to be mine, eventually." That really is bad, but Sarah points out that the situation is not really about his baseball heirlooms. She wants to know what they're supposed to do about Camille. "You should tell her," she decides. "Because you're the oldest. Ooo, is that a hiking boot?"
It's soccer practice time, again, and Sydney is eight minutes late to practice. "Your player forgot her lucky barrette and we had to go back and get it," Joel says. He notices Jabbar on the field. "Oh, I didn't tell you?" Julia says, casually. "Cros begged me to let him play." Across the field, Crosby tells Jasmine to "wave to the freak" when they see Julia maniacally begin her self-esteem building techniques. "You're the freak," Jasmine says, citing his brainwashing of Jabbar back into his bed the night before. Crosby: "I merely made a suggestion. It wasn't an ideal situation." Jasmine says she, too, has a suggestion: "No more fooling around. Period." Crosby is upset. "So, that's what you think we've been doing," he says. "Fooling around." Jasmine asks him what he would call it. He doesn't have an answer.
Steve has returned to Amber's domain at the club. He sits on the empty patio and tells her that his dad was into the whole horseback riding thing after all. They share a laugh about this, and Steve gets serious. "I've been thinking about this whole thing with Haddie," he says. "I was a real jerk." Amber is intrigued and asks how. "I felt like I kept making appointments with her to lose my virginity," Steve says. Amber is surprised to hear he is a virgin. Steve is embarrassed. "Can you drown me now?" he asks, pointing to the club fountain. "Yeah," she says. "We have a strict No Virgins policy." Ugh, you two! Stop hitting it off! He says that he realizes now that Haddie wasn't feeling the moment when he pushed her to have sex, and he's not surprised. "I wasn't feeling 'in the moment,'" he says. "Why would she?" Amber says, jokingly, that she thought guys could just feel it whenever they wanted. "What I'm feeling now," he says, all serious and nervous, "isn't what I was feeling with her." Amber immediately gets it. "Gotta go," she says, quietly, and walks away.
There's a Braverman sibling meeting going on at Julia's about the situation with their dad. They decide to have dinner with their parents, just the six of them, at HQ the night. "Makes me uncomfortable," Crosby admits, "but I will be there." They are all anxious about the whole thing.
Total athletic domination is going on out on the soccer field. Jabbar is a hero of the sport, raging up and down the field scoring goal after goal against Raquel's team. It delights me to no end that Raquel's team's jerseys are tie-dyed. Julia celebrates more than anyone after each goal. "So I want them to win," she says when Joel looks at her sternly for being happy. "I'm a horrible person. Losing sucks, is that what you want to hear?" Y'all, I get Joel's issues with her competitiveness, but dudes, Joel needs to pull out the stick, you know? His frowny judgment over everything she does gets on my nerves.
The sibs are in Adam's car getting ready to pounce on their parents. Adam has prepared index cards, which is hilarious, but Crosby is not wanting to play along. "This sounds like something Dr. Phil wrote," he complains from the backseat, reading a clichéd statement of support, aloud. Adam says, fine, that they should just all follow his lead when he brings up the economy at dinner. "Before we take off," Crosby says, seeing his moment, "why do you guys always get to sit up front?" Julia points out that Crosby is, in fact, taller than Adam and Sarah. "You've always been taller than us; we've always been older than you," Sarah says. "The one thing we get is to sit up in the front." But, she says, tonight she's going to let Crosby sit up front, and jumps out. Adam yells at them to get back in the car, and insists that they be united on the parental front. "Fine," Crosby says, looking at his card again. "But I'm not saying 'unconditionally.'"
I guess Amber never gets to leave work, because she's back at the club, serving drinks at an 80s party. The costumes are quite fabulous, and she herself has modified her uniform with a jaunty side ponytail and loose necktie. Welcome to my wardrobe in 1986. Outside on the patio, she finds the ever-present Steve, looking fly like Don Johnson at his slickest, wearing sunglasses at night. She is delighted. "Can you believe this?" she asks, pointing at the party revelers. "Tell me that your parents forced you to come, or that they paid you or something." He says yeah, a little. "I also heard you would be here, too," he says. Amber: "That's not good. That's not a good reason." Thing is, she doesn't say it with much conviction, and my heart sinks. Oh, Amber. Steve says, yeah, well, he also came for the dancing. "I'd almost believe you," Amber says, smiling, "except, you're not dancing!" At this tragic moment, kryptonite hits the scene in the form of James Ingram's "Just Once," as if any human being could ever resist that song in the history of time. "I don't see why we couldn't dance out here," Steve says, and Amber... doesn't see any reason, either. They start slow dancing. Behold, the power of good R&B. You youngsters won't recognize the feeling, since you haven't heard it in your lifetimes. No, don't get me started! I'll start crying about Whitney Houston and never stop.
The dinner of unconditional parental love is not going so well. Adam makes an awkward segue from talking about Camille's great dinners to the [here's the cue] economy. Julia and Sarah gamely try to jump in, and Crosby takes a breath and starts reading from his index card, saying that they'll always be there for their parents they way they have been there for them. "Yeah, unconditionally," Adam says, shaking his head at his incompetent brother. Zeek is suspicious. He asks what the agenda is for this whole soiree, thinking the sibs are worried about money for their kids' college educations. "No, Dad," Adam says, adding that they are worried about his and Camille's future. "Our future?" Camille says, sort of smirking, and asks why they'd be worried about that. "Staying solvent in an economic..." Crosby starts reading again. Sarah: "Stop now." Camille doesn't understand what is going on and finally an uncomfortable silence falls. Zeek, realizing his kids are ambushing him, gets eerily quiet. "You found out about the cufflinks?" he asks Sarah. She swears she didn't mean to. "What about the cufflinks?" Camille asks. Zeek sighs. "This is what family is all about, isn't it?" he says. Swallowing, he looks at Camille. "I made a bad investment," he says. She is immediately angry. "That property up north?" she asks, slapping down her napkin. Zeek: "It went south." He admits that he's been scrambling. "We've got some financial problems," he finally says. She's pissed. "More lies," Camille says. The kids all try to say again that they're there to help, but Camille only has eyes for Zeek. "This isn't just about money, is it?" she asks him in a scary tone. Everyone freezes. "I don't want to continue with this right now," Camille finally says and leaves the table crying, telling her kids that they are all so sweet. Zeek doesn't feel the same, apparently. He stomps away, out the front door and drives off in his truck.
Back at Jasmine's, she and Crosby are tucking in the soccer champ. "Goodnight, Pelé ," Crosby says, and Jabbar asks him if he's sleeping over. "Not tonight," Crosby says, and Jabbar looks disappointed. In the living room, Crosby turns to Jasmine. "It's not 'fooling around,'" he says. "I've done a lot of research on that topic. I want to be with you, Jasmine." Jasmine, sweetly, says that Crosby has been through a lot -- particularly tonight, with his parents -- and that they should give their relationship some time. He nods and turns to the door. "Crosby," she asks, before he can leave. "You wanna have a sleepover?" Hee. He says yes, he loves sleepovers. "I didn't bring any jammies, though," he whispers. Jasmine: "You don't need any."
Camille finds Sarah in the guest house where she's still working on her Photoshop assignment. She apologizes for running off the night before. "Mom, please, don't worry," Sarah says. Camille says that she knows they've had money problems before and that they'll have them again, but what bothers her is that Zeek didn't respect her enough to tell her what was going on. "There's been a lot of lying going on for a lot of years," she says. "Not just about money." Sarah is confused. "There was a woman, up north," Camille says. "I covered for him. Been covering for him for years." She says she told herself she was doing it for the kids, but that was only partly true. "I couldn't, for some reason, confront him about it," she says. "So, I just let it go. I let it go." Sarah is crying. "Mom..." she says, her voice breaking. "Don't tell the others about it," Camille says, and I wonder why this is a request she makes, seeing how lies have hurt her family already. Sarah says okay, shocked. Changing the subject, Camille asks how her assignment is going and comes around to look at the computer screen. It's a montage of family pictures. They both cry, and so do I.
Adam and Kristina have realized the error of their ways. In their backyard, they are enjoying a boisterous cookout with the Lessings, watching poor Mr. L get pummeled by Max and Noel in a game of trampoline basketball while Mrs. L plays guitar. It's so sweet, until Adam hears someone at the front door. He opens it to find Zeek, suitcase in hand.
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