Chapter Twelve

chapter twelve

Mr. Fisher would pop in throughout the summer, an occasional weekend and always the first week of August. He was a banker, and getting away for any real length of time was, according to him, simply impossible. And anyway, it was better without him there, when it was just us. When Mr. Fisher came to town, which wasn’t very often, I stood up a little straighter. Everyone did. Well, except Susannah and my mother, of course. The funny thing was, my mother had known Mr. Fisher for as long as Susannah had—the three of them had gone to college together, and their school was small.

Susannah always told me to call Mr. Fisher “Adam,” but I could never do it. It just didn’t sound right. Mr. Fisher was what sounded right, so that’s what I called him, and that’s what Steven called him too. I think some-thing about him inspired people to call him that, and not just kids, either. I think he preferred it that way.

He’d arrive at dinnertime on Friday night, and we’d wait for him. Susannah would fix his favorite drink and have it ready, ginger and Maker’s Mark. My mother teased her for waiting on him, but Susannah didn’t mind. My mother teased Mr. Fisher, too, in fact. He teased her right back. Maybe teasing isn’t the right word. It was more like bickering. They bickered a lot, but they smiled, too. It was funny: My mother and father had rarely argued, but they hadn’t smiled that much either.

I guess Mr. Fisher was good-looking, for a dad. He was better-looking than my father anyway, but he was also vainer than him. I don’t know that he was as good-looking as Susannah was beautiful, but that might’ve just been because I loved Susannah more than almost anyone, and who could ever measure up to a person like that? Sometimes it’s like people are a million times more beautiful to you in your mind. It’s like you see them through a special lens—but maybe if it’s how you see them, that’s how they really are. It’s like the whole tree falling in the forest thing.

Mr. Fisher gave us kids a twenty anytime we went anywhere. Conrad was always in charge of it. “For ice cream,” he’d say. “Buy yourselves something sweet.” Something sweet. It was always something sweet. Conrad worshipped him. His dad was his hero. For a long time, anyway. Longer than most people. I think my dad stopped being my hero when I saw him with one of his PhD students after he and my mother separated. She wasn’t even pretty.

It would be easy to blame my dad for the whole thing—the divorce, the new apartment. But if I blamed anyone, it was my mother. Why did she have to be so calm, so placid? At least my father cried. At least he was in pain. My mother said nothing, revealed nothing. Our family broke up, and she just went on. It wasn’t right.

When we got home from the beach that summer, my dad had already moved out—his first-edition Hemingways, his chess set, his Billy Joel CDs, Claude. Claude was his cat, and he belonged to my dad in a way that he didn’t to anyone else. It was only right that he took Claude. Still, I was sad. In a way, Claude being gone was almost worse than my dad, because Claude was so permanent in the way he lived in our house, the way he inhabited every single space. It was like he owned the place.

My dad took me out for lunch to Applebee’s, and he said, apologetically, “I’m sorry I took Claude. Do you miss him?” He had Russian dressing on his beard, newly grown out, for most of the lunch. It was annoying. The beard was annoying; the lunch was annoying.

So my father got Claude, and my mother got Steven and me. It worked out for everyone. We saw my father most weekends. We’d stay at his new apartment that smelled like mildew, no matter how much incense he lit.

I hated incense, and so did my mother. It made me sneeze. I think it made my father feel independent and exotic to light all the incense he wanted, in his new pad, as he called it. As soon as I walked into the apartment, I said accusingly, “Have you been lighting incense in here?” Had he forgotten about my allergy already?

Guiltily, my father admitted that yes, he had lit some incense, but he wouldn’t do it anymore. He still did, though. He did it when I wasn’t there, out the window, but I could still smell the stuff.

It was a two-bedroom apartment; he slept in the master bedroom, and I slept in the other one in a little twin bed with pink sheets. My brother slept on the pullout couch. Which, I was actually jealous of, because he got to stay up watching TV. All my room had was a bed and a white dresser set that I barely even used. Only one drawer had clothes in it. The rest were empty. There was a bookshelf too, with books my father had bought for me. My father was always buying me books. He kept hoping I’d turn out smart like him, someone who loved words, loved to read. I did like to read, but not the way he wanted me to. Not in the way of being, like, a scholar. I liked novels, not nonfiction. And I hated those scratchy pink sheets. If he had asked me, I would have told him yellow, not pink.

He did try, though. In his own way, he tried. He bought a secondhand piano and crammed it into the dining room, just for me. So I could still practice even when I stayed over there, he said. I hardly did, though—the piano was out of tune, and I never had the heart to tell him.

It’s part of why I longed for summer. It meant I didn’t have to stay at my father’s sad little apartment. It wasn’t that I didn’t like seeing him: I did. I missed him so much. But that apartment, it was depressing. I wished I could see him at our house. Our real house. I wished it could be like it used to be. And since my mother had us most of the summer, he took Steven and me on a trip when we got back. Usually it was to Florida to see our grandmother. We called her Granna. It was a depressing trip too—Granna spent the whole time trying to convince him to get back together with my mother, whom she adored. “Have you talked with Laurel lately?” she’d ask, even way long after the divorce.

I hated hearing her nag him about it; it wasn’t like it was in his control anyway. It was humiliating, because it was my mother who had split up with him. It was she who had precipitated the divorce, had pushed the whole thing, I knew that much for sure. My father would have been perfectly content carrying on, living in our blue two-story with Claude and all his books.

My dad once told me that Winston Churchill said that Russia was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. According to my dad, Churchill had been talking about my mother. This was before the divorce, and he said it half-bitterly, half-respectfully. Because even when he hated her, he admired her.

I think he would have stayed with her forever, trying to figure out the mystery. He was a puzzle solver, the kind of person who likes theorems, theories. X always had to equal something. It couldn’t just be X.

To me, my mother wasn’t that mysterious. She was my mother. Always reasonable, always sure of herself. To me, she was about as mysterious as a glass of water. She knew what she wanted; she knew what she didn’t want. And that was to be married to my father. I wasn’t sure if it was that she fell out of love or if it was that she just never was. In love, I mean.

When we were at Granna’s, my mother took off on one of her trips. She’d go to far-off places like Hungary or Alaska. She always went alone. She took pictures, but I never asked to look at them, and she never asked if I wanted to.

chapter thirteen

I was sitting in an Adirondack chair eating toast and reading a magazine when my mother came out and joined me. She had that serious look on her face, her look of purpose, the one she got when she wanted to have one of her mother-daughter talks. I dreaded those talks the same way I dreaded my period.

I stuffed the rest of my toast into my mouth. “This?”

My mother cleared her throat. “Is Conrad doing drugs?” she asked me.

I almost choked. “No! Why are you asking me anyway? Conrad doesn’t talk to me. Ask Steven.”

My mother sighed. “I know. Beck’s worried. He’s been acting differently. He quit football …”

She pursed her lips. “Will you promise to tell me if you hear something?”

She bit back a smile and shook her head. “Don’t start.”

chapter fourteen

AGE 13

The first time they did it, they thought we didn’t know. It was actually pretty stupid of them, because it was one of those rare nights when we were all at home. We were in the living room. Conrad was listening to music with his headphones on, and Jeremiah and Steven were playing a video game. I was sitting on the La-Z-Boy reading Emma—mostly because I thought it made me look smart, not really because I enjoyed it. If I was reading for real, I would be locked in my room with Flowers in the Attic or something and not Jane Austen.

I think Steven smelled it first. He looked around, sniffed like a dog, and then said, “Do you guys smell that?”

I snickered. But it wasn’t gas; I smelled it too. It was pot. “It’s pot,” I said, loudly. I wanted to be the one who said it first, to prove how sophisticated and knowledgeable I was.

Conrad took off his headphones and said, “Belly’s right. It’s pot.”

Steven paused the game and turned to look at me. “How do you know what pot smells like, Belly?” he asked me suspiciously.

He ignored me. “Is that coming from upstairs?”

Jeremiah didn’t know, I could tell. He didn’t say anything, but he looked confused and even hurt, the way he scratched the back of his neck and looked off into space for a minute. Steven and I exchanged a look. It was awkward, whenever Susannah’s cancer came up, the two of us being outsiders and all. We never knew what to say, so we didn’t say anything. We mostly pretended it wasn’t happening, the way Jeremiah did.

My mother didn’t, though. She was matter-of-fact, calm, the way she is about everything. Susannah said my mother made her feel normal. My mother was good at that, making people feel normal. Safe. Like as long as she was there, nothing truly bad could happen.

When they came downstairs a little while later, they were giggling like two teenagers who had snuck into their parents’ liquor cabinet. Clearly my mother had partaken in Susannah’s stash as well.

Steven and I exchanged another look, this time a horrified one. My mother was probably the last person on earth who would smoke pot, with the exception of our grandmother Gran, her mother.

I opened my mouth to lie and tell her how great I thought it was, but before I could, Conrad said very loudly, “She hasn’t turned a page in over an hour.” He was still wearing his headphones.

I glared at him, but inside I was thrilled that he had noticed. For once, he had been watching me. But of course he’d noticed—Conrad noticed everything. Conrad would notice if the neighbor’s dog had more crust in its right eye than its left, or if the pizza delivery guy was driving a different car. It wasn’t really a compliment to be noticed by Conrad. It was a matter of fact.

Then my mother came into the room with a bag of Twizzlers and the half-eaten bag of Fritos. She tossed a Twizzler at Susannah and said, belatedly, “Catch!”

Susannah reached for it, but it fell on the floor, and she giggled as she picked it up. “Clumsy me,” she said, chewing on one end like it was straw and she was a hick. “Whatever has gotten into me?”

Susannah covered her mouth with her hand. She didn’t say anything, but she looked genuinely upset.

Steven didn’t look away from the TV when he said, “What about you, Mom? Are you toking up because of your chemo too?”

I knew he was trying to lighten the mood, and it worked. Steven was good at that.

Susannah choked out a laugh, and my mother threw a Twizzler at the back of Steven’s head. “Smart-ass. I’m offering up moral support to my best friend in the world. There are worse things.”

Steven picked the Twizzler up and dusted it off before popping it into his mouth. “So I guess it’s okay with you if I smoke up too?”

Throughout all of this, Jeremiah wasn’t saying anything. He just kept looking at Susannah and then back at the TV, like he was worried she would vanish into thin air while his back was turned.

Our mothers thought we were all at the beach that afternoon. They didn’t know that Jeremiah and I had gotten bored and decided to come back to the house for a snack. As we walked up the porch steps, we heard them talking through the window screen.

Jeremiah stopped when he heard Susannah say, “Laur, I hate myself for even thinking this, but I almost think I’d rather die than lose my breast.” Jeremiah stopped breathing as he stood there, listening. Then he sat down, and I did too.

My mother said, “I know you don’t mean that.”

I hated it when my mother said that, and I guessed Susannah did too because she said, “Don’t tell me what I mean,” and I’d never heard her voice like that before—harsh, angry.

Susannah started to cry then. And even though we couldn’t see them, I knew that my mother was rubbing Susannah’s back in wide circles, the same way she did mine when I was upset.

I wished I could do that for Jeremiah. I knew it would make him feel better, but I couldn’t. Instead, I reached over and grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. He didn’t look at me, but he didn’t let go either. This was the moment when we became true, real friends.

Then my mother said in her most serious, most deadpan voice, “Your boobs really are pretty goddamn amazing.”

Susannah burst out into laughter that sounded like a seal barking, and then she was laughing and crying at the same time. Everything was going to be okay. If my mother was cussing, if Susannah was laughing, it would all be fine.

I let go of Jeremiah’s hand and stood up. He did too. We walked back to the beach, neither of us saying anything. What was there to say? “Sorry your mom has cancer”? “I hope she doesn’t lose a boob”?

When we got back to our stretch of beach, Conrad and Steven had just come out of the water with their boogie boards. We still weren’t saying anything, and Steven noticed. I guessed Conrad did too, but he didn’t say anything. It was Steven who said, “What’s with you guys?”

But then Jeremiah stood up, brushed sand off his shorts, and started walking toward the water and away from us, away from the house.

I could tell Steven felt bad, and also confused. It was unlike Jeremiah to walk away. He was always the first to laugh, to joke right back.

And because I felt like rubbing salt in the wound, I said, “You’re such an asshole, Steven.”

Steven gaped at me. “Geez, what did I do?”

I ignored him and fell back onto the towel and closed my eyes. I wished I had Conrad’s earphones. I kind of wanted to forget this day ever happened.

Later, when Conrad and Steven decided to go night fishing, Jeremiah declined, even though night fishing was his favorite. He was always trying to get people to go night fishing with him. That night he said he wasn’t in the mood. So they left, and Jeremiah stayed behind, with me. We watched TV and played cards. We spent most of the summer doing that, just us. We cemented things between us that summer. He’d wake me up early some mornings, and we would go collect shells or sand crabs, or ride our bikes to the ice cream place three miles away. When it was just us two, he didn’t joke around as much, but he was still Jeremiah.

From that summer on I felt closer to Jeremiah than I did to my own brother. Jeremiah was nicer. Maybe because he was somebody’s little sibling too, or maybe just because he was that kind of person. He was nice to everybody. He had a talent for making people feel comfortable.

chapter fifteen

It had been raining for three days. By four o’clock the third day, Jeremiah was stir-crazy. He wasn’t the kind of person to stay inside; he was always moving. Always on his way somewhere new. He said he couldn’t take it anymore and asked who wanted to go to the movies. There was only one movie theater in Cousins besides the drive-in, and it was in a mall.

Conrad was in his room, and when Jeremiah went up and asked him to come, he said no. He’d been spending an awful lot of time alone, in his room, and I could tell it hurt Steven’s feelings. He’d be leaving soon for a college road trip with our dad, and Conrad didn’t seem to care. When Conrad wasn’t at work, he was too busy strumming his guitar and listening to music.

So it was just Jeremiah, Steven, and me. I convinced them to watch a romantic comedy about two dog walkers who walk the same route and fall in love. It was the only thing playing. The next movie wouldn’t start for another hour. About five minutes in, Steven stood up, disgusted. “I can’t watch this,” he said. “You coming, Jere?”

Jeremiah said, “Nah, I’ll stay with Belly.”

Steven looked surprised. He shrugged and said, “I’ll meet you guys when it’s over.”

I was surprised too. It was pretty awful.

Not long after Steven left, a big burly guy sat in the seat right in front of me. “I’ll trade you,” Jeremiah whispered.

I thought about doing the fake “That’s okay” thing but decided against it. This was Jeremiah, after all. I didn’t have to be polite. So instead I said thanks and we traded. To see the screen Jeremiah had to keep craning his neck to the right and lean toward me. His hair smelled like Asian pears, this expensive shampoo Susannah used. It was funny. He was this big tall football guy now, and he smelled so sweet. Every time he leaned in, I breathed in the sweet smell of his hair. I wished my hair smelled like that.

Halfway through the movie, Jeremiah got up suddenly. He was gone a few minutes. When he came back, he had a large soda and a pack of Twizzlers. I reached for the soda to take a sip, but there were no straws. “You forgot the straws,” I told him.

He ripped the plastic off of the Twizzler box and bit the ends off of two Twizzlers. Then he put them in the cup. He grinned broadly. He looked so proud of himself. I’d forgotten all about our Twizzler straws. We used to do it all the time.

We sipped out of the straws at the same time, like in a 1950s Coke commercial—heads bent, foreheads almost touching. I wondered if people thought we were on a date.

Jeremiah looked at me, and he smiled in this familiar way, and suddenly I had this crazy thought. I thought, Jeremiah Fisher wants to kiss me.

Which, was crazy. This was Jeremiah. He’d never looked at me like that, and as for me, Conrad was the one I liked, even when he was moody and inaccessible the way he was now. It had always been Conrad. I’d never seriously considered Jeremiah, not with Conrad standing there. And of course Jeremiah had never looked at me that way before either. I was his pal. His movie-watching partner, the girl he shared a bathroom with, shared secrets with. I wasn’t the girl he kissed.

chapter sixteen

AGE 14

I knew bringing Taylor was a mistake. I knew it. I knew it and I did it anyway. Taylor Jewel, my best friend. The boys in our grade called her Jewel, which she pretended to hate but secretly loved.

Taylor used to say that every time I came back from the summer house, she had to win me over again. She had to make me want to be there, in my real life with school and school boys and school friends. She’d try to pair me up with the cutest friend of the guy she was obsessed with at the time. I’d go along with it, and maybe we’d go to the movies or to the Waffle House, but I’d never really be there, not completely. Those boys didn’t compare to Conrad or Jeremiah, so what was the point?

Taylor was always the pretty one, the one the boys looked at for that extra beat. I was the funny one, the one who made the boys laugh. I thought that by bringing her I’d be proving that I was a pretty one too. See? See, I’m like her; we are the same. But we weren’t, and everybody knew it. I thought that bringing Taylor would guarantee me an invitation to the boys’ late-night walks on the boardwalk and their nights on the beach in sleeping bags. I thought it would open up my whole social world that summer, that I would finally, finally be in the thick of things.

I was right about that part at least.

Taylor had been begging me to bring her for forever. I’d resisted her, saying it’d be too crowded, but she was very persuasive. It was my own fault. I’d bragged about the boys too much. And deep down, I did want her there. She was my best friend, after all. She hated that we didn’t share everything—every moment, every experience. When she joined the Spanish club, she insisted I join too, even though I didn’t take Spanish. “For when we go to Cabo after graduation,” she said. I wanted to go to the Galápagos Islands for graduation, that was my dream. I wanted to see a blue-footed booby. My dad said he’d take me too. I didn’t tell Taylor, though. She wouldn’t like it.

My mother and I picked Taylor up at the airport. She walked off the plane in a pair of short shorts and a tank top I’d never seen before. Hugging her, I tried not to sound jealous when I said, “When’d you get that?”

Taylor was the only girl I knew our age who still called her mother Mommy. She was the only one who could get away with it too.

The boys came to attention right away. Right away they looked at her, checked out her smallish B-cups and her blond hair. It’s a Miracle Bra, I wanted to tell them. That’s half a bottle of Sun-In. Her hair isn’t usually that yellow. Not that they would’ve cared either way.

My brother, on the other hand, barely looked up from the TV. Taylor irritated him, always had. I wondered if he’d already warned Conrad and Jeremiah about her.

Taylor looked at me and crossed her eyes. Grump, she mouthed, emphasis on the p.

I laughed. “Taylor, this is Conrad and Jeremiah. Steven you know.” I was curious about who she’d pick, who she’d think was cuter, funnier. Better.

Then Conrad turned back to the TV just like I knew he would. Jeremiah treated her to one of his lopsided smiles and said, “So you’re Belly’s friend, huh? We thought she didn’t have any friends.”

I waited for him to grin at me to show he was just joking, but he didn’t even look my way. “Shut up, Jeremiah,” I said, and he grinned at me then, but it was a quick cursory one, and he went right back to looking at Taylor.

Taylor glared at him. “Go back to jacking off, Steven.” She turned to me and said, “Why don’t you show me our room?”

I ignored him. “Come on, Taylor.”

As soon as we got to my room, Taylor flung herself onto the bed by the window, my bed, the one I always slept in. “Oh my God, he is so cute.”

Inwardly I rolled my eyes. Men? Taylor had only ever gone out with two boys, neither of them anything close to being men.

Taylor’s brown eyes gleamed. “I love a challenge. Didn’t I win class president last year? And class secretary the year before that?”

Quickly I backtracked. Maybe “disturbed” had been too strong a word. “I don’t mean “disturbed,” exactly, but he can be really intense. Serious. You should go for Jeremiah. I think he’s more your type.”

She lifted up a yellow polka-dot bikini. “Itsy-bitsy enough for Conrad, do you think?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. And that’s my bed you’re sitting on.”

The two of us changed into our suits right away—Taylor into her tiny yellow bikini and me into my black tankini with the support bra and the really high neckline. As we changed, she looked me over and said, “Belly, your boobs have really gotten big!”

I threw my T-shirt over my head and said, “Not really.”

But it was true, they had. Overnight, almost. I didn’t have them the summer before, that was for sure. I hated them. They slowed me down: I couldn’t run fast anymore—it was too embarrassing. It was why I wore baggy T-shirts and one-pieces. I couldn’t stand to hear what the boys would say about it. They would tease me for sure, and Steven would tell me to go put some clothes on, which would make me want to die.

Taylor looked relieved. “Oh, well we’re still the same, then, because I’m practically a B. Why don’t you wear one of my bikinis? You look like you’re trying out for the swim team in that one-piece.” She lifted up a blue-and-white striped one with red bows on the sides.

I made a face and pushed the bikini away.

Part of me did want to show off and wow them with how much I had grown, how I was a real girl now, but the other more sane part knew it would be a death wish. Steven would throw a towel over my head, and I would feel ten years old again instead of thirteen.

She shrugged. “Okay, but don’t blame me when the guys don’t talk to you.”

I shrugged right back at her. “I don’t care if they talk to me or not, I don’t think of them that way.”

The truth was, I liked both of them in different ways and I didn’t want her to know, because whichever guy she picked would feel like a leftover. And it wasn’t like it would sway Taylor. She was going for Conrad either way. I wanted to tell her, Anyone but Conrad, but it wouldn’t be true, not completely. I would be jealous if she picked Jeremiah, too, because he was my friend, not hers.

It took Taylor forever to pick out a pair of sunglasses that matched her bikini (she’d brought four pairs), plus two magazines and her suntan oil. By the time we got outside, the boys were already in the pool.

I threw my clothes off right away, ready to jump in, but Taylor hesitated, her Polo towel tight around her shoulders. I could tell she was suddenly nervous about her itsy-bitsy bikini, and I was glad. I was getting a little bit sick of her showing off.

The boys didn’t even look over. I had been worried that with Taylor there they might not want to do all the usual stuff, that they might act differently. But there they were, dunking one another for all it was worth.

Kicking off my flip-flops, I said, “Let’s get in the pool.”

Taylor on the other hand was pasty and bright like biscuit dough. I had a feeling she’d catch up with me fast, though. She was good at that.

I took off my glasses and set them on top of my clothes. Then I walked over to the deep end and jumped right in. The water felt like a shock to the system, in the best way possible. When I came up for air, I treaded water over to the boys. “Let’s play Marco Polo,” I said.

Steven, who was busy trying to dunk Conrad, stopped and said, “Marco Polo’s boring.”

Taylor looked up from her magazine. I couldn’t see her eyes because of her sunglasses, but I knew she was annoyed. “It’s Tay-lor, not Tyler, Jeremy. And no, I don’t want to play.”

Steven and Conrad exchanged a look. I knew what they were thinking. “Come on, Taylor, it’ll be fun,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Don’t be a chicken.”

She made a big show of sighing, and then she put her magazine down and stood up, smoothing down her bikini in the back. “Do I have to take my sunglasses off?”

Jeremiah grinned at her. “Not if you’re on my team. You won’t be falling off.”

Taylor took them off anyway, and I realized then that the teams were uneven, and someone would have to sit out. “I’ll watch,” I offered, even though I wanted to play.

Conrad shrugged. “That’s all right.” He swam over to the side of the pool.

I didn’t want to play anymore. “Why don’t I just sit out, then? I’d hate to break your back, Steven.”

Jeremiah said, “Aw, I’ll take you, Belly. We’ll take those guys down. I think you’re probably a lot tougher than little Tay-lor.”

Taylor walked down the steps and into the pool slowly, cringing at the temperature. “I’m very tough, Jeremy,” she said.

Then Jeremiah crouched down in the water, and I scrambled to get onto his shoulders. He was slippery, so it was hard to stay on at first. Then he stood up and righted himself.

I shifted and balanced my hands on his head. “Am I too heavy?” I asked him quietly. He was so wiry and thin, I was afraid I’d break him.

I wanted to kiss the top of his head right then.

Across from us Taylor was perched on top of Steven’s shoulders giggling and pulling his hair to hold herself steady. Steven looked like he was ready to pitch her off of him and across the pool.

Steven nodded, and we waddled over to the middle of the pool.

Conrad, who was treading over by the side, said, “Ready, set, go.”

Taylor and I stretched our arms out to each other, pushing and shoving. She couldn’t stop giggling, and when I gave her one strong push, she said, “Oh, shit!” and they both fell backward.

Jeremiah and I burst out laughing and high-fived each other. When they resurfaced, Steven glared at Taylor and said, “I told you to hold on tight.”

She splashed him right in the face and said, “I was!” Her eyeliner was smudged and her mascara was starting to run. She still looked pretty, though.

Jeremiah said, “Belly?”

I said, “Hmm?” I was starting to get pretty comfortable up there, so high.

When both of our heads popped up, I went straight for his and took him by surprise with a good dunk.

Then Taylor said, “Let’s play again. I’ll be with Jeremy this time. Steven, you can be Belly’s partner.”

Steven still looked grumpy, and he said, “Con, take my spot.”

When he swam over to me, I said defensively, “I’m not that heavy.”

Across from us Taylor was having trouble getting onto Jeremiah’s shoulders. She kept slipping right off and laughing. They were having a lot of fun. Too much fun. I watched them jealously, and I almost forgot to be aware of the fact that Conrad was holding on to my legs, and as far as I could remember, he had never so much as accidentally grazed my knee before.

Conrad had less trouble moving into the center of the pool. I was kind of surprised by how easily he moved around with my extra weight around his shoulders.

In my head I said, You’re going down, Jewel. “Yes,” I said out loud.

I leaned forward and used both of my hands to give her a hard push. She swayed to the side but stayed on, and said, “Hey!”

I smiled. “Hey,” I said, and pushed her again.

Taylor narrowed her eyes and pushed me back, hard but not hard enough.

Then we were both pushing at each other, only this time it was so much easier because I felt steady. I pushed her once, firmly, and she tipped forward, but Jeremiah was still standing. I clapped loudly. This was pretty fun.

I was surprised when Conrad held out his hand for a high five. He wasn’t a high five kind of person.

When Taylor resurfaced this time, she wasn’t laughing. Her blond hair was matted to her head, and she said, “This game sucks. I don’t want to play anymore.”

chapter seventeen

A few days after we shared Twizzlers at the movies, Jeremiah announced, “I’m gonna teach Belly how to drive stick shift today.”

Steven shook his head and took a swig of orange juice from the carton on the table. “Do you want to die, man? Because Belly will kill you both, not to mention your clutch. Don’t do it. I’m telling you this as your friend.”

Steven snorted. “Good luck.” Then he frowned. “How long are you gonna be gone? I thought we were going to the driving range.”

Steven ignored me and said to Jeremiah, “You need to practice your swing, dude.”

I glanced at Jeremiah, who looked at me and hesitated. “I’ll be back by lunch. We can go after,” he said.

Steven rolled his eyes. “Fine.” I could tell he was annoyed and a little hurt, which made me feel both smug and sorry for him. He wasn’t used to being left out of things the way I was.

We went out to practice on the road that led down to the other side of the beach. It was quiet. There was no one else out on the road, just us. We listened to Jeremiah’s old Nevermind CD from a million years ago.

I put the car into first gear and eased my foot off the clutch. “I thought boys liked it when girls were helpless.”

He groaned and stuck his arm out the window. “Do you have to bring that up again?”

I hit him on the arm, hard. “You’re so gross,” I said. “And you’re also a liar. I know for a fact that you guys didn’t even get to second.”

He stopped laughing. “Okay, fine. We didn’t. But she was a good kisser. She tasted like Skittles.”

Taylor loved Skittles. She was always popping them into her mouth, like vitamins, like they were good for her. I wondered how I’d stacked up against Taylor, if he thought I’d been a good kisser too.

I sneaked a peek at him, and he must have seen it on my face, because he laughed and said, “But you, you were the best, Bells.”

I punched him on the arm, and even then he didn’t stop laughing. He just laughed harder. “Don’t take your foot off the clutch,” he said, gasping with laughter.

I was kind of surprised he even remembered. I mean, it had been memorable for me, but it had been my first kiss and it had been Jeremiah. But the fact that he remembered, that sort of made his laughing okay.

He looked away, embarrassed. “Yeah, I know.”

We stalled out then, and Jeremiah said, “Just put your foot on the clutch and put it in neutral.”

I offered him my pinky, and we shook on it.

I wondered if Turducken had been a better kisser than me too. She must have been, if she had taught Jeremiah.

We stalled out again. “This sucks. I quit.”

I sighed and started the car up again. Two hours later, I had it. Sort of. I still stalled out, but I was getting somewhere. I was driving. Jeremiah said I was a natural.

By the time we got back to the house, it was after four and Steven had left. I guessed he’d gotten tired of waiting and had gone to the driving range by himself. My mother and Susannah were watching old movies in Susannah’s room. It was dark, and they had the curtains drawn.

I stood outside their door a minute, listening to them laugh. I felt left out. I envied their relationship. They were exactly like copilots, in perfect balance. I didn’t have that kind of friendship, the forever kind of friendship that will last your whole life through, no matter what.

I walked into the room, and Susannah said, “Belly! Come watch movies with us.”

I crawled into bed in between the two of them. Lying on the bed in the semi-dark, it felt cozy, like we were in a cave. “Jeremiah’s been teaching me how to drive,” I told them.

I snuggled under the comforter. He was pretty great. It had been nice of him to take me out driving when no one else would. Just because I’d banged up the car a few times, it didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to end up being an excellent driver like everyone else. Thanks to him, I could drive stick now. I was going to be one of those confident girls, the kind who knows what she’s doing. When I got my license, I would drive up to Susannah’s house and take Jeremiah for a drive, to thank him.

chapter eighteen

AGE 14

After Taylor got out of the shower, she started rummaging through her duffel bag and I lay on my bed and watched her. She pulled out three different sundresses—one white eyelet, one Hawaiian print, and one black linen. “Which one should I wear tonight?” she asked me. She asked the question like it was a test.

I was tired of her tests and having to prove myself all the time. I said, “We’re just eating dinner, Taylor. We’re not going anywhere special.”

She shook her head at me, and the towel on her head bounced back and forth. “We’re going to the boardwalk tonight, though, remember? We have to look cute for that. There’ll be boys there. Let me pick out your outfit, okay?”

It used to be that when Taylor picked out my clothes, I felt like the nerdy girl transformed at the prom, in a good way. Now it felt like I was her clueless mom who didn’t know how to dress right.

I hadn’t brought any dresses with me. In fact, I never had. I never even thought to. I only had two dresses at home—one my grandmother bought me for Easter and one I had to buy for eighth-grade graduation. Nothing seemed to fit me right lately. Things were either too long in the crotch or too tight in the waist. I had never thought much about dresses, but looking at hers all laid out on the bed like that, I was jealous.

Taylor made a face, but she backed away from my closet and went back to her three sundresses. “Fine. Have it your way, grumpy. Now, which one should I wear?”

I sighed. “The black one,” I said, closing my eyes. “Now hurry up and put some clothes on.”

Dinner that night was scallops and asparagus. When my mother cooked, it was always some sort of seafood with lemon and olive oil and a vegetable. Every time. Susannah only cooked every once in a while, so besides the first night, which was always bouillabaisse, you never knew what you were going to get. She might spend the whole afternoon puttering around the kitchen, making something I’d never had before, like Moroccan chicken with figs. She’d pull out her spiral bound Junior League cookbook that had buttery pages and notes in the margins, the one my mother made fun of. Or she might make American cheese omelets with ketchup and toast. Us kids were supposedly in charge of one night a week too, and that usually meant hamburgers or frozen pizza. But most nights, we ate whatever we wanted, whenever we felt like eating. I loved that about the summer house. At home, we had dinner every night at six thirty, like clockwork. Here, it was like everything just kind of relaxed, even my mother.

Taylor leaned forward and said, “Laurel, what’s the craziest thing you and Susannah did when you were our age?” Taylor talked to people like she was at a slumber party, always. Adults, boys, the cafeteria lady, everyone.

My mother and Susannah looked at each other and smiled. They knew, but they weren’t telling. My mother wiped her mouth with her napkin and said, “We snuck onto the golf course one night and planted daisies.”

I knew that wasn’t the truth, but Steven and Jeremiah laughed. Steven said in his annoying know-it-all kind of way, “You guys were boring even when you were teenagers.”

Conrad, who I thought hadn’t even been listening, said, “You guys are lying. That wasn’t the craziest thing you ever did.”

Susannah put her hands up, like, I surrender. “Mothers get to have secrets too,” she said. “I don’t ask you boys about your secrets, now, do I?”

My mother said, “Yes, you would.”

Susannah glared at my mother. “I would never.” Then she looked at Conrad and Jeremiah sitting next to each other. “Fine, I might, but only Conrad’s. He’s so good at keeping everything locked inside, I never know what he’s thinking. But not you, Jeremiah. You, my baby boy, wear your heart right here.” She reached over and touched his sweatshirt sleeve.

That’s when Taylor said, “Sure you do, Jeremy,” in this really sickeningly flirtatious way.

He grinned at her, which made me want to choke on my asparagus.

That’s when I said, “Taylor and I are going to go to the boardwalk tonight. Will one of you guys drop us off?”

Before my mother or Susannah could answer, Jeremiah said, “Ooh, the boardwalk. I think we should go to the boardwalk too.” Turning to Conrad and Steven, he added, “Right, guys?” Normally I would have been thrilled that any of them wanted to go somewhere I was going, but not this time. I knew it wasn’t for me.

I looked at Taylor, who was suddenly busy cutting up her scallops into tiny bite-size pieces. She knew it was for her too.

Conrad said, “Not interested.”

Steven rolled his eyes. “No one invites anyone to the boardwalk. You just go. It’s a free country.”

Jeremiah ignored me and turned to Steven and Conrad. “Come on, guys,” he said. “It’ll be amazing.” Taylor had been calling everything amazing all day.

He shook his head, and Taylor made a face. “Fine. We’ll be sure to have lots of fun without you.”

Jeremiah said, “Don’t worry about him. He’s gonna have lots of fun here, reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica.” Conrad ignored this, but Taylor giggled and tucked her hair behind her ears, which is when I knew that she liked Jeremiah now.

Then Susannah said, “Don’t leave without some money for ice cream.” I could tell she was happy we were all hanging out, except for Conrad, who seemed to prefer hanging out by himself this summer. Nothing made Susannah happier than thinking up activities for us kids to do. I think that she would have made a really good camp director.

In the car we waited for my mother and the boys to come out, and I whispered, “I thought you liked Conrad.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Blah. He’s boring. I think I’ll like Jeremy instead.”

She let out an impatient breath of air. “Belly, you’ve got to pick one. You can’t have them both.”

Taylor tugged at my T-shirt collar. “Well, maybe if you showed a little cleave …”

I shrugged her hand away. “I’m not showing any ‘cleave.’ And I told you I don’t like either of them. Not anymore.”

So I said, “If I told you I cared, would you stop?”

She thought for, like, a second. “Probably. If you really, really cared. But then I would just go after Conrad. I’m here to have fun, Belly.”

I sighed. At least she was honest. I wanted to say, I thought you were here to have fun with me. But I didn’t.

Taylor wiggled her eyebrows at me, her old trademark move. “Yay! It is soon.”

That’s when my mother and the boys came out, and for the first time there was no fight over shotgun. Jeremiah gave it over to Steven easily.

When we got to the boardwalk, Steven headed straight for the arcade and spent the whole night there. Jeremiah walked around with us, and he even rode the carousel, even though I knew he thought it was lame. He got all stretched out on the sleigh and pretended to take a nap while Taylor and I bounced up and down on horses, mine a blond palomino and hers a black stallion. (Black Beauty was still her favorite book, although she’d never admit it.) Then Taylor made him win her a stuffed Tweety Bird with the quarter toss. Jeremiah was a pro at the quarter toss. The Tweety Bird was huge, almost as tall as she was. He carried it for her.

I should never have gone along. I could have predicted the whole night, right down to how invisible I’d feel. All the time I wished I was at home, listening to Conrad play the guitar through my bedroom wall, or watching Woody Allen movies with Susannah and my mother. And I didn’t even like Woody Allen. I wondered if this was how the rest of the week was going to be. I’d forgotten that about Taylor, the way she got when she wanted something—driven, single-minded, and determined as all get-out. She’d just arrived, and already she’d forgotten about me.

chapter nineteen

We’d only just gotten there, and it was already time for Steven to go. He and our dad were going on their college road trip, and instead of coming back to Cousins after, he was going home. Supposedly to start studying for the SATs, but more likely, to hang out with his new girlfriend.

I went to his room to watch him pack up. He hadn’t brought much, just a duffel bag. I was suddenly sad to see him leave. Without Steven everything would be off balance—he was the buffer, the real life reminder that nothing really changes, that everything can stay the same. Because, Steven never changed. He was just obnoxious, insufferable Steven, my big brother, the bane of my existence. He was like our old flannel blanket that smelled like wet dog—smelly, comforting, a part of the infrastructure that made up my world. And with him there, everything would still be the same, three against one, boys against girls.

Steven zipped up his duffel bag. “I doubt I’ll have time. I’ll send you a text, though.”

I stuck my tongue out at him.

Steven left really early the next morning. Conrad and Jeremiah were going to drive him to the airport. I went down to say good-bye, but I didn’t try to go along because I knew he wouldn’t want me to. He wanted some time, just them, and for once I was going to let him have it without a fight.

When he hugged me good-bye, he gave me his trademark condescending look—sad eyes and a half grimace—and said, “Don’t do anything stupid, all right?” He said it in this really meaningful way, like he was trying to tell me something important, like I was supposed to understand.

But I didn’t. I said, “Don’t you do anything stupid either, butthead.”

He sighed and shook his head at me like I was a child.

I tried not to let it bother me. After all, he was leaving, and things wouldn’t be the same without him. At the very least I could send him off without getting into a petty argument. “Tell Dad I said hi,” I said.

I didn’t go back to bed right away. I stayed on the front porch awhile, feeling blue and a little teary—not that I would ever admit it to Steven.

In a lot of ways it was like the last summer. That fall, Conrad would start college. He was going to Brown. He might not come back next summer. He might have an internship, or summer school, or he might backpack across Europe with all his new dorm buddies. And Jeremiah, he might go to the football camp he was always talking about. There were a lot of things that could happen between now and then. It occurred to me that I was going to have to make the most of this summer, really make it count, in case there wasn’t another one quite like it. After all, I would be sixteen soon. I was getting older too. Things couldn’t stay the same forever.

chapter twenty

AGE 11

The four of us were lying on a big blanket in the sand. Conrad, Steven, Jeremiah, and then me on the edge. That was my spot. When they let me come along. This was one of those rare days.

It was already midafternoon, so hot my hair felt like it was on fire, and they were playing cards while I listened in.

Jeremiah said, “Would you rather be boiled in olive oil or skinned alive with a burning hot butter knife?”

Conrad squinted his eyes up at the sun and said, “Would you rather live one perfect day over and over or live your life with no perfect days but just decent ones?”

Jeremiah didn’t say anything for a minute. He loved this game. He loved to mull over the different possibilities. “With that one perfect day, would I know I was reliving it, like Groundhog Day?”

My mind raced around in circles as I tried to find the right answer. “Um. I’d take living my life with decent days. That way I could still hope for that one perfect day,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to have a life that’s just one day over and over.”

I shrugged. “But you might, deep down.”

I gave Steven a little shimmy. I couldn’t help myself. “See?” I said. “Conrad agrees with me.”

Steven mimicked, “Conrad agrees with me. Conrad loves me. Conrad’s awesome—”

He grinned and said, “My turn to ask a question. Belly, would you rather eat mayonnaise every day, or be flat-chested for the rest of your life?”

I turned on my side, grabbed a handful of sand, and threw it at Steven. He was in the middle of laughing, and a bunch got in his mouth and stuck to his wet cheeks. He screamed, “You’re dead, Belly!”

Then he lunged at me, and I rolled away from him. “Leave me alone,” I said defiantly. “You can’t hurt me or I’ll tell Mom.”

I tried to shake him off, but I only succeeded in kicking more sand into his face. Which of course only made him madder.

Conrad said, “Leave her alone, Steven. Let’s go swim.”

Steven hesitated. “Fine,” he said, spitting out sand. “But you’re still dead, Belly.” He pointed at me, and then made a cutting motion with his finger.

I gave him the finger and flipped over, but inside I was shaking. Conrad had defended me. Conrad cared whether or not I was dead.

Steven was mad at me the whole rest of the day, but it was worth it. It was also ironic, Steven teasing me about being flat-chested, because two summers later I had to wear a bra, but, like, for real.

chapter twenty-one

The night Steven left, I headed down to the pool for one of my midnight swims, and Conrad and Jeremiah and this neighbor guy Clay Bertolet were sitting on the lounge chairs drinking beer. Clay lived way down the street, and he’d been coming to Cousins Beach for almost as long as we had. He was a year older than Conrad. No one had even liked him much. He was just a person to hang out with, I guess.

Right away I stiffened and held my beach towel closer to my chest. I wondered if I should turn back. Clay had always made me nervous. I didn’t have to swim that night. I could do it the next night. But no, I had as much right to be out there as they did. More, even.

I walked over to them, pretend-confident. “Hey, guys,” I said. I didn’t let go of my towel. It felt funny to be standing there in a towel and a bikini when they were all wearing clothes.

Clay looked up at me, his eyes narrow. “Hey, Belly. Long time no see.” He patted the lounge chair. “Sit down.”

I hated when people said “long time no see.” It was such a dumb way to say hello. But I sat down anyway.

He leaned in and gave me a hug. He smelled like beer and Polo Sport. “So how’ve you been?” he asked.

Before I could answer, Conrad said, “She’s fine, and now it’s time for bed. Good night, Belly.”

I tried not to sound like a five-year-old when I said, “I’m not going to sleep yet, I’m swimming.”

Clay offered me his Corona. “Here,” he said, winking. He seemed drunk.

I hesitated, and Conrad snapped irritably, “Don’t give her that. She’s a kid, for God’s sake.”

I glared at him. “Quit acting like Steven.” For a second or two I considered taking Clay’s beer. It would be my first. But then I’d only be doing it to spite Conrad, and I wasn’t going to let him control what I did.

Conrad nodded imperceptibly. “Now go back to bed like a good girl.”

It felt just like when he and Steven and Jeremiah used to leave me out of things on purpose. I could feel my cheeks burning as I said, “I’m only two years younger than you.”

Clay laughed, and I could smell his yeasty breath. “Shit, my girlfriend was fifteen.” Then he looked at me. “Ex-girlfriend.”

I smiled weakly. Inside, I was shrinking away from him and his breath. But the way Conrad was watching us, well, I liked it. I liked taking his friend away from him, even if it was just for five minutes. “Isn’t that, like, illegal?” I asked Clay.

He laughed again. “You’re cute, Belly.”

I could feel myself blush. “So, um, why did you break up?” I asked, like I didn’t already know. They broke up because Clay’s a jerk, that was why. Clay had always been a jerk. He used to try to feed the seagulls Alka-Seltzer because he heard it made their stomachs blow up.

Clay scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know. She had to go to horse camp or something. Long distance relationships are BS.”

Clay looked at me with his heavy-lidded, sleepy eyes and said, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

He nudged me with his knee. “Nice to meet you. I’m Clay.”

I laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. It just felt like the right thing to do. “Hi, I’m Belly.”

Conrad and Steven and Jeremiah went to the big Fourth of July bonfire every year. Clay had it at his house because there were a ton of fireworks on that end of the beach. His mom always put out stuff for s’mores. I once made Jeremiah bring one back for me, and he did. It was rubbery and burnt, but I still ate it, and I was still grateful to Jeremiah for it. It was like a little piece of the party. They never let me go with them, and I never tried to make them. I watched the show from our back porch, in my pajamas, with Susannah and my mother. They drank champagne and I drank Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider.

We exchanged a look, our look that meant, Why is Conrad such a freaking dad? Conrad flicked his cigarette into his half-empty can. “Do what you want,” he said.

In a low voice I heard Clay say, “Man, Cousins is starting to get old. I want to hurry up and get back.”

So Conrad was ready to leave. Even though a little part of me knew that already, it still hurt. I wanted to say, Then leave already. If you don’t want to be here, don’t be here. Just leave. But I wasn’t going to let Conrad bother me, not when things were finally looking up.

At last I was invited to Clay Bertolet’s Fourth of July bonfire. I was one of the big kids now. Life was good. Or it was getting there, anyway.

I thought about what I was going to wear all day. Since I’d never been, I had no idea what to wear. Probably it would get cold, but who wanted to bundle up at a bonfire? Not for my first one. I also didn’t want Conrad and Jeremiah to give me a hard time if I was too dressed up. I figured shorts, a tank top, and no shoes were the safe way to go.

When we got there, I saw that I had chosen wrong. The other girls were wearing sundresses and little skirts and Uggs. If I’d had girl friends at Cousins, I might have known that. “You didn’t tell me that girls got dressed up,” I hissed at Jeremiah.

I’d actually never seen a keg before in real life. Just in movies. I started to follow him, but Conrad grabbed my arm. “Don’t drink tonight,” he warned. “My mom will kill me if I let you drink.”

I shook him off. “You’re not ‘letting’ me do anything.”

Going to the bonfire was nice in theory, but actually being there was something else. Jeremiah was chatting up some girl in a red, white, and blue bikini top and a jean skirt, and Conrad was talking to Clay and some other guys I didn’t recognize. I thought after the way Clay had been flirty last night, he might at least come over to say hi. But he didn’t. He had his hand on some girl’s back.

I stood by the fire alone and pretended to warm my hands even though they weren’t cold. That’s when I saw him. He was standing alone too, drinking a bottle of water. It didn’t seem like he knew anybody either, since he was standing all by himself. He looked like he was my age. But there was something about him that seemed safe and comfortable, like he was younger than me even though he wasn’t. It took me a few glances to figure out what it was. When I finally figured it out, it was like, Aha!

It was his eyelashes. They were so long they practically hit his cheekbones. Granted, his cheekbones were high, but still. Also, he had a slight underbite, and his skin was clear and smooth, the color of toasted coconut flakes, the kind you put on ice cream. I touched my cheek and felt relieved that the sun had dried out the pimple from two days before. His skin was perfect. To my eyes, everything about him was pretty perfect.

He was tall, taller than Steven or Jeremiah, maybe even Conrad. He looked like he was maybe half-white, half-Japanese, or Korean maybe. He was so pretty I felt like I could draw his face, and I didn’t even know how to draw.

He caught me looking at him, and I looked away. Then I looked back over and he caught me again. He raised his hand and waved it, just slightly.

I could feel my cheeks flaming. There was nothing for me to say but, “Hi.” I walked over, stuck out my hand, and immediately regretted it. Who shook hands anymore?

He took my hand and shook it. He didn’t say anything at first. He just stared at me, like he was trying to figure something out. “You look familiar,” he said at last.

I tried not to smile. Wasn’t that what boys said to girls when they came on to them at bars? I wondered if he’d seen me on the beach in my new polka-dot bikini. I’d only had the nerve to wear it the one time, but maybe that was what had gotten me noticed by this guy. “Maybe you’ve seen me on the beach?”

He shook his head. “No. … That’s not it.”

So it hadn’t been the bikini, then. I tried again. “Maybe over at Scoops, the ice cream place?”

What in the world? “Um … yes.”

He nodded, satisfied. “So did I. In eighth grade, right?”

Suddenly giggles rose up in my chest like soda bubbles. It was kind of funny. “Salve. I’m Flavia. I mean, Belly. I mean, my name is Isabel, but everyone calls me Belly.”

He ignored the last part and said, “Why not Izzy, then? Or Belle?”

He nodded. “That’s what it means too. Beautiful.”

Cam said something in French, so fast I couldn’t understand him.

I sighed. “Because Cornelia was taken. Everyone wanted to be Cornelia.”

Cam laughed. “Eighth-grade boy humor isn’t very developed.”

I laughed too. Then I said, “So do you stay in a house around here?”

I was startled when he used my real name. It just rolled right off his tongue. It felt like the first day of school. But I liked it. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess because Clay invited me.”

Everything that came out of my mouth sounded so generic. For some reason I wanted to impress this boy. I wanted him to like me. I could feel him judging me, judging the dumb things I said. I’m smart too, I wanted to tell him. I told myself it was fine, it didn’t matter if he thought I was smart or not. But it did.

He nodded. “I figured, the way your brother kept looking over here.”

I almost choked. “My brother? Who? Him?” I pointed at Conrad. He wasn’t looking at us. He was looking at a blond girl in a Red Sox cap, and she was looking right back. He was laughing, and he never laughed.

He cleared his throat like he was embarrassed. “Um, I was actually gonna go home and study.”

I hurried over to Conrad, walking so fast I kicked up sand behind me. “Hey, I’m gonna get a ride,” I said breathlessly.

The blond Red Sox girl looked me up and down. “Hello,” she said.

Conrad said, “With who?”

I pointed at Cam. “Him.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Sex what?”

I took a deep breath. I had to keep cool. I wasn’t going to let him goad me into being a baby, not in front of all these people. “No, thanks,” I said, trying to walk away again. But he didn’t let go.

I wanted so badly to throw a handful of sand in his face. I tried to twist out of his grip. “Let go of me! That hurts!”

He let go immediately, his face red. It didn’t really hurt, but I wanted to embarrass him the way he was embarrassing me. I said loudly, “I’d rather ride with a stranger than with someone who’s been drinking!”

I could feel tears starting to spark my eyelids. I looked over my shoulder to see if Cam was watching. He was. “You’re an asshole,” I said.

He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “And you’re a four-year-old.”

As I walked away, I heard the girl ask, “Is she your girlfriend?”

I whirled around, and we both said “No!” at the same time.

Confused, she said, “Well, is she your little sister?” like I wasn’t standing right there. Her perfume was heavy. It felt like it filled all the air around us, like we were breathing her in.

Conrad said, “Her mom is best friends with my mom.” So that was all I was to him? His mom’s friend’s daughter?

I took a deep breath, and without even thinking, I said to the girl, “I’ve known Conrad my whole life. So let me be the one to tell you you’re barking up the wrong tree. Conrad will never love anyone as much as he loves himself, if you know what I mean—” I lifted up my hand and wiggled my fingers.

Red Sox girl frowned. “What is she talking about, Conrad?”

To her I blurted out, “Oh, I’m sorry, do you not know what the idiom ‘barking up the wrong tree’ means?”

Her pretty face twisted. “You little skank,” she hissed.

I could feel myself shrinking. I wished I could take it back. I’d never gotten into a fight with a girl before, or with anyone for that matter.

Thankfully, Conrad broke in then and pointed to the bonfire. “Belly, go back over there, and wait for me to come get you,” he said harshly.

That’s when Jeremiah ambled over. “Hey, hey, what’s going on?” he asked, smiling in his easy, goofy way.

Jeremiah put his arm around me. He smelled like beer. “You guys play nice, you hear?”

I shrugged out of his hold and said, “I am playing nice. Tell your brother to play nice.”

Conrad said, “Don’t even think about leaving with that guy.”

He looked at me, and I pursed my lips and nodded. Then I gave Conrad the dirtiest look I could muster, and I shot one at the girl, too, when I was far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to reach out and grab me by the hair. I walked back to the bonfire, trying to keep my shoulders straight and high, when inside I felt like a kid who’d gotten yelled at at her own birthday party. It wasn’t fair, to be treated like I was a kid when I wasn’t. I bet me and that girl were the same age.

Cam said, “What was that all about?”

I was choking back tears as I said, “Let’s just go.”

He hesitated, glancing back over at Conrad. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Flavia. But I’ll stay here with you and hang out for a while. The whales can wait.”

I wanted to kiss him then. I wanted to forget I ever knew Conrad and just be there, existing in the bubble of that moment. The first firework went off, somewhere high above us. It sounded like a teakettle whistling loud and proud. It was gold, and it exploded into millions of gold flecks, like confetti over our heads.

We sat by the fire and he told me about whales and I told him about stupid things, like being secretary of French Club, and how my favorite food was pulled pork sandwiches. He said he was a vegetarian. We must have sat there for an hour. I could feel Conrad watching us the whole time, and I was so tempted to give him the finger—I hated it when he won.

When it started to get cold, I rubbed my arms, and Cam took off his hoodie and gave it to me. Which, was sort of my dream come true—getting cold and having a guy actually give you his hoodie instead of gloating over how smart he’d been to bring one.

Underneath, his T-shirt said STRAIGHT EDGE, with a picture of a razor blade, the kind a guy shaves with. “What does that mean?” I asked, zipping up his hoodie. It was warm and it smelled like boy, but in a good way.

I liked Dr Pepper too. I was glad I hadn’t been drinking. I didn’t want him to think badly of me. I wanted him to think I was cool, like the kind of girl who didn’t care what people thought, the kind of person he obviously was. I wanted to be his friend. I also wanted to kiss him.

Cam left when we left. He got up as soon as he saw Jeremiah coming over to get me. “So long, Flavia,” he said.

I started to unzip his hoodie, and he said, “That’s all right. You can give it to me later.”

Backing away, he put the phone into his pocket and said, “I would have found a way to get it back without your number. I’m smart, remember? First prize in oration.”

I tried not to smile as he walked away. “You’re not that smart,” I called out. It felt like fate that we’d met. It felt like the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me, and it was.

I watched Conrad say good-bye to Red Sox girl. She gave him a hug, and he hugged her back, but not really. I was glad I had ruined his night, if only a little bit.

On the way to the car a girl stopped me. She wore her blondish-brown hair in two pigtails, and she had on a pink low-cut shirt. “Do you like Cam?” the girl asked me casually. I wondered how she knew him—I thought he’d been a nobody just like me.

Conrad drove. He was completely sober, and I knew he had been all along. He checked out Cam’s hoodie, but he didn’t say anything. We didn’t speak to each other once. Jeremiah and I both sat in the backseat, and he tried to joke around, but nobody laughed. I was too busy thinking, remembering everything that had happened that night. I thought to myself, That might have been the best night of my life.

In my yearbook the year before, Sean Kirkpatrick wrote that I had “eyes so clear” he could “see right into my soul.” Sean was a drama geek, but so what. It still made me feel good. Taylor snickered when I showed it to her. She said only Sean Kirkpatrick would notice the color of my eyes when the rest of the guys were too busy looking at my chest. But this wasn’t Sean Kirkpatrick. This was Cam, a real guy who had noticed me even before I was pretty.

I was brushing my teeth in the upstairs bathroom when Jeremiah came in, shutting the door behind him. Reaching for his toothbrush, he said, “What’s going on with you and Con? Why are you guys so mad at each other?” He hopped up onto the sink.

Jeremiah hated it when people fought. It was part of why he always played the clown. He took it upon himself to bring levity to any situation. It was sweet but also kind of annoying.

Through a mouthful of toothpaste I said, “Um, because he’s a self-righteous neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie?”

We both laughed at that. It was one of our little inside jokes, a line from The Breakfast Club that we spent repeating to each other the summer I was eight and he was nine.

He cleared his throat. “Seriously, though, don’t be so hard on him. He’s going through some stuff.”

This was news to me. “What? What stuff?” I demanded.

Jeremiah hesitated. “It’s not up to me to tell you.”

He smiled. “I remember. But I still can’t tell you. It’s not my secret.”

Frowning, I turned the faucet on and said, “You always take his side.”

He reached out and turned the corners of my mouth up. It was one of his oldest tricks; no matter what, it made me smile. “No pouting, Bells, remember?”

No Pouting was a rule Conrad and Steven had made up one summer. I think I was eight or nine. The thing was, it only applied to me. They even put a sign up on my bedroom door. I tore it down, of course, and I ran and told Susannah and my mother. That night I got seconds on dessert, I remember. Anytime I acted the slightest bit sad or unhappy, one of the boys would start yelling, “No pouting. No pouting.” And, okay, maybe I did pout a lot, but it was the only way I could ever get my way. In some ways it was even harder being the only girl back then. In some ways not.