Fifteenth Summer

By the day of the lantern party, we’d been in Bluepointe for almost three weeks. We’d gotten used to having nothing to do—no jobs or sports practices to rush to, no exams to study for, no friends to meet up with. Everything had slowed down. And what little we had to accomplish could be stretched out for hours.

Which was why, after a morning at the beach and a protracted, piecemeal lunch on the screened porch, my sisters and I spent almost the entire afternoon getting ready for our evening.

This was not our usual thing. Abbie was strictly a wash-and-wear kind of girl, and Hannah could blow-dry her hair into a perfect, sleek ’do in about three minutes. My routine mostly involved working copious amounts of product into my hair to make it go corkscrewy instead of turning into a giant poof of frizz.

But this afternoon we were a veritable movie montage of primping, perfuming, and outfit sampling.

But that was the thing about having sisters. We fought and made fun of each other and stole each other’s clothes, but we also kept each other’s secrets. Abbie and I, for instance, never reminded Hannah about the time she threw up in the mall food court in front of about a hundred people. And whenever Abbie lost at a swim meet, Hannah and I knew that she wanted us to be near, but silent. So we’d sit with her on the couch, turn on a dumb reality show, and hand her a big bowl of Lay’s potato chips. By the time she made it to the bottom of the bowl, she was ready to talk about the meet, and we were there to listen.

So today, when all three of us turned into total girly-girls, which we definitely weren’t in our “real” lives, we knew that nobody outside that room would ever hear about it. We could be as ridiculously giggly as we wanted.

“I can’t decide!” Abbie groaned. She was looking at three outfits arranged on the big bed in Hannah’s room. “I can’t wear the dress, can I? That’s just trying too hard.”

“So you wear the white capris and the tank top,” I said. I was on the floor painting my toenails a buttery yellow color. “That’s more you anyway.”

“Yeah, but white means I have to be careful not to get dirty,” Abbie complained.

“What are you going to do?” Hannah demanded. “Roll around in the dirt with What’s His Name?”

Abbie tapped a fist on her head.

“Argh,” she groaned. “What is J-boy’s name? It’s too late to ask now!”

“Somebody will say it at the party,” Hannah said. “You just have to keep your ears open.”

“Or you could just skip right to ‘honey,’ ” I posed. “That wouldn’t freak him out at all!”

“I would never,” Abbie gasped. “Now, ‘Pooh Bear’ on the other hand is completely acceptable.”

“Totally,” Hannah said. “You know what’s even better? ‘Sweet Cheeks.’ ”

“Love Muffin!” I yelled.

“Come here, Love Muffin,” Abbie cried, grabbing a pillow and kissing it passionately.

“Ew, I sleep on that,” Hannah said. She snatched the pillow away from Abbie and tossed it back onto the bed. Then she spotted my pedicure and gasped.

“Oh, no!” she said. She grabbed the bottle of polish remover from the dresser and plopped down in front of me. “So wrong.”

“What?” I said. “I love this color.”

“Me too,” Hannah said, “but not on your feet. You’re too pale. You need contrast.”

She held up two bottles of polish—one shimmery hot pink, the other a bright turquoise.

“All right,” I grumbled, pointing at the blue-green bottle. “But you do it. I hate painting my toes.”

While Hannah polished, Abbie got busy on my hair.

“You can’t keep yanking it back like you do,” she said, fluffing up my hair. “You’re gonna get a bald spot.”

“What!” I cried, clutching at my scalp. “Is that even possible with this much hair?”

Abbie didn’t answer as she rifled through her cosmetics bag. She came up with a wide elastic headband with a cute blue and green flower pattern on it. She snapped it around my head and arranged my curls behind it, with a couple tendrils popping out at the temples.

“Really?” I said skeptically. “There’s just so much of it.”

“Wear a tank top,” Abbie said decisively. “Then your hair isn’t competing with your sleeves.”

Hannah finished my toes, and I leaned over to fan them dry with one of Hannah’s National Geographics.

“How come I’m getting all the makeover attention?” I said. “You’re the ones trying to bag the love muffins.”

Abbie and Hannah glanced at each other.

“What?” I demanded.

“We’re just trying to help you, Chels,” Hannah said.

“Why?” I demanded. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing, except you’re a little . . . stuck,” Hannah said carefully. “Uncomfortable in your skin. You need to be more confident and own who you are.”

“ ‘Own who I am’?” I said mockingly. “Who are you, Oprah?”

“Okay, smart-mouth,” Abbie said. “Let’s put it this way. You are standing in the way of your own hotness with this shy, bookwormy I-hate-my-hair routine. You need to lose the ponytail and stop hunching over just because you have boobs.”

I could almost feel my eyebrows meet my hairline. I was literally speechless. We were always blunt with each other, but this was new terrain.

When I got over my shock, I scowled.

“I’m not shy,” I said. “Just because I don’t want to be the center of attention like some people I could name”—I looked pointedly at Abbie—“doesn’t mean I’m an introverted freak.”

“Look,” Hannah said. “You’re lucky. You’ve got two sisters who’ve just been through all this. We’re trying to help you.”

I frowned at my turquoise toenails. I hated to admit it—and I sure wasn’t going to admit it to them—but deep down I knew Abbie and Hannah were right. Not about the hot part. Even if I did have boobs, I still couldn’t fathom a version of hot that included bright red hair and freckly skin.

But it was true that I didn’t exactly exude confidence. And I knew you didn’t have to be gorgeous or super-popular to have it. Look at Emma. Sure, she had that graceful ballerina bod, but she also had oily skin and a hawkish nose. But it didn’t matter, because Emma knew she was talented—special—and she carried herself that way. Sure enough, Ethan had fallen so hard for her that he was practically asphyxiating himself with all the kissing.

But how do you just suddenly decide you’re special? Emma got on that track when she took her first baby ballet class at age four. Hannah had studied her way to brilliance, and Abbie had just been born with all that personality.

Me? I had nothin’. Reading about extraordinary people in books didn’t make you extraordinary.

Of course, if I chose to believe my sisters (and that was a big if), I wasn’t a total untouchable.

Own who you are, Hannah had said.

It would have sounded great on a greeting card, but in real life? I had no idea how to do that. I wondered if being “comfortable in my skin” was just another area in which I was doomed to fall short of my sisters.





The moment we showed up at the dock that night, just after sunset, we knew we’d wasted all that time primping.

Not that we didn’t look kind of fabulous, with our fresh, color-correct mani-pedis, our summery makeup, and our bare shoulders dusted with shimmery powder. (Hannah had read about that in a magazine that was not, for the record, National Geographic.)

As Abbie had directed, I’d chosen a white sundress with skinny straps. It also had a tight bodice and a flared, knee-length skirt. The salesgirl at the vintage store where I’d bought it had told me it was made in the early 1960s.

To match my headband I’d borrowed Hannah’s flat, royal blue sandals. Between those and my turquoise toes, my feet had never been so colorful. I hoped they would draw attention away from my voluminous hair.

But as it turned out, looking good at a lantern party didn’t seem to be the point. At all. Most of the kids milling around the dock—which was a big square wood plank platform surrounded by anchored speedboats—looked happily disheveled in shorts and T-shirts. They had paint smears on their arms and arts-and-crafts glitter in their hair. And every one of them held an elaborate homemade lantern. Even though they weren’t lit yet, presumably because there was still a bit of dusky light left, the lanterns were dazzlingly creative. There was a lantern that looked like a Japanese temple and one that looked like a fairy-tale mushroom, the kind with the white-dotted red cap. One lantern was an elaborate geometric shape that even Hannah might not have been able to identify. And there were side-by-side lanterns that looked like Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

Hannah walked over to a nearby girl who was bobbing her head to the music. Her lantern dangled from the end of a long stick. It was a cylinder made of flowery paper. Cut into the lantern was a window of waxed paper, which contained a funny silhouette of a dog.

“Love your lantern!” Hannah said as Abbie and I stood behind her. “Did you make it yourself?”

“Thanks!” the girl said, crinkling her nose happily at her lantern. “It was a hard one. It took me the whole pre-party. I guess you guys weren’t there?”

“Pre-party?” Abbie said, closing in on the girl. “When was that?”

“Oh, it started around noon,” the girl said. “We do it every year—get together and make our lanterns. We order in fried chicken and get all gluey. It’s pretty goofy, but we’ve all been doing it since, like, middle school, so you know—it’s a tradition now. At the end of the night there’s a lantern contest.”

“Wow, that sounds awesome,” Abbie said flatly. If there was anything she hated more than being left out of the loop, it was losing a contest. “Where was this pre-party?”

“It was at Jason’s house,” the girl said, cheerfully pointing to a far corner of the dock. There stood Abbie’s J-boy, flanked by two laughing girls. He was holding up his lantern like it was a trophy. It was a very lumpy papier-mâché sculpture of Darth Vader’s head. Presumably, once it was lit up, the eyes would glow.

Abbie’s face darkened, but she kept her voice light as she answered, “Oh, it was at Jason’s house. That’s cool. Well, good luck in the contest.”

“Thanks!” the girl chirped as Abbie drifted away.

Hannah and I gave each other a look.

“Let’s see if there are any potato chips on the refreshment table,” I whispered.

“She’s already on her way,” she said, pointing at Abbie as she made a beeline for the junk-food-laden table. Luckily, it was on the opposite side of the dock from Jason.

I arrived at Abbie’s side just as she scooped a handful of chips out of a big bowl and stuffed at least four of them into her mouth.

“Well,” I said brightly. I sounded just like our mom, who always got annoyingly chipper when the going got rough. “The good news is, now we know your guy’s name! J-boy is Jason.”

“The bad news,” Abbie said grimly, “is he blew me off for someone else—two someone elses—before I even got here.”

“Wait a minute,” Hannah said as she poured soda into plastic cups for us. “You don’t know that. You heard what that girl said. These people have all known each other forever. Those girls are probably just friends of his.”

“Well, how do you explain the fact that he didn’t invite me to the main event?” Abbie said, jabbing her thumb in the direction of a passing lantern that was about six feet tall and made to look like a tree, complete with a robin’s nest and a squirrel scampering up the trunk.

“You’re all confident and stuff,” I said. I couldn’t help but get that dig in. “Go and ask him!”

I gave her a little shove in Jason’s direction. Abbie glared at me, but then she slapped her remaining chips into my palm with a crunch and headed over.

Hannah and I grinned at each other.

“Okay,” she said. “One boy found. One to . . .”

Her voice trailed off as she spotted something—or rather, someone—at the other end of the refreshment table.

I followed her gaze to a boy pouring himself a big cup of sparkling water. He was dressed in khakis and a golf shirt, both of which were neat enough to give him a cute, preppy look but not so crisp as to make him look uptight.

His hair was blond and tidy. His face was sun-burnished and all-American, and he had earnest-looking blue eyes.

In other words he was exactly Hannah’s type.

“Is that—” I started to say. “Is he—”

Hannah didn’t answer me. She just pressed her cup into my hand and floated over to the boy.

“Liam?” she asked. Her tone of voice was perfect—mildly surprised and casually pleased to see him. You’d never guess that she’d been hoping for this moment for the past three weeks.

I tensed up as I watched the boy make eye contact with my sister. I squinted as his face went from blank confusion to recognition to . . . delight.

Delight!

“Hannah, right?” he said. He gave her a quick hug, then stepped back to look at her admiringly. “You’re back!”

Hannah shrugged. I couldn’t see her face, but I didn’t have to. I knew what was flashing in her eyes: triumphant relief, hopeful swooning, and just a hint of fear.

After the Elias breakup, Hannah had been single all year. She’d said it was because she was cramming for all her AP courses and applying to colleges, but Abbie and I knew that had been a convenient excuse. The truth was, she’d been truly heartbroken and afraid of being hurt again.

But now Hannah was in the lovely limbo that was Bluepointe. She’d left LA—the scene of her romance with Elias—and she hadn’t yet arrived at U of C, where she’d be with the same people for the next four years.

This was her moment to have a romance that was lighthearted and fun.

I knew that if I’d come to this conclusion, Hannah would have arrived at it also. For all I knew, she’d made a whole PowerPoint presentation about it. My sister really was that analytical, even when it came to love. Especially when it came to love.

As I looked at Liam’s sweet, open face, I felt hopeful for Hannah too. He looked like the perfect summer fling—cute and uncomplicated. What’s more, after hugging her, Liam had let his hand linger on Hannah’s arm. It looked like he was definitely interested.

I wonder what that’s like? I thought a little wistfully. To have a boy just grab you and hug you, instead of being all shy and proposing cryptic things like an anti–book club?

I popped one of Abbie’s chips into my mouth, took a swig of Hannah’s drink, and turned to face the party. Nobody seemed to take much notice of me. Clearly being lanternless at a lantern party immediately consigned you to the lowest social order.

I shoved the rest of the chips into my mouth, wondering how many minutes of this party I’d have to endure before I could drag Abbie and Hannah away.

I cast a sidelong glance at Hannah and Liam. His hand was no longer on her arm, but he was standing close to her—quite close—as they chatted. He poured her some sparkling water. He let his fingers linger on hers when he handed it to her.

I grimaced and grabbed another handful of chips. It was going to be a long night.





If I was a good and loyal sister, I wouldn’t have felt elated when I saw Abbie stalking toward me a few minutes later. She was so angry, you could practically see a cartoon scribble of smoke over her head.

Apparently Jason had turned out to be as jerky as he looked.

And I felt bad about that. I really did. But not as bad as I’d been feeling a moment earlier, when I’d been alone on the party’s sidelines, glaring at all the local kids with their ridiculously clever lanterns and annoying lifelong friendships.

It was also maddening watching Hannah and Liam as they visibly swooned over each other. Hannah was doing everything right—chatting easily, laughing adorably, blushing at all the right moments. And she was clearly melting every time Liam touched her arm. Or her waist. Or her hand. (Come to think of it, Liam was a pretty handsy guy.)

It had all been very, very depressing.

So when Abbie flopped into a folding chair next to the one that I had miserably occupied for the past fifteen lonely minutes, I admit that I responded a little inappropriately.

“What happened?” I asked eagerly. “Was it really bad?”

Abbie glared at me.

“Of course it was bad!” she said. “Do I look like it was good? And why are you so happy?”

“I’m not,” I protested. I tried—hard—to wipe the relieved grin off my face. “So what happened?”

“I don’t know!” Abbie said through gritted teeth. “He seemed so interested at that bookstore. But just now he acted like he didn’t even know me. It was humiliating.”

It was better than I’d thought! Not only was she not going to ditch me again; she was probably going to insist that we leave the party.

“Ouch,” I said. “Tell me everything.”

“Wait,” Abbie said. “Are there any chips left?”

She got up and stomped over to the refreshment table. But before she could load up on junk food and return to me, one of the local girls dragged a folding chair to the center of the dock. She stood on it and waved her lantern—a Chinese-style globe decorated with tissue paper dragonflies.

“Everybody,” she screeched. “It’s time to light ’em up!”

Whoops and hollers rose up from every corner of the dock. Giggling, everyone scrambled for matchbooks and lighters. I perked up too. With all my sisters’ drama, I’d almost forgotten about the lanterns. I’d also failed to notice that the sky had gone black and the streetlights hanging over the dock had come on.

“Alex?” the girl shouted with one hand cupped around her mouth.

All heads swiveled toward a tall boy with an impish grin. He was fiddling with what looked like a fuse box, which was mounted on a pole at the dock entrance.

A moment later the lights went out.

“Whooo!” everyone shouted, except, of course, for me and probably Abbie. She’d disappeared in the darkness. Suddenly blind, I felt a little dizzy and gripped the seat of my chair.

“One!” the girl shouted.

There was a collective clicking noise as lighters sprang to life all over the dock. People laughed and shouted some more, waving their flames over their heads like they were at a stadium concert.

“Two!” This time the whole group chanted the number along with the leader. I gripped my chair a little harder and grinned. It was so exciting, I couldn’t help but join in on the final chant, even though I had no lantern to light and nobody to enjoy this with. The other kids’ fun was infectious.

“THREE!” we all shouted.

Lantern after lantern came to life!

There was a collective, quiet intake of breath as we absorbed the beauty of the lights.

The leader’s buggy globe went bright orange, wobbling high above the crowd. Fred and Wilma seemed to dance with each other. The giant tree was dazzling, emanating light from every leaf. Even Jason’s stupid Darth Vader head looked amazing, with creepy yellow eyes glaring at the crowd.

At once everybody erupted into cheers.

“Whoo!” I joined in. I felt a little goofy and self-conscious jumping and clapping with everybody else, but then I brushed it off. Nobody here knew me. I was invisible to them. And for the moment, rather than being a bummer, that was a gift. I could geek out all I wanted to the perfect summery beauty of this moment without feeling embarrassed.

With my hands clasped I watched the lanterns float over my head. I gasped as I spotted the one shaped like an orange phoenix with wings outstretched, and smiled at the giant mason jar with little “fireflies” twinkling inside.

Somebody started the music back up. A ballad came on, sung by a woman with a sweet high voice, so breathy and wispy that you almost had to strain to hear her. A few couples started dancing, swaying lazily to the music. Everyone looked so pretty, almost ethereal, in the golden glow of the lanterns.

The moment was just . . . lovely. It made me swell up with happiness and feel a yearning pang all at once. It had been that way, ever since Granly had died. Every moment of joy had an ache around its edges. But when I looked at the dancing girls—this one gazing into her guy’s eyes, that one whispering into her partner’s ear, another laying her head on a boy’s shoulder—I realized that the ache might be for something different this time.

And then my gaze shifted to the dock entrance.

I don’t know what made me look, except that somehow I knew he was there.

Josh.

He was standing in the little gateway that led from the parking lot to the dock, holding on to the railing with one hand. He was wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt in a retro checked print. His hair was glossy and neat, and his face had a recently scrubbed shine to it. In the glow of the lanterns, he looked . . . beautiful.

Or maybe he just looked that way because of the sweet, shy smile on his face. The one that seemed to be directed right at me.

I resisted the urge to turn around and make sure there wasn’t some other girl behind me, one with straighter hair and a fancy lantern.

I took a halting step forward.

So did Josh.

Several steps and what felt like way too many seconds later, we faced each other.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I said. My voice sounded thin and fragile. I felt off balance, like the flickering of all those lantern candles was making my eyes go funny. I cleared my throat and gestured at his hands, which were empty.

“No lantern?” I asked.

“Um, no,” Josh said. “It was kind of a last-minute decision. To come here, I mean.”

“Oh,” I said. It seemed nosy to ask why, so I just said, “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

Josh’s eyes widened and he looked confused.

I gestured out to the party.

“The lanterns?” I asked. “Aren’t they amazing?”

“Oh, the lanterns,” Josh said. “Oh, yeah.”

He gazed out into the party as if he were noticing the spectacle for the first time. Which was weird. They were kind of hard to miss!

He returned his gaze to me.

“Yeah,” he agreed finally. “They’re pretty amazing.”

I smiled.

And he smiled.

And I started to wonder, even though it seemed crazy, if he had come here . . . just to see me.

A little voice in my head scoffed: That’s impossible. He couldn’t have heard Abbie talking about it at Dog Ear, so he didn’t know you’d be here. In fact he was probably sure you wouldn’t be here, since this is just a local party.

And yet I had this feeling that if I gave Josh a lantern pop quiz—Are there any Star Wars characters in the crowd? There’s one very tall lantern here. Is it a tree or a skyscraper?—that he would fail miserably.

That’s when my smile grew bigger. And, yes, more confident.

I decided I should just come out and ask him. Enough with all the mystery. I would channel Abbie and just put it out there: You like me, don’t you? And you don’t know how to say it any more than I do.

I opened my mouth.

“Josh?”

A petite, sporty-looking girl pressed out of the throng of partiers. She had chic, close-cropped hair and white short-shorts that made her muscular, dark-skinned legs look amazing. A lantern that looked like a big, pink purse dangled from her bent arm.

“Ohmigod, the workaholic has come out of his cave,” the girl squealed.

She placed the hand that wasn’t holding a live flame on Josh’s arm and squeezed.

“Hi, Tori,” Josh said. Now he was back to looking sheepish, and I thought I saw a flush of color creep up his neck.

Wait, he’s blushing? What does that mean?

Tori turned to me and lowered her voice, like we were besties sharing a secret.

“He’s always like”—she dropped her voice an octave to imitate Josh—“ ‘Can’t make it. I have to work. Again!’ Oh, it’s so boring!”

“Yeah, well.” Josh shrugged lamely.

Tori shot me a sidelong look and let out another one of those conspiratorial laughs. The only thing was, I didn’t know what we were conspiring about.

“So, how do you know Josh?” Tori asked bluntly.

“Dog Ear,” Josh and I said at the same time, which made for more blushing.

“Oh, of course,” Tori said. “Well, I’m the coxswain on his team.”

“Coxswain?” I said. I was completely baffled.

“You know, his crew team?” Tori raised her eyebrows.

I nodded slowly. “Oh, right . . . crew.”

“Crew is rowing,” Josh explained.

“Oh!” I said with a nervous laugh. “Yeah, of course. When in lake country, right?”

Oh my God, could I be more of a dork?

“We row on the river, actually,” Josh said. “The coxswain is the person who sits in the front and calls the rhythm.”

“Don’t forget, I steer, too!” Tori noted proudly. Then she turned to me. “I admit it. I like being able to shout orders at eight guys. They have no choice but to do my bidding.”

She cackled, before adding, “The coxswain is usually a girl, because you’re not supposed to weigh too much.”

Then I swore she gave me one of those body-scanning looks, her eyes traveling from my neck to my ankles and back again. My curvy five feet six inches were radically different from her tiny, muscular bod. Involuntarily I crossed my arms over my chest.

The awkward silence that ensued seemed to be all Tori needed to assure herself that I was no threat to her. I could almost see the to-do list forming in her head.

1. Wait until Josh ditches the dishrag who doesn’t even know rudimentary terms like “coxswain” and “crew.”

2. Bring Josh his favorite drink (that I just happen to know, being his coxswain and all).

3. Pretend to trip so he can help me to my feet and take note that I’m as light as a feather and I smell like watermelon body wash.

4. Let the spit-swapping ensue!

Clearly she was confident enough about my drippiness to leave me alone with her crush.

“Ooh, I see Hazel and Callan,” she said, waving wildly at two girls. When they saw Tori with Josh (and apparently overlooked me entirely), they giggled and flashed her a thumbs-up. Subtle!

“See you later, Joshie,” Tori said before turning to me. “And nice to meet you . . .”

She looked at me, then back at Josh, waiting for an introduction.

Josh turned even redder. Only then did I realize he’d never asked me my name! And I’d never volunteered it.

“Chelsea,” I said, unable to meet Josh’s eyes. “Chelsea Silver. I’m here for the summer from LA.”

“Awesome! I love LA,” Tori said brightly. “See you around, Chelsea.”

She practically skipped off to her friends, and when she reached them, they collapsed into a fit of giggles.

She couldn’t have been more obvious about her intentions for Josh if she’d licked his face.

I snuck a sulky glance at him. I expected him to be gazing after Tori. How could he not? She was one of those bright-eyed, bubbly, anybody’s-version-of-pretty types who commanded attention.

But instead Josh was looking straight at me. And there seemed to be a new light in his eyes.

“So . . . Chelsea Silver,” he said.

“So . . . Joshie,” I said. “Is that what your friends call you?”

“No!” Josh said, rolling his eyes. “And neither does Tori. I don’t know where that came from.”

Hello? I thought. From her completely obvious crush on you.

I wondered if mine was just as obvious.

“Oh, hey!” Josh said as if he were just remembering something. “Can you hold on a minute?”

“Uh—”

I didn’t have time to respond before he darted toward the refreshments table.

Okay, I thought, insecurity washing over me. I guess he’s just really hungry. Boys are like that, right?

That was the thing about living in a house full of women (and one not-exactly-macho accountant). Boys were a complete mystery to me. My main impression from my friends with brothers and/or boyfriends was that boys were always hungry. And in those rare, satiated moments when they weren’t dreaming about food, they were obsessed with sex.

Which was a step up from middle-school boys, I guess. They’d seemed to devote most of their energy to coming up with new fart or burp jokes.

So when Josh dashed, I didn’t know if “Hold on a minute” meant, “I’ll be right back” or “Nice talking to you. Off to mingle with other cute girls now. Don’t wait up!”

He was taking a long time at the refreshment table, which was pretty much a disaster by then. He poked around the wet napkins, crushed chips, half-empty soft drink bottles, and discarded paper plates.

I scanned the party for my sisters. It was hard to find anybody among the lanterns, but I finally spotted Hannah leaning back against the railing on the other side of the dock. Pressed up really close to her was Liam. He had one arm wrapped around her waist, and he seemed to be aiming his lips for her neck.

Hannah laughed and shoved him away—but not very far away. And she didn’t seem annoyed that this guy was trying to kiss her in front of fifty strangers.

I was, though. She’d just met the guy! Okay, re-met him, but still. Your first kiss with someone new should be at least a little private, right?

Abbie clearly agreed with me, because suddenly she appeared at Hannah’s side. She gave Liam a quick, insincere smile before she tugged Hannah away.

I watched them tuck their heads together for a quick conference. Surely Abbie wanted to leave.

But it looked like Hannah wanted to stay.

And me?

Well, that depended. I returned my gaze to the refreshment table and felt my heart sink.

Josh wasn’t there.

I searched the rest of the party, squinting to try to find him in the sea of lights. At that moment I couldn’t remember what he was wearing. All I could picture was his shy, sheepish smile.

Like he was sort of nervous/excited to see me.

Until, maybe, he realized that girls like Tori found him irresistible, and going on a “food run” had become incredibly important.

I ground my teeth in frustration and looked down at my feet. Even in the dim light I could still see my blue shoes and turquoise toenails. They were so bright, they practically glowed. And yet they’d been planted in one spot for most of the night, waiting. Waiting for my sisters, waiting for Josh.

Well, I wasn’t going to wait anymore. I started to head over to Abbie and Hannah. I was going to poke my head into their little conference and announce, “That’s it. We’re leaving!”

And really, really hope they listened to me.

But just as I started across the dock, I heard a voice.

“Chelsea!”

I whipped around to see Josh, standing right where he’d left me. He held two red plastic cups and, in the crook of his arm, a bowl of pretzel rods.

He held one of the cups out.

“I got you something to drink,” he said formally.

I smiled tentatively and walked back to him. He’d braved the gross refreshments table to get me a drink. And snacks! Nobody had ever gotten me drinks and snacks at a party before, except maybe my dad. It seemed like such a grown-up thing to do!

“It’s Faygo Redpop,” Josh said as I took one of the cups. “That was the only one that still had any fizz left.”

Okay, sort of grown-up.

Josh thrust the bowl at me, and I took a pretzel rod. Not that I was even slightly interested in eating or drinking right then.

“So, I’m on page forty-two,” Josh blurted. “What about you?”

“Page . . . ?” I was completely confused.

“Coconut Dreams,” Josh said. “Or did you chuck it after the one-page description of Kai’s smoldering brown eyes?”

I laughed out loud.

“You’re not actually reading it,” I said. “Are you?”

“Enough to get to that tragic description of the suckling pig at the luau,” Josh said. “The writer laid it on a little thick, didn’t she?”

“Oh my God, yeah,” I said. “All that stuff about the singed eyelashes and little charred tail? I think she wanted us to think of the suckling pig as Wilbur and become vegan activists or something.”

“Lemme tell you,” Josh said, “Charlotte’s Web is kind of a thing at Dog Ear, and Veronica Gardner is no E. B. White.”

“But it’s like a car wreck now,” I said, and giggled. “I can’t look away. Plus, the library’s, like, never open, and I’ve read everything else in our cottage.”

“You should get that book I showed you,” Josh said. He chomped on a pretzel absently. “Beyond the Beneath.”

“I’m pretty broke,” I said. “I’m trying to save up for a new e-reader, but at this point I can barely buy myself a paperback. I guess I should look into getting some babysitting jobs, since we’re here for the rest of the summer. I’m waiting until I get desperate enough.”

“Oh, so you have no sympathy for suckling pigs and you hate children,” Josh said with teasing grin.

“I like kids,” I protested. “But there’s only so much Candy Land and PB&J a girl can take.”

“Well, how do you feel about tuna salad?” Josh asked.

“Um,” I said, “I guess some kids like it, but—”

“No, I mean you,” Josh said. “I happen to know that Mel and Mel’s is about to put a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in their window.”

“The coffee shop?” I asked.

The coffee shop that’s right next door to the bookstore where you work every day?

“Yeah,” Josh said. “Melissa’s good friends with my mom. She mentioned that they were looking for somebody new.”

I pictured Mel & Mel’s. It was called a coffee shop, but it wasn’t the kind that had hissing espresso machines and nutmeg-dusted mochas. The coffee was pretty much regular or decaf, poured in endless refills from a potbellied glass carafe with an orange plastic handle. They sold soup and sandwiches, and for dessert they had one of those rotating pie cases. Abbie, Hannah, and I used to press our noses to that glass case when we were little, watching the towering wedges of lemon meringue and chocolate cream pies twirl slowly by. Choosing our flavors had been agonizing.

The waitresses there were old-school. They wore aprons and tucked pens behind their ears. The older ones had leathery necks and wore too much makeup. The young ones always seemed to have lots of tattoos. They called us “sweetie pie” when they plunked down our pink lemonades on the faux wood-grain table. And when they served you pie, they topped it with a big squirt of fake whipped cream, straight from the can.

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you think they’d be looking for someone like me? I’ve never waited tables before.”

“Do you like cats?” Josh asked.

“They’re okay,” I said.

“Well, don’t say that to Melissa,” Josh said. “Tell her you love cats, especially calicos. And before you talk to Melanie, make sure you know the score of the most recent Cubs game.”

“O-kay,” I said with a laugh. “Anything else I should know?”

“How are you at chopping up celery and pickles?” Josh quizzed me.

“Oh, those are my specialties,” I joked.

“They’ll love you,” Josh said. Then suddenly he seemed to find his fizzy red drink really interesting, because he ducked his head to stare into it.

And if I could have seen better in the late-night darkness, I would have sworn he was blushing.

Shyly I looked away. That’s when I saw that Abbie was motioning at me frantically from across the dock. When she saw that she’d caught my eye, she pointed dramatically at Hannah and Liam.

They were full-on making out! Yes, they were in a shadowy part of the dock with no lanterns nearby, but you could still see everything—Hannah’s fingers in Liam’s hair, his arms clasped tightly around her waist, her ankle wrapped around his.

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed.

“What?” Josh said, following my gaze.

“Never mind!” I cried. “It’s nothing.”

The last thing I wanted Josh to see was my sister macking with one of his classmates.

“It’s just,” I said quickly, “I came here with my sisters and I think they’re ready to go.”

“Oh, okay,” Josh said. I was so focused on Hannah’s gross PDA that I couldn’t read Josh’s tone. Was that disappointment I heard in his voice? Or indifference?

“But thanks for the Mel and Mel’s tip,” I said. “You know, I think I’m gonna go for it!”

I had only made the decision that very moment. But suddenly I desperately wanted to tie on an apron and start calling people “hon.” It sounded kind of fun! More fun, anyway, than changing diapers.

Plus, I couldn’t help but wonder if Josh was a regular at Mel & Mel’s. It was just next door.

The way he smiled at me—we’re talking deep dimpling—I kind of thought he might be.

“They open at seven,” he said.