Warren selected one of the coffees and took a sip. Even though at nineteen he was only two years older than me, he was dressed, as usual, in khakis and a polo shirt, as though he might at any moment be called upon to chair a board meeting or play a round of golf. “Where is everyone?” he asked after a moment.
“No idea,” I said, hoping that he’d go investigate for himself. He nodded and took another sip, as though he had all the time in the world. “I think I heard Mom upstairs,” I said after it became clear that my brother intended to while away the morning sipping coffee and staring into space.
“I’ll tell her I’m back,” he said, setting his coffee down, just as I’d hoped he would. Warren headed toward the door, then stopped and turned back to me. “Is he up yet?”
I shrugged. “Not sure,” I said, trying to keep my voice light, like this was just a routine question. But only few weeks ago, the idea of my father still being asleep at this hour—or for that matter, still home—would have been unthinkable.
Warren nodded again and headed out of the kitchen. As soon as he was gone, I bolted for the door.
I hurried down our driveway and, when I made it to the sidewalk, let out a long breath. Then I started speed-walking down Greenleaf Road as quickly as possible. I probably should have taken a car, but some things were just habit, and the last time I’d snuck out, I’d been years away from getting my license.
I could feel myself start to calm down the farther I walked. The rational part of my brain was telling me that I’d have to go back at some point, but I didn’t want to listen to the rational part of my brain right now. I just wanted to pretend that this day—this whole summer—wasn’t going to have to happen, something that got easier the more distance I put between myself and the house. I’d been walking for a while and had just started to dig in my bag for my sunglasses when I heard a metal jangling sound and looked up.
My heart sank a little as I saw Connie from the white house across the street, walking her dog and waving at me. She was around my parents’ age, and I’d known her last name at some point, but couldn’t recall it now. I dropped my sunglass case in my bag next to what I now saw was Gelsey’s iPod (whoops), which I must have grabbed thinking it was mine. There was no avoiding Connie without blatantly ignoring her or turning and running into the woods. And I had a feeling either of these options was behavior that might make it back to my mother immediately. I sighed and made myself smile at her as she got closer.
“Taylor, hi!” she called, smiling wide at me. Her dog, a big, dumb-looking golden retriever, strained against his leash toward me, panting, tail wagging. I looked at him and took a small step away. We’d never had a dog, so though I liked them in theory, I hadn’t had all that much experience with them. And even though I watched the reality show Top Dog much more than someone who didn’t actually own a dog should, this didn’t help when confronted with one in the real world.
“Hi, Connie,” I said, already starting to edge away, hoping she’d get the hint. “Nice to see you!”
“You too,” she replied automatically, but I saw her smile fade a little as her eyes traveled over my face and outfit. “You’re looking a bit different today,” she said. “Very… relaxed.”
Since Connie normally saw me in my Stanwich Academy uniform—white blouse and itchy plaid skirt—I had no doubt I looked different now, as I’d pretty much just rolled out of bed, not even bothering to brush my hair, and was wearing flip-flops, cutoffs, and a much-washed white T-shirt that read LAKE PHOENIX SWIM TEAM. The shirt technically wasn’t mine, but I’d appropriated it so many years ago that I now just thought of it as my property.
“I guess so,” I said to Connie, making sure to keep a smile on my face. “Well…”
“Any big plans for the summer?” she asked brightly, apparently completely unaware that I was trying to end this conversation. The dog, maybe realizing this was going to take a while, flopped down at her feet, resting his head on his paws.
“Not really,” I said, hoping that might be the end of it. But she continued to look at me, eyebrows raised, so I stifled a sigh and went on. “We’re actually leaving today to spend the summer at our lake house.”
“Oh, wonderful!” she gushed. “That sounds lovely. Whereabouts is it?”
“It’s in the Poconos,” I said. She frowned, as though trying to place the name, and I added, “The Pocono Mountains. In Pennsylvania?”
“Oh, right,” she said, nodding, though I could tell from her expression that she still had no idea what I was talking about, which wasn’t actually that unexpected. Some of my friends’ families had summer houses, but they tended to be in places like Nantucket or Cape Cod. Nobody else I knew had a summer house in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania.
“Well,” Connie said, still smiling brightly. “A lake house! That should be nice.”