“You’ve learned how to navigate over the rocks, I assume.” I glanced in Aiden’s direction.
“Oh, yeah. I’ve been climbing around this place for years. It’s the people who don’t know what they’re doing that get in trouble.” He pointed toward the rushing column of water. The sound it made, gushing over the boulders, reminded me of a teeming rainstorm—steady, rapid, and forcefully liquid. “Sometimes, when the light is weird and milky, like right before a storm, that waterfall can look almost gray,” Aiden said. “Like slate or even smoke. It…I don’t know, I love to look at it like that. It’s cool.”
I stared at the water, trying to imagine it looking like smoke. “I think Sophie comes down here too.”
“Sophie?” There was a thin film of dust all over Aiden’s face from the ride. It made his features look slightly blurry. “Really? I’ve never seen her.”
I shrugged. “She’s been bugging me to come down here ever since I got here. She said I’d love it.”
“It’s a cool place,” Aiden said. “I’m going to miss it.”
We stared down into the gorge for a few moments without saying anything. A loneliness swept over me then, as I tried to imagine being in Poultney without being able to pop in and visit Aiden whenever I wanted. I liked his company—and not just because he was cute. “When are you leaving?” I asked.
“Two weeks,” Aiden said.
I looked at him in surprise. “Two weeks! I thought you said the end of the summer! Why so soon?”
“I found a studio the day before yesterday. And a roommate too. No use putting off what I can start now.”
I gazed back out at the water. “What are you starting now?”
Aiden looked at me. “The rest of my life,” he said. “Just like you.”
I came into the kitchen the next night to find Sophie beating egg whites in a bright copper bowl. Her hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and her cheeks were pink from exertion. I leaned against the butcher block. “What’s that?”
“Oh, I’m just making a lemon meringue pie for the Table of Knowledge boys. It’s been a while and they all love it.” Sophie lowered the whisk for a moment and took a deep breath. “This whipping by hand is killing me, though. I gotta start doing some push-ups again—get some more upper-body strength.”
“Why don’t you use the mixer?”
“Oh no,” Sophie said. “I always use my copper bowls when I do egg whites. It’s the only way.”
“What’s so special about a copper bowl?”
“Well,” said Sophie, “there are actually ions in copper that mix with the egg white and make them very stiff. Egg whites made in a copper bowl will never fall over or deflate.” She glanced up at the rack of pots hanging above her. “All of my pots are copper too. Did you ever notice?”
I stared up at the gleaming pots for a moment. They were a beautiful color, like a burnished pink, and so shiny I could see my reflection in them. “Wow. I actually didn’t notice. Who would’ve thought baking had so much science involved?”
Sophie raised her eyebrows. “Cool, huh?” She picked up the whisk again and tapped it on the side of the bowl. “So. You given any thought to your mural yet?”
I walked over to the wall slowly. It was about the size of the chalkboards we’d had in school—pretty tall and wide. It was going to take a lot of fruit and vegetable people to fill it up. “Actually, I kind of have.”
Sophie started beating the lemon filling. “And? What’d you come up with?”
I turned around. “I don’t think I want to do it.”
Sophie stopped beating. “Why?”
“I mean the fruit people. I don’t want to draw the fruit people. I know you think they’re cute, but…” I walked over to the butcher block and leaned my elbows on the smooth wood surface. “I’ve sort of moved on from that kind of stuff, Sophie. There are other things I can draw now, other things I’ve been drawing. I’d just…I’d like to do something else. If that’s all right.”
“Of course that’s all right!” The words came out of Sophie in one big exhale. Her eyes were wide. “That’s more than all right. What were you thinking?”
“Well, I’ve been fooling around with that sketch pad you got me…”
“Eh? Does big sister know, or does big sister know?”
I smiled. “And I’ve sort of been sketching…well, the street I guess. From my window at least. With the Laundromat and the pizza place and Perry’s…”
Sophie had put the whisk down again. “Oh, Julia.” She was shaking her head. “Main Street? On the wall of my kitchen? It’ll be beautiful. It’ll be gorgeous. Please do it. Please. I would love it.”
“What if it’s not good enough?” I asked. “What if you hate it?”
“That’s impossible,” Sophie said. “I would never hate it.”
“How do you know? You’ve never seen my sketches.”