We started walking, taking up most of the street with all the dogs. I’d gotten better at scouting new routes, looking for really quiet streets with ample trees and bushes. This was a new route, but I was already liking it—and so were the dogs, judging by the amount of ecstatic tree sniffing going on.
“Do you remember,” my dad said, his words coming out hesitantly, “that stuffed dog you used to have?”
I stared at him for a moment, trying to remember which one he was talking about—at one point my stuffed animal collection had been vast. But a second later, there it was. My dad had given it to me when I was something like six, a small black stuffed dog that came with its own leash. I remembered how thrilled I’d been to get it, how I had carried and dragged it with me everywhere for a while.
“Yeah,” I said, looking over at him. “Of course.”
“I was just thinking that maybe it was good practice for this,” he said, nodding at the dogs and their leashes.
“Was that a Christmas present?” I was searching my memory, trying to recall the details. It was like one day the dog had always been with me, but I couldn’t call up how it had gotten there.
“No,” my dad said, looking offended. “Don’t you remember? I had to go to that summit in London, and brought it back with me. It wouldn’t fit in my carry-on, so it rode next to me on the plane.”
I smiled, fighting down a lump in my throat. How had I forgotten about this stuff? It was like I hadn’t let myself remember it in years and years—that my dad had been more to me than the last five years. That at one point we’d been really close, and the dog he flew across the ocean with had become my favorite because it was from him.
We walked without speaking for a few minutes, as I concentrated on making sure leashes weren’t getting tangled and that everyone was getting along. It was a beautiful day out—sunny but not too hot, and the street we were on was tree-lined, the sunlight filtering through the leaves. “So what do you think?”
My dad reached over and scratched Bertie’s ears, then patted him on the top of his head. “I think . . . ,” he said, looking around at all the dogs in the sunshine, and then smiled at me. “I think you picked a pretty great way to spend your summer, kid.”
“Yeah,” I said, tugging on the leashes in both hands, more relieved than I’d realized I would be to hear this. “It has its moments.”
TOPHER
So who is this guy?
ME
You don’t know him
TOPHER
Try me
ME
His name’s Clark. Do you know any Clarks?
TOPHER
CLARK?
ME
Told you
TOPHER
What, did he time travel here from the 1930s?
ME
Ha
TOPHER
Well, call me when you’re free again.
Or have your old-timey boyfriend send a carrier pigeon.
ME
Talk to you later, Topher.
? ? ?
I dipped my toes into the hot tub and looked over at the very intense Ping-Pong game that was going on between Palmer and Clark on the lawn. Wyatt was in the pool, Toby was perched on the edge near him, and Bri and Tom were both floating on the oversize rafts Clark had bought last week, shaped like donuts and pretzels. None of this was a new or unusual sight because, as I’d predicted, my friends had pretty much moved in.
We still went to the Orchard and other people’s parties, and movies when Bri could sneak us in for free, and there had been a week when Palmer had been determined to try out all the mini golf courses in a fifty-mile radius, and Wyatt had hit a hole in one into the clown’s mouth and we’d all gotten free ice cream. But most nights, no matter what we did, we ended up back here, hanging out in the pool, watching movies on the couch, or lying on the lounge chairs under the stars. We’d even spent the Fourth of July there, everyone lying on floats in the pool and watching the fireworks we could see overhead from the official town celebration. Well—everyone else had watched the fireworks. Clark and I had taken turns sitting with Bertie in the laundry room, since Bertie hadn’t realized all the explosions were just for pretend and had spent the night trembling and whimpering.
“Hey.” I looked down and saw that Bri had floated up to the edge of the hot tub in her pretzel. She nodded over to where Toby was, and I could see in her expression that she was worried.
“She’s fine,” I said, though without a ton of conviction in my voice. Toby was wearing a new bathing suit, and she’d gotten her hair blown out straight, which was why she’d avoided getting in the water all night. She was wearing much more makeup than you normally did if you were going to be hanging out and swimming, and there was a kind of fixed desperation in her smile as she watched Wyatt in the pool.
“I don’t know,” Bri said as she pushed off the wall and steered her pretzel closer to Toby.
“So, Wyatt,” Toby called in what I’m sure she intended to be a casual voice, but just came out strangled. “Wyatt,” she repeated when he still didn’t look over at her.