“A Sadie care package?”
I grabbed my last Woody hat and set it on her head. Shay adjusted it and said, “I’m going to miss him. If it weren’t for the Woodster, there’d be no Shay and Sadie. Isn’t that crazy to think about?”
When I’d met Shay, we had just moved to the East End from Queens and Dad wanted to take me out on the maiden voyage of the Woody’s Ice Cream truck. Shay chased us down the street barefoot and, after ordering her Nutty Buddy, promptly invited me to the birthday party she was having that afternoon.
“Should I open it now or wait?” Shay said, taking the care package.
“Open it now.”
She carefully untied the gold-flecked twine and pulled off the paper and the box lid, revealing:
A tin of peppermint drops in honor of the fourteen-act play we’d written, acted in, and directed called Peppermint Drop City: The Fairies Take Over.
A berry fusion lip tint and a berry nice lip shimmer (because I always stole hers).
A purple condom (because… college).
A framed photo of Shay and me taken the day we met, when I actually showed up at her tenth birthday party that afternoon.
Twin bobbleheads of Shay and me holding hands. (I had treated myself to a matching set of Bobblehead Shay with the long blond hair and bulging blue eyes and Bobblehead Sadie with the thick wavy black hair and sharp nose.)
“Wow, my bobblehead has a huge rack,” Shay said, running her fingers over the bobblehead’s plastic chest.
“I thought you’d appreciate that.”
“There’s nothing I can say to do justice to this care package, so I’m just going to hug you,” Shay said, leaning over to pull me in. I hugged my best friend and pressed my face into her wild blond mermaid hair. She smelled of the lavender essential oil she rubbed on her temples when she was stressed.
We let go at the same time and said what we said on any normal night.
“Later, Shay-Shay.”
“Later, Sader.”
The next morning I woke at six, still on school time, and reached for my phone to text Shay. It took me a few seconds to remember it was over, that she was probably already on her way to the airport.
I hugged Flopper, my stuffed harp seal, and tried to go back to sleep, but Mom’s kitchen clanging and television sounds put an end to that.
“What are you doing up?” Mom looked over from her perch at the kitchen island, where she sat sipping tea and reading the headlines as the Hamptons forecast blared from the TV above the sink.
“My brain thinks it’s a school day.” I foraged through the fridge. “Can you make pancakes?”
“Chocolate chip?”
I nodded, then sat at the counter, hands folded, waiting for my pancakes.
“What’s on the agenda?” Mom asked, setting a glass of milk in front of me.
I stared up at her and then reality set in.
“I have no idea.”
I welcomed my first official shift at the farm stand. I knew work would be hot, and full of horseflies and sawdust and some of the world’s most irritating customers, referred to by year-round Hamptons residents as cidiots (city idiots). But I would get to eat a lot of peaches and strawberries, and I needed the paychecks for school clothes and college savings.
The first morning, Farmer Brian reminded Daniela and me how to work the register and do the tally sheets, and we got a refresher on the difference between ripe and rotten. After Farmer Brian left, Daniela spent most of the time on her phone, or dozing off because her three-year-old exhausted her, but I didn’t mind. Work gave me something to focus on.
I lingered awhile in the back of the wooden building, with its three walls painted dark green and its open, awning-covered front that faced the road. I unloaded crates of vegetables, avoiding the picky locals and the overeager city people and the tourists who drove all the way to the Hamptons to take pictures for their Facebook pages.
The cidiots were back.
That night, Mom and Dad took me for pizza to celebrate the beginning of summer. They had promised not to bring up college until I’d had a chance to adjust to my new normal. College had been a family sticking point since Shay got into Pepperdine, mostly because I had no idea where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do.
Two bites into my calzone, Mom sent Dad to the bathroom to wipe the Parmesan off his mustache. “I picked up the Guide to Northeast Colleges at the bookstore,” she said casually. “It’s on the dining room table. I earmarked a few that look interesting.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I knew better than to remind her of her promise.
I reached under my bra line and scratched the hot, clammy skin. I needed a shower. And sleep. But halfway through my calzone, Shay texted me. Hannah S. and Chelsea want you to escort them to Shawn’s tonight.
As much as I’d told Shay I was happy hanging out on our porch with my parents and our neighbor Mr. Ng, she worried about me. She had been trying for months to play friend matchmaker with Hannah S. and other people from my dysfunctional class.
Oh, come on, I replied. The gadflies?
I told them to pick you up at nine.
Shay, I don’t feel like socializing.
Come on, give them a chance. Otherwise you have the potential to turn into one of those agoraphobic people.
No I don’t.
Please?? I want to know what’s going on. I’m already out of the loop.
Damn it, Shay. FINE.
Hannah S. and Chelsea were part of the gadfly faction of my dysfunctional junior class. Shay titled them gadflies because they hung around like insects, buzzing in tightly drawn circles, gossiping and side whispering and basically being petty, drama-slinging troublemakers. Shawn Flynn was having another party because Shawn Flynn was addicted to the moment when a rush of freshly showered people rounded the back bend of his hedgerow to fill the empty spaces of his parentless mansion.
Hannah S. and Chelsea pulled into our driveway just as I was throwing on shorts and my leprechaun T-shirt. I put my wet hair in a bun and found my overaccessorized classmates on the front porch with Dad and Mr. Ng.
“Have a blast,” Dad shouted as we climbed into Hannah’s car.
“I feel so bad that Shay has to miss this summer,” Hannah S. said, acting like Shay was her lifelong friend.
“She’s in California. I’m sure her summer will be better than ours,” I said, texting Shay from the backseat. So bored. Wish I was in bed right now.
We drove around awhile and parked down the road from Shawn’s massive mansion. Chelsea cracked open a warm screw-cap bottle of wine she must have clipped from a hotel minibar. They bombarded me with questions about the Night of a Thousand Good-byes and who’d hooked up that night and was it true D-Bag fell in vomit?
Hannah swallowed another mini bottle of zinfandel and smacked her lips.
“Let’s do this,” she said loudly, tossing the bottle out the window.
Hannah is littering, I texted Shay.
Just give them a chance.
I flung open Shawn’s front door and ushered in Hannah and Chelsea.