“Hi, Camden.” I made it sound as if I didn’t know, and that felt like a lie.
Now the other guy and Eliza were walking up behind Camden. I’d forgotten how the boy teetered as he moved, with all that height, and how nonchalantly stunning the girl was. Like she glowed and knew it and didn’t let it change anything.
“Thanks for totally ditching us at the traffic light,” she said to Camden.
Camden halfway turned to them. “I told you. I can’t ride slower than that, it’s physically impossible for me. Sorry.”
He didn’t go to Eliza.
Instead, he looked at me. “This is Ari. Ari, this is Eliza and Max.”
“Hello,” I said, with a wave in their direction. Okay, then. So now we’d officially met. It was like characters from a book I’d read over and over, suddenly stepping off the page.
Max said, “Hey,” but Eliza simply scanned me from the top down. She stopped dead when she saw my purple boots.
“Satina Galt,” she said, pointing with her chin at my feet.
“Totally,” said Max, taking off his bike helmet. The previous summer, his hair had had streaks of blue and purple in it, but he’d cut the colors off and now his head was covered in brown duckling fuzz.
Camden rolled his eyes. “I apologize for them. They’re a little obsessed.”
But there I was, feeling suddenly, thrillingly, seen.
“No apologies necessary,” I said, sticking out one foot sideways to better display the boot. “They’re comfortable and practical and surprisingly stylish, regardless of where in time or space your hypership lands you.”
Camden and Eliza and Max exchanged the same deeply impressed look.
“Season Four? When she had those shiny pants, too?” asked Eliza. It was like we’d all lapsed into our native language. The only other person I’d ever spoken it with before was my mom, multiple lifetimes ago.
“Actually, Season Three,” I said. “They changed her boots first, before they sexied up the rest of her uniform.”
“Ah, right,” said Eliza. “Wherever did you find these beauties? I figured spray paint was the only way I’d make a full Satina uniform happen.”
“I got lucky at the thrift store in town.”
More impressed looks. The whole story was more complicated than that, but I wasn’t going to get into it.
“A perfect thrift store find is the universe wanting you to have something,” said Camden, making those scandalous dimples for me.
“I like to think so,” I said, willing my voice not to shake. Keeping myself together while having this conversation took an amount of strength I could only attribute to the boots. The boots made me able. The boots made things Possible.
Camden was about to say something else when Danielle came running into the parking lot.
“Freeze!” I yelled on instinct.
She froze, but snapped back, “You told me to hurry up, so I’m hurrying!” Then she noticed Camden, Max, and Eliza, and her eyes widened. “I remember you guys . . . ,” she said.
“We’ve got to go,” I said quickly, cutting her off. I could already hear Dani’s next comment. You were Ari’s summer crush last year! Or maybe: I’m pretty sure Ari dreams about having babies with you. What’s your name again?
I grabbed Dani’s hand and pulled her close to me. Camden regarded us. I couldn’t read his expression. Amused, maybe, fringed with sadness. Wistful. Everyone was silent for a few moments, not sure what was supposed to happen now. A white parking space line divided me from them, and the boundary suddenly seemed important. If Dani hadn’t been there, would I have stepped over it to more Satina, more Silver Arrow, more everything?
Finally, it was Eliza who ended the awkwardness and said, “Well, hopefully we’ll see you around, Specialist Galt.” She moved toward the entrance gate, gesturing for Camden and Max to follow.
In the car on the way home, my right foot solid on the gas pedal, I wiggled my toes in the boot.
“That was him, right?” asked Dani from the backseat.
Him. That X on Camden’s baseball cap last summer, and how it was like he’d been marked for me. This is The Boy.
“Yes,” I said.
Already, it hurt extra hard to be driving away from the lake, knowing they were there and I was not.
“Why did that girl call you Something Galt?”
Most of the time, Dani already knew the answers to the questions she asked, but she liked to hear them come from someone else.
“Satina Galt. From Silver Arrow.”
“And that’s your favorite show, right?”
She knew it was, but I still said, “Yes,” then added, “It was Mom’s favorite show, too. When she was a teenager.”
I wasn’t sure if Dani knew that, but had a feeling she didn’t. Judging from Dani’s surprised expression in the rearview mirror, I was right.
Thing was, “favorite show” did not even scratch the surface of it.