“But you do. This is me making an effort.”
Kendall smiled mischievously. “Okay. Well. Chris Cucurullo’s brother got arrested for DUI. That’s the latest good one.”
I hated Chris; he was a walking stereotype with his varsity jacket and excessive use of the word bro.
“I have to admit that neither surprises nor upsets me.”
“It makes you a little glad, right? I hear the brother’s a bigger douche bag than Chris. See, now you’re getting the whole point of gossip.”
We laughed.
“I talked to Camden yesterday.” That just came out. I hadn’t even been sure I wanted to tell her yet.
“A conversation?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Not like, I’m sorry I’m in the men’s room and we accidentally urinated together?”
“A real one. Several minutes long. He helped Dani learn to dive off the dock.”
“So . . . what? You’re obsessed with him again?”
I shrugged. I’d had a Camden Dream the night before. In it, we were sitting side by side, reading the same book. Who has lame-ass dreams like this?
“You don’t know anything about that guy,” said Kendall.
“I know enough.”
“Oh, right. Dashwood and the pink church and his painter mom.”
“Lavender. You said it was lavender, or turquoise.”
Kendall closed her eyes and held them there. She seemed exasperated.
“And his mom isn’t a painter,” I added. “She’s a fabric artist.”
“He told you that?”
“I Googled it.” We were quiet for a few moments. Not the good quiet, anymore. “I’m sensing disapproval coming from that side of the car.”
“I’m remembering how much it hurt you last summer to see him with that girl, how pissed off at yourself you were for not doing anything when you had the chance. Or in your case, a whole shitload of chances.”
That made me wince. “He’s not with that girl anymore. He may be with someone else, I have no idea. But I need to at least investigate further. I don’t want to have any regrets like last summer.”
Kendall stared at me for a moment, then nodded and said, “Fair enough.”
Suddenly a song by the Shins came on the radio, a song we both loved. It was one of those moments when radio karma finds you when you need it most. I turned up the volume and Kendall started tapping her feet against the windshield, making her hands dance to the chorus, and just like that we were rescued from the intensity of the conversation.
“So where are we going?” I asked.
“Let’s head up to the lookout.”
We drove through town and into the cornfields, past the farm market and the orchard nobody liked, toward the place where the road dead-ended into another road that would take us up the mountain. One hairpin turn, and then we were there. A scenic overlook for the tourists that offered only a stone wall separating you from certain death down a vertical rock face.
I parked and we got out, then sat on the wall. The lights of the valley below us, the geometric shapes of crop fields, and the vague suggestion of hills and an unseen river in the distance. It was home.
“Want to share this with me?” Kendall asked as she pulled a beer out of her huge purse.
“You know I don’t drink.”
“Just checking, in case that’s changed.”
I gave her a look. “Still on the same medication so no, that hasn’t changed. But that’s classy, carrying beer around with you.”
Kendall shrugged. “This would be part of the ‘doing whatever the hell we want to’ program. That girl, Claire, from work? Her father has a craft brewery. She gives these to me as a thank-you for covering for her when she’s late for her shift.”
She opened the bottle and took a sip, made a face, but then took another sip. Kendall had more freedom than anyone else I knew—she was the youngest of four and the only one left living at home, so her parents were pretty much over it—she never seemed compelled to take advantage of this. Until now.
I watched her, wondering how drinking a homemade beer was going to help bring her all the things she felt she’d been missing. Finally I asked, “Do you think it’ll be a good summer, Kendall?”
“It might. But there’s so much pressure. I mean, what makes something a good summer, anyway? Is there a checklist of things we’re supposed to do?”
“It didn’t used to be that way. We just had fun.”
“Well, now we have other stuff.” Kendall paused, took another swig of beer, and then turned to me. “Although I was thinking about how we used to hang out on the raft at the lake and play Truth. We haven’t done that in a long time.”
“Could that be because we’re not thirteen anymore?”
“Aw, come on. You’re never too old for Truth.”
“Who goes first?” I asked.
“Me.”
“Okay. Bring it on.”