“The day after,” said Camden. “We’ll say two thirty.”
It felt like the conversation was over. I knew it had to be. I had to go inside. He had to drive to Vermont. I was torn between not wanting to hang up, ever, and desperate to do so while it still felt perfect. You know, before I said something stupid.
“See you then,” I said.
“Okay, bye, Ari.”
“Bye,” I said, but he was already gone. The phone felt warmer than usual in my hand, the screen glowing a little brighter, I was sure.
One of the sneakers hanging from the telephone line was slowly turning in the breeze. I waited for it to do two complete circles before standing up and going back into the store.
9
It had been a long two days, but now I was leaning against a tree at the reservoir parking lot, watching Camden glide toward me on his bicycle.
Seeing his face in person again and not pressed into the blackness behind my eyelids, I couldn’t decide if it looked the same. Was it going to be this way from now on? Every time I saw him, would I have to reconcile the Camden I was looking at with the Camden I’d been thinking about?
He was wearing a cranberry-colored button-down shirt and navy blue swim trunks, sneakers with no laces or socks. I saw the skin of his right ankle as he pedaled and had a sudden urge to lick it.
“Hey,” he said, braking to a halt in front of me. “You came.”
“Why wouldn’t I come?”
Camden stared blankly for a second, then laughed. “I don’t know why I just said that.”
Before I could respond, Max’s SUV pulled up. Eliza waved from the passenger window, then jumped down from the car.
“You came,” she said.
“Why wouldn’t she come?” asked Camden.
When Max appeared from his side of the SUV, I held out the paper bag with the yarn in it. “I come bearing the makings of a Bramscarf.”
Eliza squealed and snatched the bag from me, peeked inside.
“Perfection!” she proclaimed.
“It’s not quite the color of the swatch you gave me. It’s actually a little darker, but more accurate.”
She looked up at me, her eyes wide and serious. “You’re good. You’re good at this.”
“I’m good at Silver Arrow.”
Max turned to Camden and said, “She’s going to guess it right away.”
“Shhh,” snapped Camden. “I want it to be a surprise.”
“You want what to be a surprise?” I asked.
“The surprise,” he said, smiling with delicious mischief. I could taste it even from where I stood.
He gestured for us to walk toward the Crapper, where he paid for my admission. Julian was there again, and it was fun to watch the slow dawning of his expression as he realized I was with Those Dashwood Kids. I followed them toward the beach, but before they got to the spot where the trees stopped and the sand started, they suddenly veered to the left, toward the entrance to that trail I knew led into the woods.
“We’re not going to the lake,” I said stupidly.
“No,” said Camden, hanging back so Eliza and Max could walk in front of us. “We’re going to the surprise.”
Camden let me go first as I stepped onto the trail, almost a tunnel with its canopy of branches arced above our heads. We walked for a minute in silence, and I thought of all the times I’d watched him and Eliza and Max disappear into these woods. How I’d wondered what they did there, and how the wondering itself burned up inside me. Was this going to be about drinking or smoking something? Whatever they offered me, I wouldn’t take it. Was there a way to explain why, without ruining everything?
Ahead of us, Max slid his hand into Eliza’s.
“There’s dog hair on your sleeve,” he said to her.
She reached down and pulled something off herself, flicked it away. “Sorry. I thought I’d thoroughly de-furred.” Then she glanced over her shoulder at me and said, “My pet-sitting business and Max’s allergies make us a little like Romeo and Juliet, don’t you think? But I can’t give it up. Cosplay is not a cheap hobby, and you can only get so much raw material from dumpsters.”
“You’re star-crossed,” I said.
She smiled a smile that showed her teeth before turning back around. Did that mean she liked me? Did that mean it mattered?
“What about you, Max?” I asked, suddenly wanting more of all of them and not just Camden. “Are you working this summer?”
“I’m helping my dad at his computer programming firm. I’d explain exactly what I do there, but it’s so boring, you might nod off and fall and injure yourself.”
“Thanks for the safety considerations,” I said with a laugh.
“You wouldn’t know it to look at him,” said Camden, “but Max is a coding genius.”
Eliza glanced back proudly at Camden. “And Camden’s volunteering with the youth hotline at Family Services. He wants to save the world.”
“I don’t need to save the world . . . ,” said Camden softly, shyly. “But maybe one or two people would be cool.”