She handed me a tissue, and I wiped my nose.
“Have you talked to your mother about all this?”
I shook my head again. “She’s too busy. Besides,” I added bitterly, “she didn’t even want me around this summer, remember?”
“Truly!” My aunt gave me a reproachful look. “Your mother is never too busy for you, and you know it. And as for not wanting you around, don’t you think maybe you’re being just a little bit unfair? Try and think about things from someone else’s perspective for a moment. It wasn’t just your father’s arm that was shattered in Afghanistan. Many of your parents’ hopes and dreams and plans for the future were shattered too. And with your father struggling to recover, your mother had to completely reorient her life to help support him. Now, just like him, she’s trying to build a future she didn’t expect either.”
“I know, but—”
Aunt True held up her hand. “There are no buts,” she told me firmly. “This is one time in your life when you have to be completely unselfish. Your parents had the rare opportunity to spend a few short days together this summer all by themselves, and they took it. Can you really blame them?”
I stared at the floor. Memphis was sitting on the carpet, swishing his tail back and forth. Without warning, he coughed up a hairball, then glared at me like it was my fault. Great, I thought. Even the cat was judging me.
“It’s not like your parents abandoned you by the side of the road!” my aunt continued, grabbing a paper towel and calmly cleaning up the mess. “You got to go to—”
“Mermaid camp?” I gave a short laugh.
“Come on, you know you had fun. I have the pictures to prove it! You were having a blast out there in the pool in that tail thing—at least before the wardrobe malfunction.” She started to chuckle. I glared at her, but pretty soon we both were laughing.
“The look on that girl’s face when your tail hit the water!” Aunt True gasped, struggling to catch her breath.
That set us off again. When we were finally able to compose ourselves, my aunt gave me another hug. “Better?”
I nodded.
“Good.” She chucked me under the chin. “Now get back out there and be the tall timber that you and I both know you are. And as for the fake kiss, that’s all it is—fake. Trust me, as a former member of the West Hartfield High School Thespian Club, I know! I’ve had my fair share of stage kisses, and they’re nothing like the real thing.”
Easy for her to say, I thought as I started for home. I hadn’t had the real thing yet. And at this rate, it was entirely possible that I never would.
CHAPTER 29
Back home, I had just passed the portrait of my namesake on the stairs when my cell phone buzzed. It was Mackenzie.
GOT TIME TO VIDEO CHAT?
I texted back a thumbs-up and sprinted the rest of the way to my bedroom, shutting the door behind me. A moment later, her face appeared on my cell phone screen.
“Hey!” she said.
“Hey yourself! I thought you were on the way to Yellowstone with your parents?”
My cousin shook her head. “We don’t leave until tomorrow morning. How’s it going?”
I filled her in on everything that had happened since she left. Like me, she let out a screech when she heard about Amanda Appleton’s upcoming appearance at Lovejoy Books, and another when I told her about our encounters at the General Store and the library. She also wanted to know if we’d found the silver pumpkin trophy yet.
“No, but we have five suspects. I still think it’s the Grateful Dead guy, but the guys think maybe it was the teenagers.” I explained about how our friends had been taking the crowdsourced photos around town. “They were at Lou’s this morning during Romeo hour, and one of the men was almost certain he’d seen the two teenagers before.”
In Pumpkin Falls, “Romeo hour” had nothing to do with Calhoun and everything to do with what Reverend Quinn had dubbed the “Retired Old Men Eating Out” club. A couple of times a week, the Romeos arrived early at Lou’s and lingered over coffee and breakfast.
When I told Mackenzie about the kiss at the end of The Pirates of Penzance, I had a hard time not bursting into tears again.
She was quiet for a moment. “Ouch,” she said. “I get how tough that is. But you know, Truly, there’s a simple solution to your problem.”
I looked at her in surprise. “There is?”
“Sure. You kiss Calhoun first!”
My mouth dropped open. “But—”
“But what? Why not?” She gave me a sly smile. “That’s what I did with Cameron, you know.”
“Mr. Perfect?”
“Don’t call him that.”
“You never told me that’s what happened!”
“You never asked! I could tell he was working up the courage, and I beat him to the punch, that’s all. Maybe it’s the same with Calhoun.”
Was it possible she was right?
We chatted for a while longer, then I told her I hoped she’d have fun at Yellowstone and we said good night. As I was getting ready for bed, my cell phone buzzed again. This time it was Jasmine.
YOU GUYS WANT TO EXPLORE CHERRY ISLAND TOMORROW?
My cell phone buzzed like crazy as her question brought a series of enthusiastic texts from the other Pumpkin Falls Private Eyes.
DON’T KNOW IF I CAN SNEAK AWAY, I replied cautiously. I’LL TRY.
I gave it my best shot the following morning at the bookstore.
“Um, the books that Mom ordered for Lauren and Pippa just came in,” I told my father a few minutes after I showed up for my shift. “Is it okay if I ride my bike out to camp and deliver them?” I quickly added, “Sir?”
“Nice try,” he said calmly, not even
