Brooks glanced over his shoulder and then back to me. “You sure you’re good?”
“You mean aside from the poor clothing and footwear decisions I made this morning?”
His eyes lit up. “See you around.” He started walking, then turned, moving backward for a moment, his magic smile on, reminding me of the very first time we met. “Write some more awesome lyrics for me, will you?”
“Only if you screen all my future phone calls.”
He laughed and disappeared around the cabin. I sighed and stared at the phone that I hadn’t known existed before today. I wished I still didn’t know.
“Hey, Maricela!” My original plan today had been to work more on the “Try New Things!” schedule, but after the failed phone call that morning, I felt emotionally drained. I decided the correct alternative was to float on the lake for hours. It was the right choice. The vitamin D and rocking motion of the lake had left me with a serotonin buzz.
“Avery! Hey! Cute suit.”
I was wearing a floral one-piece, the straps ruffled. “Thanks.”
“Walk with me? I’m heading to my cabin to get out of this.” She pointed to her red lifeguard suit.
“Sure.” I changed direction. “How was work?”
“You don’t want to know. Some kid vomited in the pool today and I had to evacuate everyone.”
“I’d think people would willingly evacuate a vomit pool,” I said.
“It was like herding chickens. And have you ever tried cleaning up vomit with a pool net?”
“No, and I hope I never have to.”
“Yeah, I’ll have nightmares about it.” Maricela stopped at the fifth cabin and pulled out a set of keys. Before she inserted the key into the lock, she knocked on the door. “I’m coming in. Hope you’re not naked!” She swung open the door to an empty cabin. It was just one big room. Three twin-sized beds lined one wall and a dresser and changing screen were on the other, plus two suitcases, overflowing with clothes.
“You have roommates?”
“Just one this year. You want to move in?” She pointed at the far bed that obviously hadn’t been slept on but had become another dresser of sorts—piled with clothes.
“Sure, but will I have to clean up vomit?”
“Yes, number one requirement.” She collected a pair of shorts and a tee off the foot of one of the beds, then pulled out some underclothes from the top drawer of the dresser. She ducked behind the screen.
As I stood there in silence for several moments, I suddenly wondered if Brooks had told her about the embarrassing breakdown I’d had that morning. Was he the type to talk? I really didn’t want her to ask me about it.
“So?” she said after a few more quiet moments, still behind the screen.
I sat on the end of her bed. “Yes?”
She stepped out, dressed, then retrieved a tube of lip gloss off her dresser and applied it. She took out her ponytail and finger-combed her hair. “How do I look?”
“Amazing.” She really did. Her natural curls were full of body and her emerald-green T-shirt looked great against her skin. “Are you trying to impress someone? Aside from me, of course?”
I asked it as a joke, but the way her smile slipped off her face before reappearing again let me know I’d guessed right. “Who?” I asked.
Her eyes shot toward the door, then back to me. “Shhh.”
I looked around. “Nobody is here.”
“I know, but I swear this place has ears everywhere.”
“Someone off-limits, then? A coworker?”
She smiled. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“You haven’t told me anything.”
“I know, and I can’t. It’s still super new. After summer is over, I’ll tell you everything.”
“That’s torture,” I said. “But I get it.”
She picked up her wet swimsuit from the floor behind the screen and hung it on a hook by the door. Then she stretched her arms above her head. “Do you have dinner plans or do you want to see if the campfire is happening again tonight?”
“Is it already dinnertime?” I’d stayed out at the lake longer than I thought.
“Yes.”
I snapped the strap of my swimsuit. “Let me go change. Can I meet you up there in like thirty?”
“For sure.”
I opened the door of our cabin to yelling.
“I said I’m not hungry!” Lauren called from what I assumed was our bedroom.
“Then just get something small,” Mom said, swiping her key from the counter and sticking it into the pocket of her jacket.
“Just bring me back something if you’re worried about it!”
Dad, sitting on the couch and tying his shoes, called, “Lauren, don’t talk to your mom like that!”
“I wasn’t trying to be rude! I was being serious!” she called.
Mom scoffed.
“Hey,” I said from the doorway, where nobody had noticed me yet.
“Oh, hi, Avery,” Dad said. “You ready for dinner?”
I looked from Mom, who seemed tired, to Dad, who was obviously frustrated. “Yep,” I said.
His face relaxed. “We’ve missed your go-with-the-flow energy today.”
I took a deep breath, trying to decide how to respond to that, when Lauren yelled, “Bring me back one of those garlic knot things!”
I sighed. “Let me go change.”
When I got to our bedroom, I shut the door. Lauren was sitting on her bed, laptop on her knees.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Nothing. I don’t want to go to dinner. I’m working on editing Kai’s interview from the other night.” As she said it, her smile widened. She turned the computer toward me, where a close-up of Kai’s smiling face filled the whole screen. “Here’s my star.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty charismatic,” I said. “But would it hurt to take a break and go to dinner?”
“Yes, it very well might.”
“It would make the parents happy.”
“That’s your game, Avery. You do things to make people happy,” she said, as if making people happy was a bad thing. “Maybe you should add start saying how you really feel to your list of new things to try.”
“Thanks.”
