He looks like he wants to ask why, but doesn’t.
“Just sit there and listen,” I say. “Breathe.”
I close my eyes, too, even though I know all the sounds and smells as well as I know my own fingers and toes: the soft rumble of the creek that coils behind our meadow of a yard, the buzz of cicadas and grasshoppers and the sea of other insects that come to life every summer, the heady scents of damp soil and wildflowers and freshly cut grass.
“I bet you didn’t have all this in Philly, did you?”
“Nope.” He sighs. “Definitely not.”
I sneak a peek through lowered lids. He’s leaning back in the chair with his eyes still closed, arms spread open. Like he is drawing it all in, this day, this porch, these woods.
Our old landline phone rings from inside, and his eyes flip open. He looks around, like maybe he’s in a dream. But then his gaze falls on me, and he blinks again, like worlds have clicked back into place.
I let the call go to voice mail. Only robots call that number these days.
“I actually came over here for sugar,” he says, laughing. “Which sounds like a bad line from an old TV show. But my mom and I found everything for coffee this morning except the sugar, and there’s no way I’m drinking that stuff unsweetened. Dad’s got the car for a Philly trip today and I have no clue what direction the store is in or if I can even get there on foot. I won’t talk down on your town—our town, wow—anymore, but… there’s something to be said for having three bodegas within a block of your home. I’ll leave it at that.”
“It’s nice to have trees on every side of your house, too. And no people. Except for neighbors that are a five-minute walk away.”
“I guess we’ll see about that.”
“Uh-huh. And I hate to say it… but you walked in the wrong direction. My moms refuse to keep white sugar in the house. The devil’s drug, as they say. We mostly use stevia, and sometimes agave or honey or maple syrup. I could pour some stevia into a cup for you if you want?”
His mouth drops open in disbelief. “So you’re telling me… if I’d gone five minutes the other way I’d be walking home with bags of deathly but delicious sugar right now?”
“Actually, no. That’s an old Boy Scout camp that no one uses anymore. If there’s sugar there, you wouldn’t want to use it. Maybe ten minutes north through the woods. I think you’d hit the Coopers’ house then. And they are the jackpot because Mrs. Cooper runs the school’s biannual bake sale. She’s fully loaded, I’m sure.”
“Do you have a compass on you?”
“Nope. I usually just lick my finger and see where the wind’s blowing.”
“Whoa. Really?”
“No, not really. That was a joke. But I can use the sun and the moon and the stars. Plus, I’ve lived here for seventeen years. I’ve walked through the woods once or twice.”
“Are you saying you want to be my escort?” The really good smile is back.
“No thanks, but I can point you in the right direction so you have at least a fifty percent chance of making it there on your own.”
“You have better things to be doing then?”
I don’t. I’m working at Hot Mama Flow this summer—odd hours here and there at the front desk, whenever the moms need me to fill in gaps for their regular employees—but not today. Mimmy and Mama are both at the studio now, as they are most days, rotating with the rest of their staff between teaching, training, desk work, cleaning.
My only plan for today was to read on the porch for as long as I could bear it, then call my best friends, Ginger and Noah, to see if they want to come sweat here with me. Fill up the new inflatable turtle kiddie pool in the backyard with ice water and eat Mimmy’s homemade strawberry basil ice pops, while we complain about having nothing to do all summer except work and sit in my yard eating ice pops. The same thing we did last year, and the year before that, and so forth, only with a pool this time. One of my better ideas, I’d say, bringing back the kiddie pool for the first time in a decade. We spend most of our time together at my house in “the country”—their term, as if living in Green Woods proper with a few streetlights and sidewalks somehow makes them actually urban.
“Maybe not, but I’d rather do nothing on this hot porch than trek through hot woods with a stranger.”
“Well, we’re not technically strangers anymore. We’re neighbors and potential new best friends. Besides, those woods look pretty thick and shady if you ask me. I bet it’s much cooler in there. And filled with all sorts of weird bugs and animals that a city slicker like me can’t deal with alone.”
“Bad news. I’ve had the same two best friends since I was out of the womb. Ginger and Noah. That’s how it works in Green Woods. Total cliché story, too, our moms all meeting at Lamaze class. We were destined prebirth.”
“Huh.” He pauses, his face suddenly serious. “Well, looks like you and Ginger and Noah might just find yourselves in a quartet now.”
Before I have time to respond, his pocket starts blaring music.
“Ghostbusters theme?”
“You got it,” he says, grinning as he slides his phone out. “Hey, Mom!”
I pretend to go back to Sense and Sensibility, but I don’t read a word. I’m watching Max over the edges of the book. Watching that grin fade,
