“God. No, Ginger. No juicy murder updates for you. I should never have told you that Max was a Jackson. You’re too obsessed with that house. It’s unhealthy.” I splash her from the other side of the green turtle-shaped pool. Even that takes too much effort in this heat. I say it every year, but this time it feels especially true: it’s the hottest summer yet. Even Mama was looking at air conditioner sales the other day. Global warming might undo her resolve after all.
“I just can’t believe you’ve been friends with Max for what, almost three weeks, and even now that you know he’s an actual Jackson, you still don’t have any more intel on whether or not there was a murder in that house. We’ve been wondering about that place for most of our lives and the answer is right at your fingertips.”
“Maybe Max doesn’t even know. It’s not like he and his dad communicate much. He doesn’t seem like he’d be super-interested in learning about the Jackson family tree.”
“But everyone knows at least something about their grandparents, right?”
“Maybe it was his grandparents’ parents, or it happened before they lived there. Or, here’s a wild and crazy idea—maybe it’s all just Green Woods gossip. Maybe it never happened at all.”
“No way. I believe this one.” She sucks down the last bit of her ice pop and drops the stick into the grass behind her. “When do I get an invite over there? I want to sense it for myself. I did see that ghost when your moms took us to Salem—Mimmy’s birthday trip that I got to crash. We did that haunted walking tour through the cemetery, remember?”
“Okay, yes. I do remember that there was a white fuzzy spot on the corner of your photo that could easily have been your thumb. I told you that then, too.”
She slides her sunglasses down her nose to glare at me. “You were just as spooked as I was. You can’t revise history now.”
It had been a very old, unsettling cemetery. Lots of cracked and crumbling tombstones. But we were also twelve. And had stayed up until midnight the night before reading a Salem ghost book we’d bought from a gift shop. “Well, either way, it’s Max’s private family business. I’m not prying.”
“But you’re his friend. Seemingly his best friend. It’s your right and privilege to pry.”
“He’s my friend, yes, but he’s also my neighbor. Maybe he spends so much time with me because it’s convenient. Who knows what’ll happen in the fall when he has his whole pick of Green Woods kids. Everyone’s going to be hungry for the artsy new boy.” I hadn’t thought about that until now.
“Please.” She waves me away, drops of warm water flicking across the pool. “Neither of us believes that. Let’s be real, it’s just the two of us right now because he’s running errands with his mom.”
I open my mouth to deny it—he is out with his mom, but only because I’d told him I was having quality Ginger time this afternoon. I stop, though, when I notice a dangerously bright smile spreading across her pretty pink lips.
“Let’s ask if we can hang out at his house tonight,” she says. “So I can see it for myself.”
“No thank you. We hardly ever spend time there.”
“All the more reason! Doesn’t his mom want to meet his other friends? Or does she only care about you because you’re the special friend?” She punctuates the question with an irritating wink.
“I am not his special—”
“Just ask. If he says no, he says no. I’ll respect that.”
“Why can’t we all just hang out here? We’ll make s’mores. With peanut butter. What else do you want to eat? I’ll bribe you with delicious food.”
She wraps her legs around mine, pulling herself in closer. “Come on, Calliope. Please. We’ve obsessed over that house for years. I just want to take a teeny peek inside. That’s all. It’s either this way, or we break in sometime when they’re all out.” She grins and wiggles her eyebrows, her face so close to mine our noses are practically bumping.
I pull away from her, resting my elbows on the grass behind me. Stare up at the cloudless sky.
“I’ll be polite,” she says. “On my best behavior. Scout’s honor.”
“No. And you quit Girl Scouts and left me all alone after two weeks of being a Daisy.”
“You like to say we’re all friends—that it’s not you and Max. This would be a good chance for some group bonding. I’ll convince Noah to come, too. He’s been pathetically mopey lately. Not that you would know.”
A dig. It’s not that I haven’t invited him to come over here. I have. He’s been the “busy” one. Weekdays at Wawa, Saturdays at his cello lesson, practicing—it would seem—every other hour he’s not sleeping or eating. I miss him. I miss the three of us. But still, “No.”
Ginger laughs, too sweetly. “Maybe I forgot to mention it… I asked Max for some photos he took on the Fourth. I have his number, too.”
Ginger races past me and Noah and up the porch steps—nearly wiping out on the second one—and knocks on the front door. Very enthusiastically.
I catch up with her and grab her hand, lean in to whisper: “Remember, best behavior. You promised. If the stories are true, they are about real people. Max’s family.”
“You do realize I’m not an actual monster,” she whispers back huffily. Because she’s out of breath or offended, it’s hard to say.
I’m still surprised Max agreed to this plan. And even more surprised that Noah did, too. Ginger has a knack for getting her way. That’s one thing I’ve learned many times over in the last seventeen years.
The door swings open, and Max is there. Smiling, but with a nervous edge that’s not normally on his face.
“Hey,” he says, nodding at me before he steps back to let us
