“I’m pleased that Elliot is keeping up the hedges so nicely,” Mama says, eyeing the lines approvingly. “The flower bed is satisfactorily weeded, too.”
“He’s certainly very lucky he had you to train him in the fine art of lawn care,” I say, climbing the stairs up onto the porch. “He would have been lost without you.”
Mama preens as she steps up next to me, her chin lifting like a queen’s as she turns to fully survey the landscape. “Too true, sweetheart. He was a clueless city slicker when he got here. Forgot his own roots, that one did. But now almost a year in, and I think he’s rediscovered that Green Woods boy buried deep down inside.”
“I can hear you, you know,” Elliot says, tugging the screen door open to welcome us in. “But I’ll choose to remember the compliment, and not the ‘clueless city slicker’ bit.”
“Good,” Mama says, clapping a firm hand on his shoulder. “Now, let’s talk about your grilling technique, shall we?”
Elliot rolls his eyes, but he smiles at me as he turns to follow Mama inside.
Mimmy heads straight to the kitchen with her three-tiered pineapple cake, and I hear Joanie greet her, exclaiming about the cake’s beauty, Mimmy humbly insisting it’s nothing special—she was too busy dealing with Mama’s tears to frost it as intricately as she would have liked. And then Joanie starts in on some story about her shift at the studio yesterday, where she’s working part-time at the counter while she trains to be a yoga teacher. She likes to say that yoga is saving her mind, and her marriage. Yoga, and long walks in the woods. She’s a country convert, too, even if she refuses to admit that much out loud.
I take a moment to admire the polished banisters, the vines and leaves springing to life as they wind up alongside the staircase. The carved wood will always be my favorite part of this house. I start toward the kitchen to drop off the tin of lemon drop cookies when I hear a creaking floorboard behind me.
“I spent some time working on my woodblock this morning,” Max says, and I turn to find him standing in the doorway to the living room. “I’m nowhere near my grandfather’s level, but I can almost tell what I carved is a flower.”
Marlow pushes him aside from behind and beams at me. “Almost is right. I guessed he was carving a booger.” She shrugs. “Sorry, bro. Keep working at it, though. Maybe you won’t suck as much by the end of the summer.” She walks up to me with her arms out for a hug, but she stops in her tracks when she sees the tin. “Lemon drop?”
I nod.
She grabs the tin from my hands. “Margo made these for me, thank you very much. I made a special request. I’ll be taking them before Max inhales them all.” She dashes up the stairs, presumably to hide them in her room.
Max watches her go, shaking his head. “Wow. I’m the one who graduated today, but I don’t get a single cookie? How fair is that?”
“Don’t worry. Mimmy made the pineapple cake you requested. Personally, I voted for something s’more themed to kick off the summer, but oh no. You had apparently told her how much you were craving her pineapple cake. So pineapple cake it is! How’s that for fair, hmm?”
He laughs. “Sorry, but not sorry. I’ve been dreaming about eating that cake again ever since my birthday.”
“She’ll probably let you pick the flavor for my birthday cake next month, too. I’ve already had eighteen years of her cakes, she says. You and Marlow get to have your say now.”
He comes up to me for a hug, patting my back consolingly. “Thank goodness I’m going to Penn State, too, so she can streamline her dessert drop-offs in the fall. Is that why you decided to go there? Scared you wouldn’t get as many treats if we split off?”
“Excuse me, no. I decided first. And it’s because they have a good Environmental Science program. You could be studying art anywhere.”
“Digital Arts and Media Design, thank you. Art, but ‘practical art.’” He lifts his hands to air quote. “Got to keep Mom happy.”
“Mm-hmm.” I fake a pout like I’m sad about it. But I was nothing but relieved when Max made the decision this spring. With Noah heading up to Berklee and Ginger to Vassar, I’m glad I’ll have a friend on the same campus. And I’m glad that friend is Max.
We start walking toward the sunroom—once again an actual room, a fully enclosed glassed-in space with a freshly tiled floor. It’s the most impressive transformation of all.
“Are Ginger and Vivi still coming over for a bonfire later?” he asks, flopping down on one of the two new plush sunny-yellow chaises.
“Yep.” I drop down onto the other chaise and sigh with contentment as I sink into the cushions. It’s infinitely more comfortable than their sleek city-chic sofa. “And Noah said he might pop by with Penelope.” Penelope Park. It’s new—Ginger’s brainchild, actually, a surprise twist to senior year—but Noah seems happy. And that makes me happy, too.
“Cool. Our first fire of the summer. We’ll have to do it every night to make the most of these last months.”
“Are you sure you want to see me that much? I don’t want you to get sick of me and then avoid me at college. I need you. You know I suck at making new friends.”
“Maybe not every night then,” he says, smirking. “But you don’t suck at making friends. Aren’t I proof of that?”
“You don’t count. Maybe we only clicked because—oh, you know—we share half our DNA. So that was an unfair advantage.”
“Hm. True. So maybe you do suck at making friends then? I guess we’ll see this
