at eight, then Lucy Tate’s place afterward, but only if we bring our own beer and don’t criticize her music.”
“Since when do we have conditions?” April said. “I’d rather hang out on the dock and do what I want.”
“It’s high season,” Roo told her. “Docks are out until August.”
“Oh, right. Stupid tourists,” she grumbled.
“What’s the plan?” Bailey called out from the other side of the raft.
“Don’t tell her,” April said. “She’ll just invite all the golf shirts.”
“Godfrey’s, then Lucy Tate’s,” Vincent yelled back anyway.
This seemed to be a signal that things were finalized, as everyone began saying their goodbyes and splitting off to their respective boats. Within minutes, the hum of engines filled the air and I was one of the only ones left, along with April and Vincent, with Roo alongside us behind his own wheel, motor idling.
“Let’s get,” Vincent told April. He looked at me. “You need a ride back to Mimi’s?”
I looked over at Jack, who was still sitting on one of those red benches, Taylor standing in front of him. She’d been talking this entire time, and didn’t seem to have any plans to stop soon. Meanwhile, Bailey had jumped in with the guy in the golf shirt and was already puttering away toward shore.
“I don’t know,” I said, looking at Jack. I still felt like a burden, this time to people I wasn’t even related to. “Maybe I should wait for—”
“I wouldn’t,” April said flatly. “No telling how long they’ll be talking. They are always talking.”
“Right,” I said. “Well …”
“I’ll take you, Saylor,” Roo said. When I looked at him, he added quickly, “I mean, Emma. It’s on my way.”
“Great,” Vincent said as April hopped into a nearby small skiff, settling in the stern with the outboard motor there. He untied it, then joined her, his weight wobbling it from side to side. “See you at Godfrey’s.”
Then they, too, were gone, calling out goodbyes to Jack and Taylor as they passed. She was still talking; only he lifted a hand, waving back.
I looked at Roo, who pulled on a faded blue T-shirt before putting his boat into gear. Before, with Jack, I’d waited for permission to get in, which was the wrong thing to do. Then again, I didn’t want to just go for it and risk a repeat of my earlier experience boarding. How could a single step from one floating object to another be so difficult?
I was beginning to sink into an indecisive spiral when he backed the boat up right next to where I was standing, then used one hand to pull it up to the raft’s edge, making it an easy step in to take a seat beside him. Easy was good. Easy, I could take. So I did.
Once we got home, dinner was served.
“All I am saying,” Celeste said as she picked up her burger, “is that I want you to be careful.”
“Mom,” Bailey replied. “You don’t have to give me this same lecture every summer.”
“Apparently, I do. Because you’re already hanging out with yacht club boys.”
“They’re not all alike, you know.”
“They’re alike enough,” Celeste told her. Mimi, at the head of the table, shot her a look over the bowl of potato salad between them. “What? You know what I’m worried about. I mean, we all know what happened when Waver—”
There was the sound of a thump under the table, and Celeste winced. The sudden silence that followed was awkward, not only for the kick Mimi had just given her, but the fact that we all knew it was to protect my feelings.
This was actually the second time my mom had come up since I’d left the raft. The first had been when I was riding back with Roo. Unlike when I’d gone out with Jack, we were side by side. So I was able to get quick glimpses of him, taking in the way his white-blond hair stuck up a bit in the back, the tattoo on one calf that was a series of numbers, and the way that he waved at every boat we passed, flashing a big grin. For all my own glances, he wasn’t looking at me at all, instead squinting ahead, the back of his T-shirt rippling in the strong wind coming off the water. When he finally spoke, it took me by surprise.
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
Even though it had been five years and some days, I worried I’d moved on too much. And then there were times like this, when just a mention of her gave me a pinch in my heart. “Thanks,” I said. “I miss her.”
Now he did look at me: I could see it out of the corner of my eye, even as I watched Mimi’s dock—marked with a sign that said FOR USE BY CALVANDER’S GUESTS ONLY—approach. “She and my dad were friends in high school. Chris Price.”
I nodded, as if I’d heard this name, even though I hadn’t. “He still lives here?”
He looked at me for a second. “No, not anymore. I live with my mom.” He pointed to a line of houses down the shore from Mimi’s, each painted a different bright color—yellow, blue, pink, red, and green—and trimmed with white. “Ours is the green one.”
“Who has the pink?”
“Renters, usually,” he said. “Season just started, though.”
“How many people live here year-round?” I asked.
He was slowing the engine now. “More than you’d think. A lot, like Celeste, have houses they rent out for summer.”
“I thought she lived with Mimi,” I said.
“Only from June to August,” he replied. “The rest of the time they have a place up by Blackwood Station, right on the water.”
“Blackwood Station,” I said. “I feel like I’ve heard of that.”
“You probably have. It’s the only boatyard in town. Plus, the arcade is right there, and the public beach.”
I looked in that direction, getting my bearings, then back up at Mimi’s house, now right in front of us. As I did, I saw Celeste, standing in the grass, one hand shading her eyes as she looked out at us. I couldn’t make out her expression.
“And Celeste is a Blackwood, right?” I asked.
“She was. Her ex-husband, Silas, runs the boatyard and gas station. Been in his family for generations.”
Now I had something else to add to my family tree. “But you’re not a Blackwood or Calvander,” I said, clarifying.
“Nope.” He cut the engine, letting us drift up to the dock. “Silas, Celeste, my dad, my mom, and yours all went to high school together. There’s only one, the same one we all go to now.”
I tried to picture my own parents at my school, Jackson High, walking the same halls I did with Ryan and Bridget. I couldn’t. Nana Payne and my dad lived in Massachusetts when he was in
