“You smell like summer,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder. “I wish it was still summer.”
I turned and sniffed my cardigan. Though I’d had it dry-cleaned right before school started, it already reeked of tangy chlorine, so I peeled it off and tied it around my waist. Coach Fallon never sent us to the locker room with enough time to shower. He’d rather us suffer one more lap of butterfly than have thirty seconds to shampoo. Autumn was so lucky that she hurt her shoulder a few years back and had a doctor’s note to keep her out of the pool. “Hey,” I said. “Could you give me a French braid when we get to class?” I hated the way it dried after swim class, in dull matted clumps.
Autumn’s shoulder-length hair was twisted into two perfectly symmetrical blond sections. She could make it that good without a mirror. “Here,” she said, pulling off my tortoiseshell headband before dropping a step behind me. “I’ll do it now.”
That’s how we walked through the freshman hallway, me leading Autumn by my hair, like we were elephants. I kept my head down and asked her questions from my Western Philosophy notes while she went to work, my scalp tightening with every weave. Our first quiz was in five minutes. We’d studied on the phone together the night before, so it was really more of a review, but Autumn had still gotten a few easy ones wrong.
“I can’t believe it.” Autumn stopped walking, only I didn’t realize it until my head snapped back. She sighed and asked, “Were we ever that young?”
I could tell that Autumn was trying to soak up all the excitement and possibility exuding from the freshmen mulling around us. She was completely charmed by their goofiness, bad skin, and awkward roughhousing. She smiled so wide, the skin around her blue eyes wrinkled.
I smiled, too. Except I wasn’t thinking back so much as trying to hold on to every minute of senior year. If our dream colleges accepted us, Autumn and I would be living on opposite sides of the country in eleven months. The realist in me had to accept that things wouldn’t be the same . . . or at least, not nearly as good as how we had it right now. Autumn would make new friends. Hopefully, I would, too. But it wasn’t a prospect I was particularly excited about.
“Oh, jeez,” she whispered. “Natalie! Look!”
Autumn nudged her chin toward a curvy girl with black corkscrew curls. The girl was kneeling on the floor, reaching deep into a messy locker for her books. Her pleated uniform skirt tipped forward like a ringing church bell. A small triangle of lavender mesh barely shielded her rear from the entire hallway.
Though it wasn’t actually written anywhere in the Ross Academy Handbook, it still seemed like every girl at school knew enough to wear something unrevealing underneath her uniform skirt. Spandex shorts, boxers, leggings, or at the very least, a pair of hipster underwear. Every girl but this poor, clueless freshman.
I debated whether or not to say something. But only for a second, because if I had a piece of spinach in my teeth, or if my zipper was down, I’d rather be told than make a complete fool of myself. Embarrassing moments had a surprisingly long shelf life at our school. One minute you were a normal girl, and the next, you’d be known as Ass Flasher for the next four years. It seemed only right to intervene.
I handed my notebook to Autumn. “Reread my notes on the Socratic method. I’ll be right back.” I bounded across the hallway, my braid unraveling with every step.
A couple of freshman boys had taken notice of the free show and were panting at this girl’s butt. I stared them down and positioned myself to block their view.
“Hey,” I said to the girl. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
She stared up at me from the floor, her tan face appearing slightly lighter around her eyes, probably from lying out with an oversize pair of sunglasses. “Um. Sure.” Her voice was both friendly and suspicious.
“I’m Natalie Sterling,” I said, feeling like I probably should introduce myself. “What’s your name?”
She blinked a few times and then stood up. Which, to my great relief, solved the immediate problem of her unfortunate underwear choice. “Hold on — you’re Natalie Sterling?”
“Um. Yes,” I said. And suddenly I turned into the suspicious one.
Her brown eyes were big and expectant, glittering like the eye shadow dusting her lids. She waited, and not exactly patiently, for me to recognize her. “You don’t know who I am, do you?” She didn’t sound angry. If anything, she seemed tickled.
My mind cycled through the faces at my SAT summer prep course. But this girl was clearly a freshman, so that didn’t make sense. I shrugged apologetically. “Are you sure you don’t have me confused with someone else?”
“Okay.” She closed her eyes and shook her head back and forth a few times, really fast. “I can’t believe I’m about to do this.” And then, after a deep breath, she danced a jig, right there in front of her locker.
Her toned legs kicked and sliced the air like scissors, and her flats hit the linoleum floor in loud slaps that made everyone take notice. My own deficiency in dance kept me from knowing if she was good or just trying hard. Either way, she bounced with such fervor that her curls boinged like a thousand tiny springs. After a final twirl, which honestly couldn’t have come quickly enough, she threw out her hands and exclaimed “River Dance!” Except she said it with a terrible Irish brogue, and it sounded more like Reevah Daaaanse!
That’s when it hit me.
“Spencer Biddle?” The eight-year-old girl I’d babysat for an entire summer when I turned twelve? Spencer Biddle, who wouldn’t use the upstairs bathroom without someone standing outside the door, who would eat macaroni and cheese only if the cheese were orange, who put on elaborate Irish step-dancing shows in her living room?
Her chest heaved as she caught her breath. “I’m honestly relieved you didn’t recognize me. It’s been like . . . what? Almost six years? I’d better look completely different.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, squinting past her makeup and imagining her shiny curls uncoiling to a frizzy and unkempt little girl fro. “You definitely do.”
Spencer pushed some wet hair off my shoulder. “I hardly recognized you, either. I mean, look at how grown up and beautiful you are!” It was a weird compliment, like something my Aunt Doreen or Grammy would say. Not someone three years younger than me. “Seriously, Natalie?” she continued. “You were the nicest babysitter I ever had. I remember one time when you threatened to make Eddie Guavera eat rocks when he peed on the flowers we’d just planted around the mailbox.”
I winced. “Did I really?”
Spencer laughed the same way she used to — quiet puffs of air that pulsed out of her nose, rapid-fire. “All the neighbor boys were afraid of you. It was so awesome!”
“Didn’t your family move to St. Louis?”
“Yeah. When my mom got remarried. But she divorced my stepdad, so we came back this summer.” I nodded, even though it felt weird to be discussing things like divorce with Spencer. I was pretty sure that our last conversation involved me trying to convince her that Lucky Charms would make a terrible pizza topping. “We’re renting an apartment across Liberty River. It’s not bad, actually. My room has these big mirrored closet doors where I can practice my routines.”
“You’d
