“Whatever the reason, it was nice to have company.”
I push my hands through my wet hair. I like joking with her—she seems to welcome levity—but I have to ask: “What was going on with those guys?”
“Nothing. It’s inconsequential.”
Didn’t seem inconsequential. She kept her cool, but there was frustration in the set of her shoulders, embarrassment in the flush that scaled her neck. Pushing her to explain seems like undercutting her agency, though. I refuse to be anything like that dick at Blitz Brews.
I try for a different kind of backstory. “What about your family? Do I get to hear about them?”
“Probably not.”
“I told you about my whackadoodle dad.”
A corner of her mouth lifts. “Whackadoodle?”
I nod. “An adjective I borrowed from my mom. It meansdownright batshit, but amusingly so. You can find it in the dictionary alongside a picture of Davis Walker.”
She laughs, leaning back to dip her hair into the water, smoothing it as she straightens again. She’s taken out the pearl earrings she was wearing the other night, but the trail of hoops remains.
“You want to hear about my family, Henry Walker?” She gazes up at the dark sky, like she’s deciding whether I’ve earned the right. She must decide I have, because she says, “I’ve lived with my older sister since I was ten. That’s when my mom and dad died—a drunk driver blew through a stop sign and smashed into their car while they were visiting Tampa.”
“Holy shit, Piper. God, I’m so sorry.”
She shrugs, water rippling around her shoulders. Mine must be a platitude she’s heard a thousand times.
“Tati became my legal guardian. She quit the interior design job she’d just gotten in Boston and moved back to Sugar Bay, a town she spent her adolescence itching to leave. She’s been playing reluctant pseudo-parent ever since.”
I ought to be punched in the nuts for disparaging my dad’s efforts the way I did.
“Jesus—I can’t even imagine.”
“It was a long time ago. I mean, it absolutely sucks, but I’vecome to terms with it.”
Is it possible to come to terms with a loss that huge?
What happened with Whitney cut me deep. It still hurts when I let myself think about it for longer than two seconds. But both my parents, gone forever? It’s incomprehensible. I want to ask Piper how she carries on because sometimes, when I get caught up in my head, it’s a struggle to keep my shit together.
Instead, I ask, “What’s your sister like?”
“Tati’s…a force.”
“I’m imagining a tornado.”
She winces. “Or a hurricane, yeah.”
“Is she mean to you?”
She cups a hand and sends a playful splash of water into my face. “Not like you’re thinking. She’s just on my case all the time. About everything. You saw her the other night, waving me upstairs like I’ll end up a convict if I stay out past midnight. And before you try to defend her, I know. She’s trying to fill the role of two parents. She wants me to be safe. She loves me. All true. The problem is, aside from her job and a couple of high school friends who live in Pensacola now, she’s got nothing going on. She has nowhere to funnel all her type A tenacity. So she rides my ass. Constantly.”
A light bulb flickers on in my head. Piper’s sister tries too hard. My dad tries too hard. They’re each overly focused on the teenager in their life, but if they had somewhere else to direct that energy, someone to run interference…
What if Dad and Piper’s sister—Tati—meet? What if they have stuff in common, other than the fact that they’re both responsible for a seventeen-year-old they don’t understand? What if Dad likes Tati, and Tati likes Dad?
They’ll start hanging out. They’ll keep each other busy. They’ll make each other happy.
And then I might get to go on a run or read or study for the SATs without Dad yammering about how it’s calledsummer breakfor a reason. Piper would make out well too—she’d get a reprieve from Hurricane Tati.
“How old’s your sister?” I ask.
