“Abigail. Do you really think you could force me to spend time with you if I wasn’t okay with it?”
“... Yes?”
“Your manipulation skills aren’t as impressive as you think they are.”
“Oh.” I looked at my orange-pink toenails peeking out from beneath white sandal straps. “So you want to spend time with me?”
He just looked at me.
Okay. Right. Maybe we weren’t friends after all. I flushed all over and tried to switch into professional mode. “Should we get togetherthis weekend and look at the rest of the scrapbooks?” Oh no. Did I sound overly eager? “Or it’s fine if you’re busy. I’m busy. Saturday might not even be good. I might still be recovering from Friday.”
“What’s Friday?”
“I’m going to some beach party. With my roommate.” Oh god, I was pathetic. Screaming subtext ofLook at me, I’m popularnever sounded convincing. “On Nobadeer Beach.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Why? What?”
“Nothing. Maybe I’ll see you there.”
Ten
“Mom. Mom, you have to tilt the camera more, I can only see your forehead.”
“What do you want to see me for?” The image rocked as Mom moved her computer. This was probably as close to seasick as I’d ever actually get.
“You should be able to see your face in the corner. Make sure you’re centered, okay?”
She tilted the screen so the camera focused on her. I could tell she’d found her image when she finger-brushed her hair. Even though I could only see her face against the white square of the living room wall, I knew she was curled up under our blue fleece blanket, a cup of tea resting on one of our Klimt coasters.
I missed her. Zoom was almost as good as talking in person, but it wasn’t the same as cuddling next to her on the couch.
“I found the family O’ma lived with,” I said, after Dad and Dave had both come by, and we’d caught up on everything else.
“What?”
“Yeah. This family, the Barbanels, the one with the boy who wrote her letters, is actually the one she was placed with when she came here.”
“No, she was with a New York family.”
“I know, and they lived there, but they’re originally from Nantucket and they spent their summers here.”
Mom blinked. “She was placed with theBarbanels? Have you talked to them?”
“Um, yeah.” I pushed my glasses higher on my nose. “There’s a boy my age and we’re sort of...” Acquaintances? “... friendly.”
Mom’s face transformed. God forbid I solve a huge gap in O’ma’s history; the instant an eligible young man was mentioned, everything else vanished. Especially an eligible youngJewishman. “Is he cute?”
“Mom.”
“Is he? How is that a bad question?”
“He’s fine, I don’t know.” Stunningly gorgeous. “He’s a person, he looks like a person.”
“So he’snotcute?”
“No, heiscute, okay?” I couldn’t say a single thing without Mom mining it a hundred layers deep. “You’re missing the whole point about O’ma.”
