He smiled, soft and real. “You make me happy, too.”
So maybe we could keep being happy. We could carry whatever this was from the contained snow globe of Nantucket back to New York. I wanted to ask him if he wanted that, too, but Iwas scared I’d hear something I didn’t like. And that would ruin everything.
So I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him. Kissed him until we’d generated enough heat that our jackets were redundant, kissed until our lips were chapped and we were as close together as we could possibly be on a beach at sunset in a dozen layers.
When the sun had drowned itself, and it was too dark and too cold to stay out any longer, we went back to his house and sat in the living room and talked. I hadn’t known talking could be so easy with a boy, hadn’t known thoughts and words could expand forever, hadn’t known how fun it was to say nothing with someone you liked.
We had dinner at his house, and when I left, I invited him to Golden Doors the next day like it was the easiest thing in the world, and he said yes.
“Oh, you’re here,” David said when Tyler entered the cousins’ room the next day—the last day of the year. “You can be on Shira’s team.”
“What?” Tyler asked. He shoved his hands in the front pocket of his sweatshirt, looking confused. And adorable.
“It’s you, me, Abby, Ethan, Gabe, and Rose. Against that lot.” I gestured at Noah, Miriam, Oliver, Iris, Lily, and David, then went back to cutting up small slips of paper. “I hope you’re good at this.”
“At... what?”
“Shira’s a shark,” David said. “But not a very good one.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “The fact you couldn’t recognize my fin as a fin was pitiful.”
“She clomped.” Ethan straightened his arms and clapping his hands together before his face to illustrate. “Like an alligator.”
“Sharks clomp, too!”
Abby took pity on Tyler. “We’re playing charades, apparently.”
“Salad bowl,” my family corrected her in unison.
“Charades,” she said again. “With multiple rounds and rules.”
“They’re never going to let me forget the shark thing,” I muttered to Tyler as he sat next to me. “But they’re the fools. Ha! I had afin.” I waved my hand by my side to demonstrate. “Do alligators have fins?”
“How long ago was the shark thing?” Tyler asked.
“Three years,” David said. “We have long memories.”
“I noticed.”
“Did you know elephants really do have long memories?” Oliver, our one elephant for the play, slotted in. “Their matriarchs lead herds and remember their friends and locations.”
“Like sperm whales,” Tyler said, sliding a glance at me. “And Nantucket girls.”
“Clearly whales and elephants and Nantucket girls know what’s up,” I said, distributing pieces of paper. “Everyone write down seven nouns. First round is describing without saying the word, second is one word, third is charades, fourth is charades under a blanket.”
“Under... a blanket?”
I suppressed a smile. “I said what I said.”
Then I started laughing, and after a bemused moment, so did he.
Salad bowl dissolved around 3:00, and the cousins split into smaller groups—the triplets made last-minute preparations for the play, a group went to eat, Miriam and Abby pulled out books. I tugged Tyler away. “Come with me,” I said, feeling bold and adventurous andfun, and I liked the feeling, liked feeling pretty and desired and a little bit wild. “I have an idea.”
“A good idea or a bad idea?”
“All my ideas are good.” I led him to the third floor, to the very center, and flourished my hands at the attic door.
“You’re kidding.”
