She was silent for a minute. “Often,” she finally said. “But I love the work. I’m not going to be bullied out of doing something I’m brilliant at. And I remind myself the assholes are products of their society and upbringing, and it’s not about me, and I’m great at my job. And I hope my accomplishments are going to make it easier for future generations of women and people of color. So yeah, I’m mad sometimes. But it doesn’t stop me.”
I wasn’t sure an adult had ever been so honest with me. It was alarming, but I liked it.
The only thing keeping me from being totally happy was my uncertainty regarding Ethan. Were we okay? Were we a disaster? I’d apologized to him the day after making out with him in the storm. “I’m sorry,” I’d said as we’d walked through the gardens in the early morning. We’d fallen into a pattern of going down to the beach for morning swims, and I’d decided the best thing to do was to continue the pattern, to act like the night before hadn’t been a big deal. “I was feeling itchy, and it was storming, and you were there—”
His mouth had twitched. “I was there,” he’d echoed. “Flattering.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings—”
“Jordan.” The sky had been bright blue, washed fresh after the storm. “I amveryhappy to make out with you whenever you want to make out. As long as you’re into it.”
“Oh,” I said in a small voice. A shiver cascaded through me. “Okay.”
We hadn’t talked about it again.
I’d finished pulling all the data Cora had wanted on the Harvard Computers and astronomy on Nantucket, but I continued digging into Andrea Darrel during my off hours. I emailed Harvard to see if there was a way to get digital copies of her box of papers; they said unfortunately not, but I was welcome to submit a form and, if approved, look at the boxes filled with her papers in person.
Bummed out, I mentioned it to Grace on one of our weekly video calls.
“Why don’t I go for you?” Grace said.
“What?” I’d been lying on my bed, but now I sat up. “What do you mean?”
“You said people can go in person, right? I can take the bus into the square and take pictures of the pages and send them to you.”
“Oh my god, Grace. You don’t have to,” I said automatically, though hope flared in me. “I wouldloveif you did, but you don’t need to.”
She rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it. Besides…” Her eyes glinted. “This is a perfect ploy to ask Sierra on a date.”
Sierra was the new girl at the diner who Grace had been obsessing over for the last month. “Um, how?”
“You said there’s a visiting researcher form or something? I probably can’t fill it out, but Sierra is eighteen.” Grace, like me, was a September baby—we’d consistently been the youngest inour grade. “I’ll tell her I need her help and she’ll fill it out and we can go together and it’ll be an adventure!”
“Look,” I said, “I don’t want to be too wild or anything, but why don’t you just ask her to see a movie?”
“Too wild,” Grace countered promptly.
“How is this girl going to have any idea you like her if you don’t suggest an actual, you know, date?”
Grace clasped a hand to her heart. “She shall be overcome with love and lust for me when she sees what a good friend I am.”
I snorted a laugh. “Okay. Thank you, seriously. Tell her I insisted you guys go to some super romantic spot while you’re in Cambridge if you need an excuse to check out a sunset or hot chocolate or whatever. Or that I’m treating you guys to dinner so you can take her somewhere nice. Wait, Iwilltreat you guys to dinner, I’m Venmoing you now.”
Despite liking the Barbanel cousins and their friends—especially Abby and her crew—I missed my friends from home as the Fourth of July approached. At home, I always spent the Fourth on the banks of the Charles, listening to the Pops play the1812overture as fireworks exploded. We brought card games and picnic blankets and bought fried dough and overpriced lemonade from food trucks, and snuck into MIT to use their bathrooms instead of the porta potties. I knew my friends would be there now, without me. Would we ever all be together again, or would everyone be spread out next summer?
This year, I headed downtown with the Barbanel crew. It was blazingly hot; sweat plastered my tank top to my back. I’d wornmy most minuscule shorts to reduce the amount of fabric on my body, yet I still wanted to peel my skin off. In the center of Nantucket, people packed the cobblestone streets, a flurry of patriotism and primary colors.
“See you guys later,” Ethan said once we got downtown.
David smirked. He, like me, was one of the few wearing not red, white, and blue, but instead a blue romper to match the new color of his hair. “You bet you will.”
“Where are you going?” I looked back and forth between the brothers.
“Dunk tank,” they chorused.
My mouth parted. “You’reparticipating? You’re going to get dunked?”
“Depends how good your throwing arm is,” Ethan said. Then he grimaced. “Unfortunately, my family all have great throwing arms.”
