Dad showed me and Ethan how to map the coastline as we circled the island. We sat by the rail, trying to draw the dips of coves, the sweep of cliffs. All too soon, we glided into the harbor, said goodbye to Gary and Brent and the rest, and climbed into cars waiting to take us back to Golden Doors. I felt unexpectedly nostalgic—it had only been three nights, but they’d been good ones.
“Welcome back!” Ethan’s mom said when we arrived. “You’re just in time to help with dinner.”
Ethan looked at me. “Should we go back out for a while?”
“Very funny,” his mom said. “Shira and Noah could use some help on the mango-avocado salad.”
Five minutes later, Ethan was squeezing limes for the vinaigretteand chopping cilantro, and I was peeling mountains of fruit. While I’d loved being on theSalty Fox, I loved this, too: laughing with the Barbanel cousins, listening to the adults chatting in the great room, eating outside as the sun set, breathing in the scent of jasmine and listening to the coo of mourning doves.
I couldn’t believe it’d be August in a few days, and a few weeks after I’d head to UMass. I could barely conceptualize college, despite visiting campus and texting my new roommate and forcing Dad to sit through the tedium of AlcoholEdu with me. I remembered Andrea Darrel’s nerves about going to college. I’d been further from home than she ever had, but still couldn’t imagine leaving home and living in dorms, surrounded by strangers. I still wondered what I should expect.
And what would happen to me and Ethan?
I pushed the worry out of my head. Later. I would deal with that later.
Grace texted around 10:00 p.m.Sent the rest of the paper pictures, sorry to send so late! Just got home from a VERY GOOD DATE with Sierra
Like a legit date
We went out for dinner and then there was a dance party (??) in the street and so we danced
And then we MADE OUT against a MURAL and part of me was in my body but part of me was outside and like “I wish I had a photo of us making out in front of this mural”
That sounds weird now that I type it out
Don’t worry I was fully in the moment
Anyway should I ask her if she wants to be my girlfriend? how does one do such a thing
Before my phone could ping any more, I called Grace. “Yes! You should ask her.”
“What if she says no?” Grace’s face was illuminated only by the twinkle lights around her bed. “What if she’s like, no, you freak, I don’t want to date you seriously?”
“Thenshe’sthe freak. And you’ll know, and won’t waste any more time on her.” My new mantra.
“How very mature,” she said skeptically. “What’s gotten into you?”
A smile tugged at my lips. “Since you ask…”
We talked for ages, until neither of us couldn’t stop yawning. After we hung up, I opened the images she’d sent of Andrea’s diaries.
Andrea washappy. Blissfully, devotedly, ecstatically happy. To be honest, it was a little boring.
It also clearly made her less inclined to journal. For several months she stopped altogether, except for one line in March 1911 sayingterrible news about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which I vaguely remembered being a Bad Historical Disaster.
And then—
April 8, 1911
I don’t even know what to write. I think I might cry.
She’d written two lines of numbers below. I tried to make sense of them. She’d scribbled mathematical equations in the margins before, but she’d never written anything so deliberately, as though she had already worked it out elsewhere and was copying it over here in a neat, careful hand—far more careful than her usual—for posterity.
What could make her want to cry?
I flipped the page. I half expected a time-jump, given Andrea’s erratic journaling. Instead, the following entry was dated the next day.
April 9, 1911
