“Or, we could eat here where there’s no sand and go to the beach afterwards.” He paused. “Yeah, sure, a picnic on the beach. That’s a first for me.”
He left for the stadium a little while later and I sprang into action. I had definite ideas about our picnic because this had been one of my best daydreams a few years before, when my living situation hadn’t been a challenge and I hadn’t thought so much about apartments and houses (I was definitely picturing a house now, only a house). But previously, I had focused on triangles of sandwiches and specialty potato chips, carefully displayed fruit and cloth napkins.
I went to the kitchen and started to prepare, and I was in the middle of that when someone rang the doorbell. Everett had a camera out there so I could immediately see that it was my sister, and also that Boyd’s car was in the driveway with him behind the wheel. She hadn’t taken it herself today.
I put down my knife and went to talk to her. “Hi,” I said. I folded my arms over my chest. If she started saying, “Everett? Everett!” again, I was going to close the door in her face.
“Hi. Let me in so we can talk,” she told me.
I didn’t want her to have to stand, but I felt strange about having guests here since I myself was a guest here. “We can sit outside,” I suggested, and pointed to the two chairs which decorated the porch. They were modern and metal, and I believed that we were the first people to ever use them.
My sister placed her butt carefully, because they were also pointy. “I came over so that you could apologize to me,” she announced. “I don’t want to fight, so go ahead.”
“Me? Apologize to you?” I was shocked. “Why should I do that?”
“Because I’m right and I’m trying to help you. And because Boyd and I got in a fight because I took his car.”
“You shouldn’t have done that and you’re not right.”
“I am so!” she insisted.
“No,” I said. “Anyway, I’ve told you all kinds of things that were right but you ignored them, and I never tried to make you apologize to me about that.”
“You were wrong about Boyd,” Willow countered. “He’s great and you always hated him.” We both looked over at the car, where he was watching us from the driver’s seat. He quickly looked away, as if a tree growing next to the driveway was so unusual. It was a native balsam fir and they grew everywhere, which I knew from a fourth-grade science lesson.
I had been in the process of changing my mind about him, but since I’d heard him insulting me during their argument outside Jannie’s bar, I’d changed my mind back. “I don’t think I waswrong about Boyd. I think that you’re ignoring the past because it’s easier than having to confront it.”
“I am not!”
There was no point in debating anything with Willow and I knew that. One of us always gave in, and that person was never her. But I was mad enough right now that I heard myself start doing it anyway. “He never came to see you after the accident. His parents never came, either. They pretended not to notice the whole situation and—”
“My parents told me not to visit her,” Boyd called from the car. The driveway wasn’t that far away from these uncomfortable chairs and he had the windows down while he waited. “They told me not to text or go to the hospital, because of everything that had happened.”
Her cheeks were bright red. “We’re not talking about that, anyway!” she said shrilly. “We’re talking about how you’re in love with Everett Ford and he doesn’t care about you.”
“Yes, he does! And no, I’m not in—my feelings are none of your business.”
“My feelings were always yours! I mean, mine are not your feelings, but you always thought your business—you always—” She stopped, looking confused. “Your feelings are my business because he’s going to break your heart, and you’ve never dealt with anything like that. You’re very—”
“So help me, you better not say ‘naïve’ again!”
She pinched her lips closed and she didn’t say it, but I knew that she was thinking it instead.
“I told you,” Boyd called from the car. “Zoey isn’t going to listen to you because she thinks she knows everything already.”
I turned wrathfully to him and stood up from the chair. It had been digging into the backs of my legs anyway and I would never sit in them again. “I don’t think I know everything. But I know that even if your parents told you to stay away when she got hurt, you’ve had years to make yourself a better person and make things up to my sister. You should be ashamed of yourself!”
Willow had stood, too, and she started to defend him. “Be quiet, Zo! You don’t know what was going on.”
He got out of the car as she walked to meet him. Both of us watched her as she took the three steps down, because they were a little steep. I had also followed behind her, just in case, so I clearly heard what he said next even though he hadn’t spoken very loudly. “I am ashamed of myself,” he answered. “I should have done something.”
“No, you didn’t have to,” Willow said, but I was nodding. At least he was admitting it.
“I saw you at that Junior Woodsmen game and I wanted to hide under the bleachers,” he told her. “I felt like a worm.”
I opened my mouth, maybe to agree that he was, but I closed it when she turned around to glare. Then she walked to him and they hugged, and they murmured things to each other that I couldn’t hear. I didn’t want to.
Everett’s truck came up the road at that point and stopped in front of the house, since Boyd was inconsiderate and had parked directly in the middle of the driveway so that the garage was inaccessible. “Hey,” he called to all of us, but my sister and her boyfriend didn’t bother to pull apart in order to answer. “What’s happening here?” he asked me when he reached the porch.
