“My mom wanted to take a picture of all of us flipping her the bird.” Asher smiles. “Wants to put it in her mailbox as we leave town.”
“Really?” That doesn’t sound like Sylvie at all.
“Oh yeah, she can hold a grudge.”
Sweet Sylvie? Who knew? “I like it, but it seems like the kind of thing that would end up on the internet and keep us from getting a job someday.”
Asher nods but doesn’t say anything. I don’t say anything.
I’m not sure if it’s in my head, or if it’s the looming terror of the questions I know will eventually come, but it feels like silencehangs between us. I can’t take it for another second, I have to rip off the bandage. “Okay, do your worst.” I set my hands on the table, crossing them over the giant red cherry face that serves as the menu. “Let’s get this over with.”
Asher smiles and takes another sip of his drink. He shifts in his seat a little and his hand pops up, his fingers wrapped around a stone. “How long ago did you paint this?” Asher’s fingers peel back and sitting in his palm is a small, pale gray stone, long and thin. I thought he’d start with something a little easier, but no, he’s going right in for the kill.
“I picked that rock because it reminded me of the shape of the lake.” It’s true, I remember holding the delicate boomerang-shaped stone up to the old poster in Lake House A, making sure it wasn’t just in my head. “There’s even a little divot over here”—I reach a finger out to the rock that Asher has placed between us on the table—“where our bay is.”Ourbay. The word rings between us like I just struck a gong. “The bay where our house is,” I clarify, hoping I don’t sound as defensive as I feel.
He doesn’t say anything, just raises his eyebrows as if to say,Great, butwhendid you paint this topographically accurate rock?Asher isn’t stupid; that rock is duller than the rest. Its glossy coat is fogged with age and it just looks… worn. Like paint that has been subjected to the elements for…
“Six years ago.” I take a sip of my cherry-ade, willing myself to sound more confident. “That first summer.” But nothing about me feels confident right now. I gave Asher the challenge of finding the rocks because I needed something to force me to open up with him. I should be able to just do it, but I can’t. And just telling Asher to ask me questions seems ridiculous.
So here I am, luring him into it. I had expected him to ask me about my most embarrassing moments. To pry into my questionable dating past, and make me admit embarrassing things like who my first kiss was with. I didn’t expect him to find out that six years ago I was scribbling our initials on rocks like some sortof lovesick psycho. I had completely forgotten about that rock; it should have been scooped up by some little kid years ago.
“I was thirteen, so, you know, keep that in mind.” My cheeks redden and I feel a little sick, but Asher distracts me by staring at my chest. Blatantly. Which is not like him at all. And just as I’m about to call him a pig and remind him where my face is, I realize what he’s actually looking at. My necklace. His necklace. And it feels like we’re on even footing again, me with my love-rock and him with his necklace. And before I can think more deeply about the fact that the L-word just flew through my brain, the waitress arrives with our food. Asher sweeps the stone off of the table and tucks it back into his pocket.
When it’s just the two of us, I swallow a chunk of cherry chicken salad before saying, “Okay, hit me with the rest.”
Asher talks around a bite of his cherry cheeseburger. “You’re not getting off that easy.”
“You think that waseasy?”
“I’m not using them all tonight, Sid. I want to keep you on your toes.” He takes a sip of his drink and smiles, but he looks nervous. “I do have one more for you tonight.”
“I used to stuff my mouth full of food when I was little. So full I’d panic and spit it all out.”
He shakes his head at me, looking completely bewildered. “What?”
“Chipmunk. That stupid nickname you and my dad torment me with. You asked me once where it came from.”
“Not it,” Asher says.
I shrug. “Okay, well, I’m deducting a question for that anyway, because you would have gotten around to it.”
“I want to know why it all started.”
I look at him blankly, hoping he doesn’t mean what I’m 99 percent sure he means.
“The pranks, the hating me…” Asher takes a sip of his drink. “Spill.”
THE FIRST SUMMER
Sidney
Once a week or so, Mom and Sylvie like to load us all up and take us to one of the little towns nearby. Quaint, cute, and cozy are words they use to describe the small streets lined with touristy shops. Windows are filled with clothes, and art, and the kind of signs you’d hang in a vacation home, with sayings likeHOME IS WHERE THE LAKE IS.It’s not usually too bad—the parents don’t mind if Asher and I wander off on our own. The last trip, the two of us had lunch at one of the little restaurants where the tables on the patio are made of crisscrossed metal, and everything smells like fish from the river nearby. Asher paid for us, and I told myself it wasn’t a date, but it sure felt like one.
But this trip is painful, because Mom didn’t invite Sylvie or Greg, or Asher. It’s just the two of us, popping in and out of shops. Mom is apparently trying to shove a summer’s worth of shopping into her last week. I get a book at the town’s little bookstore, and Mom lets me replenish my paints in the craft department of the megastore we pass on our way back to the lake. When we get back to the house I deposit my things on the kitchen table and stop in my room to see what I can do to tame my hair a little. And then I set out to find Asher.
Asher spends most of his time—well, with me. He’s usually the one to find me, and that realization sends a little bubble of something warm into my chest. We only have four days of vacation left, but it’s not like I can’t see Asher again. Our parents usually get together every couple of months, and while we’re not usually included, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind us hanging out. Maybe they’d get together more often if Asher and I were—were what, dating? Do eighth graders actually long-distancedate? It would only be a couple years until one of us could drive, and this isn’t exactly a normal situation, seeing how our parents are best friends. I bet Mom and Dad would drive me to his swim meets, and Sylvie and Greg would bring him to mine. We could text and video chat.
I’m lost in my head, thinking about everything, when I come around the corner of Lake House A, and find Asher on the swing set. We’ve spent a lot of time on the swings. They’re tucked away behind Lake House A, with a little hedge of overgrown shrubs next to them. It’s a nice escape from our parents during the day. Or at night.
