“Rick motherfucking Steves, that’s who.”
“Oh God, here we go...” Jaz muttered from the back seat.
His head briefly turned toward me, gauging my reaction. “Just one of the greatest living travel writers. He’s the dude with the PBS show about traveling in Europe. Seriously? Little Miss Smarty-Pants doesn’t know Rick Steves?”
“Is this... an audiobook?” I asked.
“It’s all he listens to in the car. Audiobooks about nature, animals, and travel. It’s like driving around with someone’s eighty-year-old hermit uncle.”
“Look,” he said, defensive, “audiobooks are free to check out from the library, and they’re just like reading real books.”
“Of course,” I said. “Theyare‘real’ books.”
“Yeah, no one’s arguing that, weirdo,” Jaz added.
I smiled at Seb, pleased to hear about this new interest of his. But my smile didn’t last long, because looking around at my surroundings, I realized the inside of the Bronco was almost worse than the outside. “What’s that smell?”
“Weed?” Jazmine said. “It always smells like a discount dispensary up in here.”
“That may be, but this is a storm car,” Seb said, turning down his audiobook. “It was damaged in that mega blizzard in the Yoop two years ago.”
The “Yoop” was another name for the U.P., the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which contained a third of the land in our state but only, like, 3 percent of the population. I’d never been much farther north than Traverse City, and neither had Jazmine, so we often referred to the Yoop as the North Pole.
Seb went to boot camp in the Yoop.
“Anyway,” he said. “What you’re smelling is some massive, massive water damage that happened after its former owner left the window rolled down in a blizzard. Snow filled the truck, then melted, and water sat inside the cab for weeks. You can still see the waterline on the doors, look.”
“Charming,” I said.
His head turned toward me for a moment. “So you’re saying that boys who drive you around campus back in Cambridge don’t own fine, restored vehicles such as this?”
I ignored that. “Surprised the state of Michigan will even let you buy a car after the Ferrari incident.”
Seb’s fingers twitched as they rested on top of the steering wheel. Maybe I’d just pushed his button. I wished I could tell what was going through his head, but I couldn’t see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses.
“Yeah, well, that was Juvenile Seb. You’re riding with Adult Seb now, and I don’t want to hear any more Speed BuggyorRick Steves slander.”
Was that true? Had Seb grown up? Changed? Or was he still bad news? Would Nana be disappointed that I gave him another chance to be friends? Or disappointed if I didn’t?
I didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. But I wanted to find out, and that was a start, I supposed.
Both Seb and Jaz were remarkably quiet for the remainder of the quick drive across town while I allowed memories of when we were seventeen to roll through my mind, still wondering about the conversation I’d overheard this morning.
Maybe we were all thinking about the same thing.
Whatever that might be.
We headed through town and took the bridge across the Little River into Northside. Years ago, that bridge was a dividing line in town. South of the bridge, where the marina and Heron Cottage both were, was the blue-collar side of town. North of the bridge was where the Haves lived. Old money, old Michigan. The Pink House—a big Victorian that Wyrd Jack built at the turn of the century that used to be my family home before my father caused all our money problems—was on this side of town, on a bluff overlooking the lake, now owned by a company that rented luxury estates to rich tourists.
If you turned to the right immediately after crossing the bridge, as Seb was doing now, and drove a block down River Street, you’d find a small residential neighborhood with contemporary mansions that backed up to the river. The first one was the home of Benito “Benny” Morales, the fourth and final Wag.
Benny’s family was from Argentina, and both his parents were surgeons. All things equal, Benny should have been the one at Harvard, not me. He was definitely smart enough: his SAT scores were better than mine, even, and he was a minor tech genius, able to write code for just about anything. But Harvard has a 3 percent acceptance rate, and Benny’s grades back in high school went downhill after Seb went away to boot camp. So he ended upenrolling in a tech program down the road at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.
When Seb pulled into the circular driveway and parked beneath a sleek, covered entrance next to a Land Rover, forgotten memories resurfaced of all four of us meeting up here back in our peak Wag days, and I was suddenly eager to see Benny again. To be reunited.
Punkin jumped out of the Speed Buggy as if she were just as familiar with Benny’s house as she was with mine. As she trotted across the lawn, the mansion’s front door swung open and two people emerged. I recognized the first immediately.
With the hood of his black sweatshirt covering his bowed head, Benny took his time strolling toward us, briefly pausing to lean down and scratch Punkin behind the ear. He was just as willowy as he’d been in school—Ichabod Crane, Seb used to call him. And he wore the same uniform: all black, from his hoodie to his shorts to the old-school Vans on his feet.
