I drummed my fingers against the passenger-side door. This year was our first Summerween since Charlie’s death, and I knew Rosie was struggling. The two of them had been inseparable. I’d never seen a couple so in love – not even my own parents – and it was something I’d always wanted for myself one day. One far-off day in the future, because I certainly hadn’t figured out the ins and outs of love just yet.
I’d barely figured anything out, really. I wasn’t exactly known for my decisiveness. There was a reason I was a sports journalist and not a referee.
‘You’ve been texting, right? And calling.’
Tiff said it in a matter-of-fact way, but I knew that somewhere underneath was a slight tinge of hurt. Rosie and I had always been close. Close in a way that made Tiff bristle. But Tiff was away so often, jet-setting around the world giving her talks on business practices or whatever. Even her boyfriend, Damien, was long distance. Sometimes it felt as if she wanted to be anywhere other than home. Anywhere other than with me.
‘Always,’ I said. ‘Rosie and I are like … y’know … you and Mom.’
Who, with their mutual love of spreadsheets, had way more in common with each other than they did with me.
I grabbed the handle above the door as Tiff braked for a group of drunken teenagers crossing the road at seemingly the most diagonal angle possible. The girls were all in bikinis and floaty wraps, and the guys wore board shorts and half-buttoned shirts. All were cackling like maniacs, and I sensed the tiny crackles of magic sparkling here and there. Magicwas always heightened in the cove, especially during this season, and magical types came from all over to enjoy it. It wasn’t that we had to hide our magic back in the city. It was just that here, practicallyeveryonehad magic, so no one raised an eyebrow when you used it or groused about things coming easily to you.
One of the guys managed a magic-enhanced backflip to a chorus of whoops.
I felt ancient looking at them. Although twenty-four probablywasancient to them.
Would that be our Summerween this year, I wondered, as I watched the others try to replicate said backflip, with varying degrees of success. Or would ours be a quieter, more sedate affair coloured by Charlie’s absence?
My heart twinged as I thought of the hurt Rosie, Finn and Noah had experienced this past year. I hadn’t seen them since the funeral, and although Rosie and I had been staying in touch, I’d only checked in with the boys once or twice. That was partly due to being busy with work, and partly because I wasn’t sure how to handle their loss. What could you say? How were you meant to act?
On some level, I knew Finn would manage: he’d always had an easy-going,c’est la vieapproach to the world, and a way of partying through the hard times until they became the not-so-hard times. Noah, however, was a different story. He’d always been the quiet, thoughtful one. He pressed everything down so deeply inside himself, where it couldn’t break out and cause him pain. But there was only so much room inside you, surely. And besides, it wasn’t like I was his girlfriend – that was Meryl’s job. Well, until recently, although that wasn’t any of my business (although Lara assured me that it absolutely was). Still, every time I’d started a text to him, I’d let it peter out to nothing. I was afraid of getting it wrong, of having Noah think less of me. It was easier just to say nothing at all.
‘Mom’s made her fruit meringue,’ Tiff said brightly, trying to reset the tone. ‘Peppermint chocolate for you, of course, becausehow dareyou be expected to eat fruit with your whipped cream.’
Good change of subject there, Tiff. I’ll take it.
‘The heart wants what it wants,’ I said, trying to match her tone.
‘As if your heart has ever known what it wants,’ said Tiff shrewdly as she pulled the car into the hedge-lined driveway of the Pink House.
She wasn’t wrong, butouch.
Chapter 2
SUNNY REUNIONS
I climbed out of the Mini, massaging my stiff legs. Tiff’s car wasn’t made for long drives – especially when those drives involved awkwardly squishing your legs around snacks and shopping bags. I frowned as I spotted a smudge of chocolate on my skirt. All right, so maybe Tiff had been right about my messy ways. But Ididmake my bed in the mornings. Most mornings, anyway.
I snapped my fingers, adding a quick glamour to hide the spot. Good enough. No one would notice.
‘Seriously, Molly?’ Tiff came over, casting her fingers over the spot, which dissipated. ‘You’d think after all those grass stains from softball you’d have figured out a simple cleaning charm.’
‘But I did,’ I said with a grin. ‘It’s called having a neat-freak big sister.’
Tiff’s retort was cut off by a squeal of delight: Rosie had come running out from the sprawling Cape Cod house, wiping her hands on her striped pink apron. Her dark curls were tied back with a giant scrunchie, and her massive hoop earrings flashed in the sun.
‘Here they are!’ She wrapped me up in a sugar-dusted hug, lifting me up off the flagstones of the driveway. For someone so tiny, she’d always been a powerhouse.
‘Just in time for dessert,’ I teased, wiping some flour off her cheek.
She shot me one of her famous smiles, but it didn’t hide the new lines between her brows or the tinge of exhaustion beneath her eyes.
‘You know me. Can’t abide a single inch on the counter being bare.’
This was true. For as long as I’d known her, Rosie had been a baker extraordinaire. Everyone had always begged her to turn it into a business, but beyond the occasional bake sale or the odd birthday cake commission, she’d kept her treats purely a hobby. Besides, Rosie had never needed the money. I’d never pried into her financial situation, but as far as I knew she’d always justhadmoney.
‘I turned down the stove to simmer,’ reported Mom, emerging from the house with her usual formidable strut. Mom was the opposite of Rosie: angular and sharp, with a sped-up way of doing things that had come from a lifetime of working in advertizing, where the deadlines were arbitrary but urgent, and phones rang so consistently that you had a Pavlovian reaction to them.
