A sadness hangs on Amelia. Though Molly’s ice cream was beloved and though her business ultimately became a success, surely she would have traded everything to have Wayne come home.
“Amelia?”
Amelia steps out of the freezer and sees Cate at the open stand door. Cate’s not wearing her Meade Creamery polo. She’s in a denim mini, a striped tank top, and flip-flops. Her blond hair is wet from the shower, split down the center of her head in a straight part.
“You haven’t answered any of my texts!” she says. “I was worried!”
Amelia pats her empty pockets. “Sorry. I left my phone in the office.”
Cate bites her bottom lip as she tentatively glances around. “Did . . . they take her away already?”
“Yeah, she’s gone,” Amelia says, dazed.
“Come on, then. Let’s get out of here.”
Amelia follows for a step, then stops. “Wait. I can’t leave. The newbies are going to show up any minute to fill out applications.” This happens on the first day back. A handful of recently graduated eighth graders descend, hoping to claim the spots of the departed. Despite her overall nervousness about being Head Girl, Amelia has been looking forward to this part—to trying to find herself and Cate in a pile of applications, giving two new girls the chance to build what she and Cate have with each other.
“So put up a sign.”
“Saying what? That Molly Meade is dead?”
“Um, no! Definitely not. Just . . . keep it vague. No Applications Today, something like that.”
Amelia goes into the office to make the sign. This time, the black-and-white kitten comes right out from under the desk. She makes the split-second decision to take him home with her, even though her mom is allergic.
While Cate struggles to lift Amelia’s bike into the back of her pickup truck, Amelia closes the stand door, clicks the padlock shut, and hangs the cryptic sign. With the slightest hesitation, she pushes her key underneath the door.
She didn’t get to use it, not even once.
On the way to Cate’s truck, the kitten must realize that Amelia is trying to kidnap him, because he stops purring and starts wriggling in her arms. She tries bringing him close to her chest, but he flexes his claws and tears the inside of her arm in four red stripes. As Amelia flinches, the kitten leaps free, crashing through the tall grass of the fields, splintering it until he—like Molly—is gone too.
CHAPTER FOUR
AMELIA WATCHED CATE ACE HER driving test from a bench outside the DMV. Cate could have been a model out of a driver’s ed handbook, her back straight, her hands at eight and four, making complete stops, checking her mirrors.
These days, Cate likes to tuck her left foot up underneath her body as she drives. She steers with one hand and holds the wheel down at the bottom, exactly how they say not to. With her free hand, she fiddles with something—the radio, her phone, her hair, Amelia’s hair. And she treats posted speed limits around Sand Lake as mere suggestions.
Amelia would normally chastise Cate for any or all of these behaviors, but she doesn’t say a thing about Cate’s driving today. Instead, she rolls down the passenger window for the breeze and watches as the green graduation tassel hanging from Cate’s rearview mirror twists and spins. At the end of August, she won’t be riding in Cate’s truck anymore. Cate will be taking it with her to Truman University. And Amelia will be up at Gibbons, an airplane ride away.
Eventually Cate reaches over and rubs Amelia’s shoulder. “Are you feeling okay? You look pale.”
Amelia flips down the visor. Cate is right. There’s no pink in her cheeks, and even when she pinches them, the flush slips away fast. “I guess I forgot to eat.” Amelia holds out her hands in front of her. They quiver.
“What about your blueberry muffins?”
“I gave them to the police officer to bring back to the station.”
“Pizza Towne might be open.”
“Honestly, I’m more tired than hungry. I should probably go home and rest.”
Cate frowns. “You seriously don’t look good. Let’s get a quick slice.” She pulls a U-turn in the middle of the road. After a silence, she glances over at Amelia and says, “I’m trying to remember the last time I saw Molly Meade. I think it was at the bank.”
Amelia nods. “Same for me. The day you bought the truck.”
It was late last fall. Amelia had gone with Cate to take the truck for a test drive. Cate’s neighbor was the one selling it, and though Cate felt the price was fair and withdrew exactly that amount from her savings account, she still planned to try and talk him down a couple hundred bucks for the rust and the lack of working AC.
They were in the outside lane of the bank drive-thru waiting on Cate’s money, Amelia looking at something on her phone while Cate begged Amelia’s mom through the intercom to send them two lollipops. That was when a pink Cadillac pulled into the drive-thru lane beside them.
Cate elbowed her and Amelia looked up, and together they watched Molly like they’d spotted some kind of rare, beautiful bird. Molly’s hair was curled; she had makeup on, and earrings, and a fashionable, if slightly dated, gabardine wool coat. She looked the way people did when they dressed up for church, except Amelia never saw Molly Meade at church.
Molly handed Amelia’s mom a deposit bag and waited for a receipt. Amelia silently willed her to look toward them, though she wondered if Molly would even have recognized them if she had.
Cate says now, “It seems weird that she got all dolled up just to hit up the bank drive-thru. Maybe Molly had a hot date.”
Amelia rolls her eyes. “Stop.”
“What! She was a good-looking lady! She totally could have shacked up with some handsome widower.”
“She probably had a doctor’s appointment. Or maybe lunch with a friend.” Except, as far as Amelia knew, Molly never had company. Certainly Amelia never saw any cars, besides the mailman and the Marburger Dairy truck, head up her driveway. Amelia remembers her grandmother complaining that the worst part about getting old is outliving all your friends.
Cate pulls into a spot in front of the darkened windows of Pizza Towne. “Do you want to go somewhere else?”
Yawning, Amelia says, “Sure, wherever.” She kicks off her Keds and puts her bare feet up on the glove compartment.
Cate decides on Starbucks, where they each get an egg and cheese sandwich and an iced mocha, and she refuses to let Amelia pay. “See? Don’t you feel better?”
“Yes,” Amelia says. “And sorry if I’m being a downer.”
“You found a dead body today! You’re forgiven.”
Amelia nods, though she knows it’s more than that. “I knew Molly would die eventually, but not this summer. Not our summer.” Cate’s profile blurs as Amelia’s eyes flood with tears.
“Hey!” Cate says, turning toward her. “Amelia, it’s okay. It was Molly’s time. Please don’t cry.”
Except crying is exactly what Amelia does. Even though she knows it’s stupid, because it’s just a summer job, and she didn’t even know Molly Meade, not really. “The walk-in freezer was full of ice cream, Cate. Ice cream she made with love that no one will ever get to eat. And I’m sitting here trying to remember what Home Sweet Home tastes like. I’ve probably eaten that ice cream a million times, nearly every summer of my life.” She rubs her tongue against the roof of her mouth, swallows. “But I can’t remember. It’s . . . gone. And in a few weeks, you and I will leave—”
“Amelia!” Cate says, startled. “Stop it!”
Except Amelia can’t hold back the tears now. Can’t even try to. She keeps talking, pushing as many words out as she can between hysterical gasps. “We’ll leave Sand Lake and go off to college and everything’s going to be different. I know that. But I thought I’d have this summer to get ready. One last summer where it’s you and me, the way it’s always been.”
“Okay, all right,” Cate says, and rubs Amelia’s back. “Let it out.”
Amelia cries some more, quietl
y. She’s aware that Cate’s a bit uncomfortable by where Amelia has just taken things. Not that they wouldn’t have had this conversation eventually. She’s just unprepared to have it right now. “Sorry.”
Softly, Cate says, “You don’t have to say sorry. I know exactly how you’re feeling, Amelia. Believe me.”
Cate pulls into Amelia’s driveway. Amelia’s family doesn’t live on the lake. Her house is tucked back in the woods a ways, a small, pretty colonial with wood siding painted butter yellow and a robin’s-egg-blue front door. From Amelia’s bedroom window, you can see a bit of the glittering lake through the trees.
“What are you going to do for the rest of the day?” Amelia asks Cate.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe go down to the lake.” Cate lowers her head to see the sky from the windshield. “Though it’s suddenly too cloudy to tan.” She shrugs. “I’ll call you later and check in.” Cate leans across the cab and gives Amelia a big hug.
Amelia goes inside and up to her room. She folds the blankets Cate slept in and puts them back into her closet. Next, she takes off her Head Girl pin and returns it, as well as Molly Meade’s note, to her jewelry box with her other obsolete treasures, like friendship bracelets from long ago, which are too stretched out to be safely worn but that she can’t imagine ever throwing away.
Flopping on her bed, she checks her phone and finds several missed messages. The stand girls want to know what happened. If everything’s okay. It dawns on her that Cate didn’t tell the girls that Molly had died, only that they shouldn’t come in today.
Though she doesn’t want to, Amelia dutifully starts a new text to the six girls who were supposed to return to Meade Creamery this summer, and then adds the stand girls from summers past that she has saved in her phone, thinking they would want to know what happened too.
Sad news. Molly Meade passed away. I think it happened sometime yesterday. I’m sorry I don’t have more details. Honestly, I still can’t believe it’s true.
She hits Send, plugs her phone into the charger, and goes into the bathroom to swallow some Advil. When she returns, she sees a text back from Frankie Ko.
Amelia smiles. The last she’s heard, Frankie graduated college somewhere in Florida, not FSU, another one, then moved down to Costa Rica to study sea turtles. She wonders what Frankie will say when she hears that Amelia was going to be Head Girl this summer. She hopes Frankie will be proud. Amelia feels bad for losing touch with her. Not that they became super-great friends, but because Frankie will always hold a special place in her heart. Amelia wants to tell her that. Before it’s too late, because you never know.
The text says ERROR. INVALID NUMBER.
Amelia sets her phone down. As soon as she does, it begins to buzz again.
She leaves it on her nightstand and crawls under the covers.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN AMELIA LIFTS HER HEAD, warm against her pillow, she knows she’s been asleep for a long time. Hours. She feels it in her body, the heaviness, and her room is shadowy. Rolling onto her back, she finds her phone and glances through the texts she’s received from the other girls at the stand. It’s a blur of sad emojis, virtual hugs that she can almost feel.
She changes out of her polo and into a big T-shirt—the one from Project Graduation night—and a pair of leggings, undoes her fishtail braids, and combs her fingers through the waves they’ve left behind.
Downstairs, she finds her mom and dad sitting together at their kitchen table, their plates pushed off to the side. Dad has his school papers spread out in front of him—he teaches math at the high school, and summer school starts next week—and Mom is scrolling on her phone. A baseball game is on the radio. Someone gets a hit and they look up at each other and smile.
“Hi.”
They glance over at her, startled, and then guiltily at the remnants of dinner. Her dad explains, “We thought you were out with Cate.”
“It’s okay.”
Her mom winces and quickly clears their things from Amelia’s normal spot at the table. “Would you believe we even told each other tonight is a chance to train ourselves for how lonely it’s going to be around here in September?”
“Please don’t make me more depressed.” Amelia falls into her seat.
Amelia’s dad offers a gentle smile. “How are you holding up?”
“It’s hard to believe. This wasn’t how I was expecting today to go, you know?”
“No, I suppose not.” He reaches across the table and ruffles her hair. “You sure you don’t want some steak? It’ll only take me a couple of minutes to get the grill going.”
“I’m sure.”
Amelia’s mom gives her shoulder a tender squeeze. “It’s not easy to do what you did today. We’re proud of you.”
“I didn’t actually do anything. I just walked in and found her.” Amelia slouches in her chair and picks a tomato from the salad bowl. She appreciates their trying to cheer her up, but really, it was the bare minimum.
“You took charge,” her dad insists. “You acted like a manager!”
“Head Girl,” her mom corrects.
“Yes, right. Head Girl.”
“And thank goodness you did, Amelia! Could you imagine if this happened in winter? Poor Molly would have been lying there dead for months and no one would have known.”
“Mom!”
Her mother’s eyes go wide. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”
“Very wrong,” her dad adds.
Amelia’s phone rings. “It’s Cate. Do you mind?”
They nod, maybe even a bit gratefully, excusing her.
“Hey, Cate.” Amelia leaves the kitchen and sits on the stairs.
Cate tsks. “I was hoping you’d sound better but you don’t sound better.”
“Well, my parents just tried to cheer me up by saying I prevented Molly’s corpse from mummifying.”
“That’s . . . an interesting strategy.”
“It was. It really was.”
“How about I take a shot? What do you say? Up for it?”
“Sure.”
“Cool. So I’m going to need you to walk out your front door right now.”
Amelia flinches. “Huh?”
“Walk out your front door,” Cate repeats, a playful teasing in her voice, and then hangs up.
Amelia rises to her feet and does as she was told, a smile already lifting the corners of her mouth. Shielding herself with the curtain, she peeks out the window of her front door. Cate’s standing in her driveway along with the six other returning Meade Creamery girls—juniors Sophie and Bernadette, sophomores Mansi and Liz, and last summer’s newbies, Jen and Britnee.
At least, that’s who Amelia assumes they are. She can’t be sure because each girl is wearing a dark-colored sweatshirt with a hood pulled up to hide her hair. They stand in a whispering huddle, which breaks apart at the creaking sound of Amelia opening the door. But their buzzing energy is palpable, the way it always is at the start of the summer, when the returning girls reconnect and catch up after the school year, like bunkmates at a sleepaway camp.
“What’s everyone doing here?” Amelia asks with a laugh.
Cate lunges forward, takes Amelia’s hand, and pulls her away from the house. “Shhhhhh! You’re going to blow our cover!”
“Cover for what?”
Jen tosses Cate a sweatshirt, which Cate then hands to Amelia. “Put this on.” It’s a navy one from Truman University, turned inside out. “I’ve been thinking about what you said today. How there’s all that ice cream left in the stand. I can’t come up with one good reason why we, the last-ever Meade Creamery girls, shouldn’t be the ones to eat it.”
“Seriously?” Amelia lifts up on her toes. “But what if someone sees us?”
“What could they say? We’re still legally employees.” Cate looks at the rest of the girls, almost daring them to disagree with her, which of course no one does. “Plus, you still have your key, so it’s not like we’d be breaking—”
Amelia smacks her forehead with her hand.
“What?”
“I pushed it under the door before we left today.”
Cate laughs good-naturedly, like this was to be expected somehow from Amelia. “No big. We’ll figure it out.”
To the other girls, Amelia says, “You all sure you want to do this?” They nod back at her, excited, burdened by none of the sadness Amelia carries. Though, when Amelia thinks about it, that sadness is mostly gone now, replaced by the feeling that her heart is about to burst in the best way.
* * *
Amelia and Cate ride together, with Cate’s truck in the lead. The rest of the girls squeeze into two other cars belonging to Sophie and Bernadette. Amelia opens the passenger-side window and sticks her head out to watch the cars turn onto Route 68. With their headlights on, and the random celebratory beeps of their horns, they resemble something between Sand Lake’s Homecoming Parade and a funeral procession.
Cate pats Amelia’s leg. “You’re not going to cry again, are you?”
“No!” Amelia says, turning to face front. “I’m really excited!”
“Me too!” Cate’s cheeks are flushed and she speaks quickly. “So here’s what I’m thinking. I’ll get one or two of the girls to stand lookout, and the rest of us will go in and grab some ice cream. Then I thought we could drive down to the lake and eat it there. It’ll be like our end-of-summer party. A chance for us to say a proper goodbye.”
“Thank you for doing this. I can’t believe—” Amelia cuts herself off because she can believe it. That Cate would organize this whole expedition for her. This is Cate. This is exactly why she would have made a terrific Head Girl. It’s a shame Molly never noticed.
CHAPTER SIX
THE GIRLS PULL INTO THE driveway of Meade Creamery, stopping just short of the parking lot chain, then climb out of their cars.