Jake shrugged. He wasn’t saying yes, but he wasn’t saying no.
“Give me your number,” Whitney said, pulling out her phone. “I’ll text you when I have fifty signatures. That’s all we need.”
Jake paused for a second and then offered up his number.
Whitney gave Jake a quick hug and then sprinted to the locker room to change and grab her tennis racket.
By the time her first match started, she already had sixteen signatures on Jake’s petition.
When she broke for water, she got ten more.
By the next day at lunch she had more than fifty.
This was awesome. Revenge was awesome.
She texted Jake at the end of the following day.
One hundred and eighty-two, was all she wrote.
They were going to murder Zach.
JUNE
GREGOR
“SUNSHINE?” GREGOR’S DAD asked him.
“That makes me think about swimming,” Gregor said. He was brushing leaves and dead bugs and pine needles off the pool cover. “Or, I don’t know . . . Maybe music?”
“With music, of course I think of cello,” his dad said. “Bach. Tchaikovsky.”
“Beethoven.”
His dad repositioned the hose that was spilling water into the pool. “Vivaldi. I love hearing you play Vivaldi.”
Gregor and his dad were opening the pool and playing a word-association game while they worked.
“What about chocolate?” Gregor’s dad asked. “What do you think of when I say chocolate?”
“That yellow bag of Toll House chips. Also, I think of popcorn. I don’t know why.”
“Popcorn. I think of watching movies. Or maybe road trips. Remember how Mom always used to make popcorn for long drives?”
Gregor sprinkled baby powder on the pool cover to keep it from getting moldy over the summer. Speaking of driving, his dad had taken him parallel parking this morning. Gregor wanted to take his road test before he left for Michigan, where he was attending a music conservatory for three weeks in July.
“What about happy?” Gregor asked his dad. He slid his tongue over his smooth teeth. On Friday he’d finally gotten his braces off after two years of achy teeth and canker sores. “What do you think of?”
“Right now,” his dad said.
Gregor smiled. That was exactly what he was thinking.
JAKE
Jake: Can you meet after school to give me the files?
Zach: Sure. Congrats on stealing treasurer from me.
Jake: Uh, thanks.
Zach: Hey, did you hear about Ted?
Jake: What about him?
Zach: Ask him yourself. Did you hear Allegra Nichols is moving back from Maine?
Jake: No! When?
Zach: August. You have to admit, she was cute. Did you hear a movie is being filmed in Hankinson? You should audition. I’m going to. You’ve got that Hollywood look.
Jake: Uh.
Zach: Don’t take that the wrong way. You’re hot and all, but I’m straight.
Jake: That’s cool/fuck off.
Zach: You da man! Come to think of it, Allegra was annoying.
Jake: You guys were perfect for each other.
SUMMER AFTER SOPHOMORE YEAR
JULY
ZOE
“WHAT?” ZOE ASKED. “Why are you staring?”
Lola grinned. “Something seems different about you. I’m trying to put my finger on it. Know what I mean?”
Lola was Rosa’s granddaughter. Rosa had been Sierra’s housekeeper for years, and Lola often tagged along. She was a year younger than Zoe and went to high school in LA. Of all the friends Zoe had left behind in California, Lola was honestly the only one she was happy to see again.
“Different how?” Zoe rolled up a fluffy white towel and slid it behind her head. They were sprawled on chairs next to the saltwater pool in the backyard. Sierra had spent a zillion dollars having it renovated this year. In honor of the brand-new pool, she kept offering to take Zoe for a brand-new bikini. No, thanks. Zoe was fine in her tankini top and paddleboard shorts.
“I don’t know. . . . You seem more confident,” Lola said. She giggled and twisted a strand of shiny black hair around her finger. “Did you do the deed? I’ve heard that changes people.”
“Almost, but no.” Zoe took a sip of water. “Why, did you?”
“I wish.” Lola ducked in toward Zoe. “I did get drunk, though. Don’t tell my grandmother.”
“I won’t.”
“Jack and Coke. I don’t recommend it.”
Zoe nodded. She’d never tried alcohol and didn’t plan to. She’d learned in Al-Anon that addiction was hereditary.
“There is a guy, actually,” Zoe said to Lola. Her stomach quivered with excitement. She hadn’t told anyone what her mom had said about her dad. Not like she knew much, but Zoe was happy to have even a speck of information.
“I thought so!” Lola squealed. “Who is he? Is he hot?”
“No, it’s not like that,” Zoe said. She pushed aside her towel, stood up, and dove into the pool.
Lola splashed in after her. “What’s his name?”
Zoe spit out a mouthful of saltwater.
“Not telling?” Lola asked.
Zoe swam underwater to the shallow end. She knew she wasn’t making any sense, but it wasn’t like she had anything else to share.
“No details whatsoever?” Lola squealed, paddling across the pool. “So unfair!”
“Tell me about it,” Zoe said.
MIA
MIA WALKED TO the end of her driveway to check the mail. It was almost a hundred out, and she felt lightheaded as she opened the mailbox. Or maybe it was mental lethargy. Summer was stretching out, boring and endless, in front of her. She was doing some babysitting and taking extra piano lessons, but Sophie was at Catholic sleep-away camp, and her parents were always at work. Checking the mail had become a high point, even though it was just catalogs and bills.
Today a large yellow envelope sat on top of the usual offerings. It was addressed to the parents of Mia Flint from the Intensive Math Learning Institute. The sun scorched Mia’s neck as she tore it open.
Dear Parents of Mia Flint:
Congratulations on your daughter’s stellar achievements! As you undoubtedly know, Mia is extremely talented in mathematics. This past spring a standardized math test was administered to every sophomore in the United States. In all areas of the test, Mia scored in the top percentile, gaining acceptance into the Intensive Math Learning Institute.
For three weeks this August, IMLI will be hosting forty teenagers from around the country, all going into their junior year of high school, on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. We will cover all expenses, both travel and program fees. The students will live with host families near campus and spend their days working with mathematics professors and graduate students . . .
Mia could hardly breathe. She skimmed to the last sentence.
. . . because of high demand for this program, please RSVP by July 10 to let us know whether Mia will be attending.
Mia closed the mailbox and ran back to the house for her phone. As she typed in the number at the bottom of the page, her heart was racing. She hadn’t made a prank call since last fall. After the debacle with calling Whitney, she vowed she was done with them. But this wasn’t really a prank. This was a necessity.
“Hello . . . IMLI,” said a man on the other end.
“I’m calling on behalf of Mia Flint,” Mia said. She kept her voice high and formal. “This is her mother, Susan. We’re delighted to accept your invitation to IMLI.”
When Mia hung up a few minutes later, she was beaming. Her escape plan was starting.
WHITNEY
“KYRA AND SCOTT did it on a waterbed last night,” Autumn told Whitney as they waited with their pom-poms near the bleachers.
Whitney shaded her eyes with her hands. It felt strange to hear that Kyra, her former best friend, had los
t her virginity. But so far everything about this summer was strange. For one, she and Autumn had been cast as cheerleading extras in a movie that was being filmed in Hankinson. It was called This Is My Life. It was low budget and sappy, and they weren’t even being paid. But it wasn’t like Whitney had anything better going on. She’d thought about lifeguarding this summer, but she was still recovering from pneumonia when they taught the Red Cross course in the high school pool.
“A waterbed is so cheesy,” Autumn said. “Can you imagine them sloshing all over the place?”
“How do you know about this? Did Kyra call you?” Whitney stretched her legs in front of her and crossed one ankle over the other. The cheerleading skirts were seriously short. Every morning she woke up early to shave. When Lucas picked her up on the way to the stadium, he would run his hand up her calf for a stubble check.
That was another strange thing about this summer. Lucas Bauersmith was eighteen and had just graduated from Fayette High, about twenty minutes from Hankinson. He also happened to be Kyra’s cousin. He wasn’t Whitney’s boyfriend, but they’d been hooking up. The fact that Whitney was fooling around with Lucas had gotten her and Kyra talking again. They weren’t best friends, but at least they were being civil.
“Kyra called me right after she did it,” Autumn said. She buried her fingers into one of her pom-poms. “I mean, after Scott drove her home.”
“Filming in two minutes . . . Quiet on the set!” a production assistant shouted into a megaphone. They weren’t using the extras for this scene, so all the cheerleaders were hanging out on the grass.
“Why did Kyra call you after she did it?” Whitney whispered, leaning in to Autumn. When Kyra and Whitney had broken up, Kyra got custody of Laurel, and Whitney got Autumn. Whitney didn’t even know Kyra and Autumn liked each other.
Autumn shrugged. “I guess Kyra needed someone to confide in, like, to process the whole thing.”
A techie glared at them and held his finger to his lips. As they began filming, Whitney studied Autumn, with her white sunglasses and heart-shaped lips and reddish curls tied back in a ponytail. Why on earth would Kyra call Autumn to tell her she’d had sex? Something was up. Whitney could sense it.
“And . . . cut!” the director called out.
“Also,” Autumn said, leaning in close. Her breath smelled like Altoids. “Kyra and I are going through the same thing right now.”
Whitney stared at Autumn. Yet one more strange thing about this summer was that Autumn was together with Zach. Yes, Whitney’s ex-boyfriend Zach. He was in the movie too, and he and Autumn couldn’t keep their hands off each other. To Autumn’s credit, she’d asked for Whitney’s blessing before they got together. God. Sometimes Hankinson gave her a headache.
“You and Zach did it?” Whitney’s throat was tight. She and Zach had been together for over four months. Autumn was the one who told her that Zach had been cheating on her with that girl Allegra and some other girls too.
Autumn pushed her sunglasses up on her head. “Uh-huh,” she said, grinning. “Zach and I did it last week for the first time. And then . . . let’s just say it’s happening.”
Whitney shook her head. It was one thing for Autumn to be fooling around with her ex-boyfriend, but another entirely for them to be having sex. Also, why didn’t Autumn tell her last week? Why did she tell Kyra first?
“So what about you?” Autumn asked.
“Me what?”
“You and Lucas. He’s eighteen. How long do you think he’s going to wait? You’ve heard of blue balls, right?”
Among their friends, Whitney and Laurel were both holding off. Laurel was planning to have sex once she was in college. Whitney wasn’t so definite. She figured she’d know when she got there.
“You’re saying I should do it with Lucas because he’s sexually frustrated?” Across the field, Lucas was guzzling water with the other football extras and then they were spitting it at each other. No way was he going to be her first.
“Don’t you want to?” Autumn asked. “Aren’t you ready to get it over with?”
“Filming in one!” the production assistant called into his megaphone.
Whitney whispered to Autumn, “Have you ever heard of coup de coeur?”
Autumn shrugged. “Is that French?”
“Yeah . . . it means ‘falling in love.’ But it’s more than that. It’s like falling in love instantly. A shock of love.”
“And?”
“Maybe it’s stupid . . . but that’s what I’m waiting for.”
Whitney lay on her stomach to watch the scene being filmed. Back when she was really sick with pneumonia, someone had anonymously delivered a small red teddy bear to the hospital. The bear had the words Coup de Couer across its belly. Her dad, who had flown in from Chicago, translated it for her.
Later that day Whitney’s fever broke. Deep down she thought it was the bear that saved her life. She still slept with it every night.
GREGOR
AVA LOCKED THE door of her dorm room and then pulled off her striped sundress. Underneath, she was naked.
Gregor felt stirring between his legs and also an icy terror in his gut.
Ava was seventeen, played viola, and was a counselor-in-training at the summer music conservatory. On the first morning, Ava had flirted with him in the dining hall. That night they’d clandestinely held hands on the lawn during the outdoor movie, and they’d been fooling around ever since. They had to keep things on the down low, since Ava was a CIT and Gregor was a senior camper. Mostly, it was making out when Ava’s roommate was away, but a few times they’d taken off their shirts and her bra and pressed their bare torsos together. Even when he was playing cello, all Gregor could think about was Ava’s long brown hair, the way her skin smelled like sunblock and tasted like salt, her legs in those short shorts she always wore.
“Do you want to do it?” Ava asked. She set her glasses on her desk and pulled a box of condoms out of her dresser drawer.
Gregor glanced at the condoms and then at Ava again. Her head was tipped to one side, and she was smiling. Just looking at her made his stomach scramble.
He gestured to her roommate’s side of the room. “She won’t come back, will she?”
“She drove to Ann Arbor,” Ava said. “She’s not getting back until tonight.”
The shade was pulled, but there was enough light for Gregor to see the hair between Ava’s legs. It was in the shape of a rectangle. As he stepped closer to her, she wrapped her arms around him.
“Are you sure?” Gregor asked as Ava pulled his T-shirt over his head and led him to her twin bed.
“Sure, I’m sure.”
They tumbled onto the sheets and started kissing. Ava had done it before. She’d told Gregor a few days ago. She also knew that Gregor was still a virgin.
Once he had his boxers off, she helped him roll a condom on. So this was really happening. He was really here.
Ava positioned him between her legs. “Now you just, sort of, move,” she whispered.
Gregor thrust his hips forward. He was on top of Ava, and his cheek was pressed into her shoulder. He wasn’t sure how much he was supposed to push, though. He didn’t want to hurt her.
“You can do it harder,” Ava said, clasping her hands on his lower back.
After a little shimmying back and forth, Gregor came. It was so intense that he saw swirls of colors behind his eyes.
“Was that okay?” he asked Ava. He was out of breath.
“Definitely. What about you?”
“It was good,” Gregor said.
Who was he kidding? That was freaking awesome.
The next morning Ava rapped on the door to Gregor’s practice room. Gregor was so immersed in Bach’s Suite No. 6 that at first he didn’t hear her. When she knocked again, he spotted her through the glass. He leaned his cello against the piano and waved her in.
“Hey,” she said, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “There’s a call for you in the main office. Roger says
it’s urgent.”
Roger was the camp director. Gregor had only talked to him a few times. He picked up his phone from the piano stool. No missed calls.
“We should probably go right now,” Ava said. “Let’s leave your cello. We can lock the room and get it later.”
Ava didn’t say anything as they walked up the stairs to Roger’s office, but Gregor could sense something was wrong. Probably Nana Margaret had another fall. She’d broken her hip last February, and the doctor warned them it could happen again.
Gregor watched Ava’s legs, smooth and thin, and her flip-flops slapping against the stairs. He wondered if they were going to have sex again today. He hoped he wouldn’t have to fly home early because of Nana Margaret.
AUGUST
JAKE
“I PICKED SOME blueberries for you,” Mona Lisa said as she skipped onto Jake’s front deck. She set a pint of blueberries onto the picnic table and flopped into a chair, kicking off her sandals.
Jake clapped his water shoes together over the ledge, trying to get the tiny pebbles out. He was leaving for sailing camp tomorrow and was getting everything organized.
“Thanks,” he said. “Awesome.”
“You should have seen me at the U-pick place,” Mona Lisa said. “I must have eaten four hundred blueberries. I was cramming them in my mouth. I bet I’ll crap an enormous blueberry tonight.”
“Okay, that’s disgusting.”
Mona Lisa giggled and reached toward Jake, tugging him onto her lap. “I love grossing you out,” she said, running her fingers through his hair. “And you love me for it, right?”
Jake rested his head on her shoulder. After nine years of being summer friends, he was used to how Mona Lisa acted all flirty and possessive with him.
“So you’re going to sailing camp?” she asked, tugging at a thread on her cutoffs.
Jake got up off her lap and settled into the chair next to her. “Yeah, in the morning.”