The Square Root of Summer(18)

“Meg, you remember Gottie? Actually, weren’t you at kindergarten together? And now”—Sof indicates the switch with her hands, ignoring the muffin—“we’re in art and drama. I do the sets, Meg does the stardom.”

They beam at each other. Sof’s new crush? It seems to be reciprocated. And I don’t have the right to be hurt by her not telling me. Then Meg says, “I keep trying to get her to perform, but would you believe she has stage fright?”

Um, yes? She’s only ever done bedroom karaoke in front of me.

The bus arrives. It trundles slowly to a stop, but Sof still leaps up anxiously to flag it down anyway. Grey used to tease her: “Are you definitely a hippie, Sofía? You need to relax.”

I limp on after Meg and Sof, who are already curled up next to each other, feet tucked up on the seats, by the time I flop down opposite. Meg fishes out her iPod and I hope she’s going to plug in and ignore us, but instead she pops one headphone in her ear and another in Sof’s.

“Sorry,” Sof says to me. “Bus tradition.”

I nod and try to give them privacy while they whisper to each other. I break off a piece of muffin: it tastes like autumn, even though the sun is high in the sky.

“Sof, are we on for Fingerband tomorrow?” Meg murmurs.

“Ned’s Gottie’s brother,” Sof reminds her, with a glance at me. I hadn’t known the band was playing.

“Oh, yeah.” Meg leans over Sof, running her eyes over my outfit, presumably confused how I’m related to Ned. He thinks leopard print is a neutral. “Are you going to be at rehearsal? This end-of-summer party sounds like a kick, doesn’t it? Did Ned’s grandpa honestly sacrifice a goat one year?”

Her words pop-pop-pop in my ears. Grey threw a bacchanalia in the garden every August. Last year, he wore his hair in bunches, asking Ned to push the piano outside so he could sit in the rhododendron pounding out “Chopsticks.” How can Ned think having this party is okay?

“You know Jason, then?” Meg speaks in questions, and doesn’t wait for answers. I want to ask how she knows Jason, when they spoke, why isn’t she sure I know him, has he not talked about me, are we still a secret? “Is it true some boy is moving into Ned’s house?”

Shit. Thomas’s mysterious return isn’t the same for Sof—she moved here the year he left—but she’s aware of who he is. I spent the first six months of our friendship complaining about his bizarre disappearance. It’s unclear yet if she and I are friends again or what, but as she owl-neck-twists to stare at me, it’s pretty obvious: she thinks I should have told her this already.

Too late and blushing furiously, I tell her: “Uh, Thomas Althorpe moved back. Yesterday.”

Meg wrinkles her nose, oblivious, as she texts and talks and drops bombs, all at the same time: “Thomas from kindergarten? Is he really living in Ned’s grandpa’s room?”

I definitely should have mentioned the part where he’s in Grey’s bedroom.

Sof doesn’t speak for a minute, then turns pointedly to Meg and says, “Dramatical Grammatical.”

Meg doesn’t look up. She’s texting rapidly, her rings flashing in the sunlight.

“All-female hip-hop collective,” Sof tries again, nudging her. “We’ll rap about romantic dramas and punctuation.”

The way it used to go, I’d come up with lyrics, or a supporting act. But that’s obviously not what Sof wants. Playing our game with Meg and not me—she’s making a point.

Meg frowns, somehow graceful as she slides her phone into her ridiculously tight short-shorts pocket. “What are you talking about?”

Sof’s still not looking at me, but I can feel her bristling. The bus is practically vibrating. When I can’t bear the tension anymore, I address the seat in front of me.

“Cheating on me is impermissible. Gonna leave her dangling like a participle.”

Silence. Then: “Never mind,” Sof rasps to Meg, who flicks her eyes back and forth between us, confused. Sof was my friend first, I want to yell, like I’m five years old. Only I’m allowed to know she has stage fright! She tells everyone else she has adenoids!

Grey would say I’m a dog in the manger.

I go back to staring out the window as the countryside blurs by, green and gold. A few minutes later, the colors reassemble into trees and fields as we pull up at the Brancaster stop.

“This is me,” says Meg, standing up. “Nice to see you again, Gottie. We’re going to the beach on Sunday. You’re welcome to come.”

It’s an invitation—to something I’m already part of—but it makes me feel left out.

Meg saunters off down the aisle. Sof stands up too, gesturing after her. “I … we … art project,” she mumbles, dropping something in my lap. “For you.”

She darts off. Through the window, I see her catch up to Meg, polka dots flying. As the bus trundles on, I look at what she gave me: the paper fortune-teller. Under every single fold, she’s written: remember when we used to be friends?

When I get home, Thomas and Ned are playing a very Grey version of Scrabble in the garden—minus the board, half the words are lost in the daisies. I think I can see D-E-S-T-I-N-Y, but it could equally be D-E-N-S-I-T-Y.

Thomas smiles up at me.

“G,” he says, “want to—”