The Unexpected Everything(96)

“You know how much she loved you, right?” my dad asked, and two tears fell down, one from each of my eyes, without me even realizing they were going to. “She thought you hung the moon. She’d be so proud of you.”

I brushed the back of my hand over my face and took a shaky breath. “Yeah?” I asked, thinking that she probably would have been—with my grades, and my goals, and my other summers full of productive things.

“Absolutely,” my dad said, his voice still cracking a little. “This thing with the dogs? She would have loved that. She would have done a series of oil paintings of them all by now.”

I gave a laugh at that with half a sob mixed in, because I could see in that moment just how true it was. My mother would have loved that I was outside all day, that I was having fun. I would have come home every day and told her about the canine misadventures, and she would have done different voices for every dog. “What happened to the Mustang?” I asked after we’d sat in silence for a moment, even though it didn’t feel like bad silence—it just felt filled up.

“I’m not sure,” my dad said, looking down at the steering wheel. “I could find out if you want.”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “That’d be good.”

“Here!” The backseat door was flung open and Toby tumbled inside, carrying two overstuffed plastic bags. The inside lights flared on and it suddenly seemed very bright. I leaned forward, brushing my hand over my face again, hoping it wasn’t totally obvious that I’d been crying. “I’m here. Did I make it?”

“Oh,” I said, turning over my phone to look at the timer. I had totally forgotten about it. I’d forgotten, frankly, about the scavenger hunt. “Um, no. Missed it by a minute and a half.” I looked at my dad, who was starting the car with a grin. Now that I was getting pulled out of this moment I’d had with my dad, it was all coming back to me—the side bet we’d placed on Toby, which meant he got to choose our next movie. “Just no more John Wayne?”

“I make no promises,” he said. He turned and looked at me, gave me a small smile, and I gave him one back, and even though we weren’t technically speaking, it felt like we were saying the same thing. Then he put the car in gear and pulled away from the mini-mart.

Sixteen minutes later he screeched to a stop, pulling to the side of the street in front of the Winthrop statue. “We made it,” he said, exhaling and shooting me a smile across the car.

“Let’s move, people,” Toby said, clapping her hands and then scrambling to pick up the items that were scattered all over the backseat. “Andie, can you see anyone? Did everyone else beat us here?”

“I see the guys,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt and leaning forward to look. While we’d been gone, Palmer had clearly been busy—the picnic table was now divided into three sections, and she’d put signs up, marking which team each section belonged to. Clark and Tom were setting up a truly impressive pile of stuff, and I felt a twinge of alarm. From a distance, at least, it looked like we would be pretty evenly matched, if not behind them. “But I don’t see Bri or Wyatt anywhere.”

Toby stepped backward out of the car, hoisting an overstuffed canvas bag on each shoulder, and slammed the door closed with her foot. “I’ll get us started,” she said, already running toward the table. “Hurry!”

I grabbed my stuff and hustled out, shutting the door behind me. I started to follow Toby toward the picnic table, but then stopped and turned back to the car, where my dad was watching the proceedings through my open passenger-seat window. “Um,” I said, not really sure what to say. I suddenly wished this weren’t ending in just a few minutes. For a while there, it was like we’d been part of the same team. “Thanks,” I finally said, and my dad gave me a smile.

“Good luck,” he said, shifting the car into drive. “Just don’t stay out too late celebrating our victory.”

“Knock on wood!” I called as I started to run toward the table, and his car pulled out, now moving at a much more normal speed as it headed in the direction of the house.

“Two minutes,” Palmer called out as I stumble-ran up to the table.

“Okay,” I muttered. I dropped my bags and started hauling stuff out of them. Tom and Clark were at the opposite end of the table; the middle was Bri and Wyatt’s, and it was still totally empty. “Have they not shown up yet?” I asked. Palmer shook her head.

“We don’t have time for this!” Toby yelled, much louder than she actually needed to. “Who cares where they are? If they’re not here, it’s one less team we have to beat.”

“Oh, you think you’re going to beat us?” Tom asked, from where he and Clark were organizing the items on their end of the table.

“That’s why I said it,” Toby shot back.

“Easy there, you two,” Clark said, looking over at me. “How’d you guys do?”

I took a breath to answer, and Toby snapped her fingers in my face. “No fraternizing!” she yelled, her face turning alarmingly red again. “We have to see where we stand.”

“One minute,” Palmer said, and I pulled out the list.

“Okay, we have pizza,” I said, giving it a check mark. “A menu. Something with a boat on it. A square you eat,” I said, looking at the Rice Krispies Treat Toby had picked up in the mini-mart. “Something Hot, Something Cold. Items of Formal Wear. A Coin from 1972 . . .”