What Happens Now(29)

“Oh,” I said. “How long are you staying?”

“I’m not,” he said, and the lurching sensation dissolved into relief. “I’m just driving my mom up there and dropping her off. She’s spending the summer at an artists’ colony outside Burlington.”

“The word colony always makes me think of the Revolutionary War,” I said, “but I’m guessing it has nothing to do with that.”

Camden snorted. “Think more leper colony. They give her a studio and she makes her art, and then hangs out with other artists. I’m not sure how that’s different from what she does here, but whatever.” He paused. “No, I know what the difference is. The difference is that I’m not there. You know, to distract her. Or judge her.”

“Is someone staying at the Barn with you while she’s gone?”

“Just Max and Eliza, when they can. Some other friends will probably drop in and out. But if you mean a legal adult there every night, then no.”

“Wow.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

I thought for a second about what that might be like, to be left to live alone for an entire summer. A slice of heaven, is what it might be like.

But I didn’t tell him I was thinking that. Instead I asked, “How do you manage to NOT turn that situation into a bad eighties movie?”

Camden laughed. Hard. It made every hair on my arm stand on end to hear it.

“Well, we did have the wild party before my mom even left,” he said.

“That’s true. You know how to buck the clichés.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. A car raced down the alley, too fast, the roar of it filling the pause and making it feel like something planned. I tried to picture Camden again, tried to imagine what he was looking at on his end. How tightly he was holding his phone, what he was doing with his other hand. Whether he was still trying to picture me.

“So do you,” said Camden.

“So do I what?”

“Know how to buck the clichés.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, keeping my voice light and teasing. Giving him no inkling that inside I was pleading Tell me! Tell me more about what I know!

“I guess you seem . . . not like the other Fitzpatrick kids I’ve seen around. Maybe more serious. More mature. Like you’ve been through something and changed.” He paused. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to be making assumptions about you. It’s those damn Satina Galt boots.”

I had no response, stunned that he’d glimpsed me so clearly in such a short time. Camden must have taken my silence for being insulted.

“Anyway,” he said quickly, nervously. “Speaking of Satina Galt. Can you meet me at the lake tomorrow? I want to show you something.”

I thought about my calendar. My mom was working, which meant I’d have Danielle with me. But Tuesday . . . Tuesday I’d have to myself.

“I can meet you the day after,” I said. “I work at the store until two o’clock, but then I’m free.” The thought of having to wait two whole days to see him . . . well, that sucked.

“The day after,” said Camden. “We’ll say two thirty.”

It felt like the conversation was over. I knew it had to be. I had to go inside. He had to drive to Vermont. I was torn between not wanting to hang up, ever, and desperate to do so while it still felt perfect. You know, before I said something stupid.

“See you then,” I said.

“Okay, bye, Ari.”

“Bye,” I said, but he was already gone. The phone felt warmer than usual in my hand, the screen glowing a little brighter, I was sure.

One of the sneakers hanging from the telephone line was slowly turning in the breeze. I waited for it to do two complete circles before standing up and going back into the store.





9




It had been a long two days, but now I was leaning against a tree at the reservoir parking lot, watching Camden glide toward me on his bicycle.

Seeing his face in person again and not pressed into the blackness behind my eyelids, I couldn’t decide if it looked the same. Was it going to be this way from now on? Every time I saw him, would I have to reconcile the Camden I was looking at with the Camden I’d been thinking about?

He was wearing a cranberry-colored button-down shirt and navy blue swim trunks, sneakers with no laces or socks. I saw the skin of his right ankle as he pedaled and had a sudden urge to lick it.

“Hey,” he said, braking to a halt in front of me. “You came.”

“Why wouldn’t I come?”

Camden stared blankly for a second, then laughed. “I don’t know why I just said that.”

Before I could respond, Max’s SUV pulled up. Eliza waved from the passenger window, then jumped down from the car.

“You came,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t she come?” asked Camden.

When Max appeared from his side of the SUV, I held out the paper bag with the yarn in it. “I come bearing the makings of a Bramscarf.”

Eliza squealed and snatched the bag from me, peeked inside.

“Perfection!” she proclaimed.

“It’s not quite the color of the swatch you gave me. It’s actually a little darker, but more accurate.”