Summer of Brave

by Amy Noelle Parks

I look up from my pancakes when she doesn’t go on. There’s something in her voice. Nervousness? Excitement? Could she be seeing someone too? Is the talk an excuse for a weekend away?

  When I was little, Mom and I spent every day together all summer long, unless I was at one of the museum camps. Dad still had to work at the museum every day, but she took summers off. We’d go to the lake or read in her home office or drive all over looking for the best ice cream. We had no secrets. She knew all about my friends and my teachers and my books, and she talked about things I didn’t really understand yet—rivalries at work and how wasps communicate.

  But now it’s different. I can tell she doesn’t want to hurt me. And I don’t want to make her angry. And so we’re quiet. And confused.

  “I’m sharing my research with some colleagues at Northwestern. And I’m a little nervous. They’re pretty smart.”

  I smile. “You’ll do great.”

  She looks out the window for a while and then says, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything,” I say, thinking I might find out what the heck is going on.

  “I was on the phone with Vivi’s mom the other day, and she said you went to the library?”

  “Yes?” I say. I’m at the library twice a week in the summer. This is not news.

  “I wanted to ask who you were with.”

  “Vivi and Knox?” This is like asking if I was wearing shoes. Who else would I be with?

  “No one else? No other boys?”

  “Colby,” I say. “Knox’s friend.” My cheeks get hot, and noticing this—and realizing what it’s going to make Mom think—only makes it worse.

  “So,” she says with a little grin. “Tell me about Colby. Vivi’s mom says he’s a bit of a troublemaker. Your father and I were pretty surprised. I don’t think either one of us thought the bad boy thing would draw you in.”

  “Mom, can you not?” I am completely horrified. And I don’t know what to go after first. That Vivi’s mom talked to my parents about boys. That Mom and Dad were talking about who I like. That they think it’s Colby. Or that Colby—honor roll, band geek, soccer-playing Colby—is a bad boy. Whatever that means. Not that he wouldn’t be thrilled to hear it.

  “Colby’s not…I mean, I’m not…Why are we even talking about this?”

  “I always had a bit of a thing for the bad boys myself,” the waitress says, refilling Mom’s coffee cup. Surprised, Mom and I look up at her. “Just saying,” she adds before she goes.

  I put my face in my hands and say, “Please tell me it’s time for you to go. Or me to go. Or for time to stop all together. Any one of those would be fine, really.”

  “Not quite,” Mom says with a smile. “Is there anything going on you’d like to talk about? Maybe not Colby, but someone else?”

  Something in her voice makes me think she has a particular someone else in mind. And probably the right one this time.

  Slowly, I raise my head from my hands. And I think about Knox and Vivi and Dad and bird-nesting and Mom’s secret and high school. But I don’t know where to begin. Vivi would say start with what’s easy. But I don’t think any of this qualifies.

  So I shake my head. “No. I’m fine.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Team Building

  Prisha jumps up and down, clapping her hands. “Go, go, go!”

  I’m balancing an egg on a spoon, weaving through an obstacle course across the floor of the children’s museum.

  If you drop the egg, you have to clean it up with only one napkin. A few minutes ago, Colby and Knox had to use their bare hands to get all of their splattered egg. This is not something I ever want to do. First, I don’t love how raw eggs feel. Honestly, if I think about eggs too much, I can’t eat them at all. And second, I do not want that kind of attention. So I am going slowly. Much to the frustration of Drew, my teammate. When we met, the first thing he told me was his IQ score. The second thing was that he had to be homeschooled because he was two grade levels ahead.

  He seemed to expect that I would faint from the shock of it all and not that I would say, “I didn’t know homeschooled kids did science.”

  He’d raised an eyebrow. “And I didn’t know public school kids went to museums.”

  We are not friends.

  So far, we’ve built towers out of toothpicks and marshmallows, held hands while sliding a hula-hoop around the circle, and learned the camp chants. Drew gave me Helpful Advice during each activity. I would like to thank him by pressing this egg into his chest, but there is the drawback of egg goo, and besides, my careful pace seems to be bothering him plenty.

  “You could try,” Drew says when I hand the spoon to him. I can’t believe Kate picked him instead of Vivi. What was she thinking?

  “Lean in, Lilla!” Matt shouts. I don’t know what that means. But even if I did, I don’t think I’d take advice from someone wearing a backward baseball cap and flip-flops. Matt is one of the college students Kate picked to be an associate director, so, along with the other associate director, Molly, he’s mostly in charge.

  He is one of those boys—men, maybe, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to think about college students—who is always doing loud claps and bumping fists and telling girls to smile. This morning he said “my fraternity” forty-six times while talking during breaks. His other favorite words are shade, totes, and psyched.

  After Molly explained the egg game this morning, he patted her on the head. I can tell she’s a grown-up because she didn’t stab him with her spoon.

  For reasons I don’t understand, Knox seems to like Matt. He mirrors Matt’s posture the same way he does with Jax at the music store. Only with Jax, Knox goes all slouchy. Being around Matt makes Knox stand straight up and throw back his shoulders. Like a doorman.

  When the race is over, we get a ten-minute break.

  The high-school kids, who are the senior counselors, throw themselves into the beanbag chairs in the reading corner.

  Prisha skips over to me. “Do you want to come home with me after?”

  “I don’t know.” I’m not sure what Vivi’s doing, and it feels weird to make plans without her. Especially since I know she ’d love to be here with us. Or with me at least. But I also don’t know how to say this to Prisha without making it seem like I’m asking Vivi’s permission. Which I’m not doing. I care about Vivi. That’s all. “My mom’s out of town, and my dad might want me home.”

  “Just ask.”

  I pull out my phone. Prisha’s looking over my shoulder, so I have to tell her the truth. “I want to check with Vivi too. She’ll expect to hear from me.” Vivi would think it was pretty weird if I didn’t text her to check in after camp. Especially if she found out later that I’d been with Prisha.

  “Oh,” Prisha says, sounding hurt.

  “It’s just…It’s hard for her. She really wanted to be here.”

  “Forget it then.” Prisha gives a little smile.

  “I’m sorry. I definitely want to do something sometime. But there’s a lot going on right now. And I’m spending all day here with you.” Which Vivi is jealous about. I mean, I would be too.

  “Sure. No big thing,” Prisha says, but I can tell she doesn’t mean it.

  I don’t know why it has to be like this. I wish Vivi and Prisha could like each other. Or at least believe that I like them both.

  When Matt returns, he claps his hands again, making me jump. “Let’s circle up!”

  Kate joins us. “Tomorrow, we’ll move into our museum groups, but I want us to finish today with each of you sharing why you applied to be a counselor.”

  Some of the answers are serious. A high-school girl says she wants to figure out if she should be a teacher. Others are silly. Aman, one of the senior science counselors, says he wants to spend time in the free air-conditioning.

  Colby says, “I knew it was the only way I’d get my hands on that giant catapult. I have so many plans.” So maybe he is a little bit of a troublemaker.

  Knox leans across
two people to fist-bump Colby, but when it’s his turn to share, he’s sincere. “I just want to be somewhere happy a couple hours a week.”

  Tears fill my eyes. Knox is always nothing but joy. But his life at home has probably been a mess since his dad’s announcement.

  I wish I could protect him from all of it. Because even if you’re not the center of your parents’ world, everything they do gets to you somehow. The best you can do is lock it away for a little while.

  Thinking about this makes me change the answer I planned to give—that I wanted to help girls find a place for themselves in science. I’m a little embarrassed about being honest about my feelings with a room full of strangers, so my voice is quiet when I say, “I wanted something that was mine.”

  “Big-girl voice, Lilla,” Kate says. “This place is going to be full of kids next week. They need to hear you.”

  Drew laughs.

  It’s strange. I never felt like this in gymnastics meets, even though so many more people were watching. But I hate talking in front of groups of people.

  Everyone is waiting, though, so I try again, a little louder this time. “I wanted to do something because I enjoyed it, not because it would impress people.”

  Afterward, Kate dismisses us. Matt comes over and squeezes my shoulder. “You don’t have to be shy, Lilla. We’re all friends here.”

  I want to tell him to keep his hands off me and that being quiet is not the same as being shy, but I know he doesn’t mean anything, so I say, “Thanks,” and step away.

  Knox and Matt do fist bumps with fireworks, and Matt leaves.

  “You want to come over tonight?” Knox asks. “Mom’s feeling sorry for me because of the Ashley thing, so she said she ’d order pizza. Video games? Movies? Whatever you want.”

  I guess this just-the-two-of-us thing from last night wasn’t a fluke. I’m wondering if I’ll have time to wash my hair when Knox’s brown eyes go serious. “Thanks for yesterday,” he says. “I can’t talk to anyone else about that stuff.”

  His look sets everything inside me whirring. Like the time Vivi made us coffee milkshakes before bed and forgot to use decaf.

  Colby lands beside us with a leap. “Can she come?”

  I look at Colby.

  “I already texted Vivi,” Knox says. “She can come if you do.”

  He already texted Vivi. First. He texted her first. What does that mean? And Colby’s coming. So this is a friend thing.

  “Well?” Knox says.

  “I’ll ask my dad when I get home.”

  “’Kay,” he says, totally relaxed. “We can go old-school if you want. Monopoly? Clue?”

  “Exploding Kittens?” I ask.

  “You name it.” Knox links his pinkie with mine and gives my hand a little shake. “I owe you.”

  I am so confused.

  CHAPTER 17

  Different Now

  At home, I freak out about what to wear. Because I want to look pretty. And okay, if you want to get right down to it, it’s not just that I want to look pretty.

  I want to look pretty for Knox. There. Not so scary to admit.

  At least to myself.

  I pull on a green polka-dot sundress. It’s super cute, but too fancy for playing games with friends, and Dad was already edgy about letting me go over there at night. Who knows what he’s thinking after how weird he was about Knox last night and that talk I had with Mom about Colby this morning. The thing about having Committed Co-Parents is they still seem to spend a whole lot of time sharing news about me.

  I change into black capri leggings and this floaty navy top my mom got me on a trip of hers. I’ve never worn it before. Wide straps curve over the shoulders, and the top is tight across my chest, but the rest billows out around me.

  It’s good. I like the shape of me in it. When I was doing gymnastics, I was all straight lines and muscles. But I’m softer now. I gained ten pounds when I stopped going to the gym every day. I know from locker-room conversations and magazines I’m supposed to be all sad about this, but I’m not. I like it.

  I put my hair up into a high ponytail like Prisha’s and put on just a tiny bit of makeup. I usually don’t wear any because Vivi always notices and makes fun of me, but I don’t think it’s so wrong that I like the way I look with a little lip gloss and mascara.

  When I go into the kitchen to say goodbye, Dad looks up from the skillet, and his eyes widen. “You look nice,” he says. “Grown up.”

  “Is that okay?” I say. Maybe it’s too much?

  “Yeah. Just unexpected. Lots of changes this year.” I can’t tell what he’s feeling about this.

  He turns the flame down on the burner and faces me, still holding the spatula. “Knox’s mom said you’re going to eat there? With Vivi…and this Colby.”

  “We’re having pizza,” I say, waiting for the real question. Which had better not be about Colby.

  He looks at the ground. “Things are pretty rough for Knox right now, huh?”

  Oh. Thank goodness this is what he wants to talk about. Not me and boys and growing up.

  “She told you about Mr. Donohue?” I ask.

  “Yeah…and…” He looks at the ground again, and my relief turns into worry. Is he going to use this as an excuse to tell me about who he’s seeing? I want him to be honest. I do. But I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about this.

  My parents always juggled their schedules so one of them was home with me. I haven’t had a babysitter since I was tiny, so I don’t have to worry about that. But what if it’s a teacher? That would be awful. My brain runs through a slideshow of all the women who teach at the middle school. None seem likely. That assistant principal from the magnet school? That one he said was an artist. How did he know that?

  “What, Dad?” I say.

  “I want you to know I’ll be careful about who I bring into your life. You can trust me.”

  “Okay.” Easy to say. But when you’ve put me through a divorce and are dating No One Serious in secret, trust is a pretty big thing to ask. “Anything else?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Okay,” I say again, trying not to let my sadness leak into my words.

  Outside, the light’s bright enough that it sends me back in for my sunglasses. After going through both my rooms, I find them in Mom’s kitchen.

  The sunglasses hunt makes me late, but I don’t want to take my bike, ’cause Dad’s picking me up. The last time he put it in the trunk, the chain got all messed up, and neither of my parents are great with repairs. To make up time, I head up one of the busy border streets between the college and the city instead of going through campus.

  This route takes me right by an ice-cream shop where I have a gift card Mom got from a student and passed on to me. I pull out my phone to ask Vivi what I should get, but before I finish typing, there’s a whistle.

  A loud one.

  And not a singing-a-song whistle. Or a calling-a-taxi one. But one of those whistles that men do in cartoons to women who walk by construction sites. I didn’t know this happened in real life.

  I look across the busy street to see what’s going on. But there’s no one.

  “Over here,” a guy’s voice says.

  Slowly, I turn toward the building I’m standing in front of. A fraternity. Two guys—college students—are sitting on the front porch.

  The whistle must have come from them. A spike of fear nearly swamps me. I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself.

  “Oh,” one says with a laugh. “Sorry. Catch you in a few years, sweetheart.”

  I shake my head, backing away. A nervous laugh escapes. “’Kay,” I say.

  Then it gets worse. Because then one of the guys says, “Lilla?” The amusement on his face turns into horror.

  Matt. From the museum. I didn’t recognize him without his hat and with sunglasses. He stands and takes a step toward me. His movement brings me back into my senses. I don’t want him any closer, but I also don’t want to make a scene, so I dart
into the street, trying to put some kind of barrier between us.

  A car lays into its horn, making me jump a good foot into the air. Matt shouts something behind me, but I don’t turn back. Another car screeches to a stop. I run in front of it toward the campus. Someone yells behind me. I can’t tell if it’s Matt or the driver, and I don’t stay to find out.

  For the first time, the campus doesn’t feel safe. But I’ve walked this path between my new neighborhood and my old one hundreds of times. I don’t need to think to go forward.

  “Lilla, wait up!” a familiar voice calls.

  I don’t know why, but I turn and fold my hands over my chest. A completely useless act of protection. I want to be covered.

  “Hey,” Colby says as he catches up.

  Colby is safe. I don’t need to be afraid, but my body will not listen. My heart pounds, and I shiver. My hands are so cold.

  “Are you okay?”

  I open my mouth to speak, ready to reassure him, but words won’t come out.

  “You’re crying. What happened?” His voice has a strange intensity. Something about the way he says this makes me realize how much worse this could have been. What happened was so small compared to what could have happened.

  But it doesn’t feel small.

  “You’re shivering.” Colby pulls off his backpack and hands me a sweatshirt. “Put that on.”

  I stuff my arms in and zip it up. Grateful. With my skin covered and Colby next to me, I feel safe for the first time since I heard that whistle.

  “I might need to sit down for a minute,” I say, moving toward a bench. My knees feel weak.

  Colby sits, leaving a foot of space between us. I’m glad. I don’t want anyone to touch me. I put my head between my legs, letting the dizziness fade.

  “I was on my way to Knox’s when I saw you. I’m going to tell them we’re late.”

  I can’t go over there tonight and pretend everything is normal. To try to figure out what’s going on with Knox and me. The thought makes me sick to my stomach. I don’t want to think about that stuff anymore. Maybe ever again. And I need time to make sense of this in my own head before I talk about it with anyone else. Even Knox and Vivi. And I definitely can’t talk about it with Colby there.