June shrugs. “Okay, well, maybe the sports bras stretch or whatever. You have, like, serious big boobs now, Arianna.”
“They’re really big,” Kira and Sydney say at the same time, and then stop to do their jinx ritual.
“Stop!” I laugh. “I don’t want big boobs. How come I don’t get a say in my boobage size?”
They all start cracking up.
“But seriously, what did I miss when I was away at camp?” I grab my sunscreen out of my pool bag and start dabbing it all over my legs.
“See what I mean.” Kaylan rolls her eyes at the others. She whispers, “She’s obsessed with this place.”
I ignore her comment and roll my eyes right back at her. I didn’t even say anything obsessive.
M.W. clears her throat. “Well, there was that incident with the slimy noodle.”
“OMG, slimy noodle.” June cracks up, falling back onto her lounge and almost onto the pavement. “Slimy noooooooodle.”
“The slimiest,” Kaylan adds.
“No one would believe noodles could be that slimy,” Lizzie says in a spooky voice.
Marie is laughing so hard she’s not able to get any words out, and finally she just shakes her hands and admits defeat in that area.
Amirah raises her eyebrows. “Obvs.”
“Okaaay.” I scrunch my face tight. “I guess I’ll just have to accept the fact that I missed the slimy noodle incident.”
They all start laughing again, but no one explains it. It’s not like I really care to understand it, since it seems like one of those “you had to be there” moments. But it’s still a little awkward.
Cami announces, “We’re going to swim,” and all the others follow her.
Kaylan stays behind, lying back on the lounge, reading something on her phone.
“I didn’t know you and Lizzie were still hanging out,” I whisper, making sure no one can hear.
“Oh yeah, well, she’s been at the pool all summer, so she just started hanging with us.” Kaylan looks up at me. “It’s just been, like, whoever’s here kind of hangs out.”
I nod. “That’s cool.”
Kaylan goes back to looking at her phone, so I tap her knee and announce, “Jules invited Noah to the pool today.”
“That’s a little strange. I haven’t seen them hang out all summer, really. But who knows.” She shrugs. “So this mac and cheese is going to be literally life changing. I’ve been prepping. I have all the ingredients ready at my house. So when we’re done with the pool, we’ll both go home, shower, get into comfy clothes, and get started.” She claps. “Okay?”
I nod. “Sure. Sounds good.”
“Ari, you need to be more pumped up,” she insists. “Please. Come on. Show me some camp-level enthusiasm here.”
“I’m pumped, I’m pumped.” I fist-bump the air. “But should I tell Noah I’m not really into him anymore?” I ask Kaylan. “Can that be my tell a boy how I really feel thing?”
She considers it for a minute. “Nah, doesn’t seem big enough. Plus I don’t think you need to—you didn’t really hang out much last spring, either.”
I stare at the sky. “True.”
“Okay, come on, handstand time,” Kaylan says. “Lounging here isn’t accomplishing anything on the list, though that would have been a good list item.”
I crinkle my eyebrows. “What? Perfecting the art of lounging. We’ve already mastered that.”
“Yeah, true.” She grabs my hand. “Come on, let’s go to the grassy area by the basketball courts and practice handstands.”
As we walk over, I think back to last summer and realize that pre–middle school Kaylan would never have suggested this. Handstands in public? With kids we know from school here? No way. But now she’s all about it.
Maybe she’s more go-with-the-flow than she thought.
The more time I spend with her, the more I realize that Kaylan’s changed. I didn’t think it was possible to change so much in four short weeks. I guess it is.
“Okay, I’ll go first,” Kaylan says. “You judge me, give me pointers, stuff like that. And then I’ll do the same for you. K?”
“K.” I plop down on the grass and rub my eyes under my sunglasses. I don’t think I’ve fully recovered from camp fatigue yet.
Kaylan kicks off her flip-flops, stretches, and stands up straight with her feet apart, one in front of the other. Then she tips her body forward and keeps her arms perfectly straight. She ends up in the most perfect handstand. Legs toward the sky, arms secure. It looks like she could stay in that position for the next three hours and be totally fine.
She comes down and stands normally with her hands on her hips. “So?”
“Perfect. That was definitely a ten. You mastered it.” I lean back on my arms.
“I did,” she says, sounding disappointed. “I kind of wanted to keep working on it. Maybe because all the other stuff on the list is super hard.”
“Maybe. I mean, you can keep working on it, but it’s pretty perfect,” I say as I stand up. “Okay, my turn.”
“Make sure you kick with your dominant leg,” Kaylan instructs. “I think that’s the key part of it.”
I try to follow exactly what Kaylan did, but I can barely do it. When I’m up there, my palms are flat on the grass, and I try as hard as I can to keep my legs straight, but I know they’re crooked, lopsided, like a pair of scissors, and when I try to straighten them, I fall forward.
Kaylan stands back, assessing the situation, a finger on her lip. “Yeah, so it needs work, Ar. But you’ll get there. Let’s hold off on the JHH, though.”
I nod. “Yeah, I’m too tired to jump in the air. I could high-five or hug, though. . . .” I sigh. “I am not a gymnast. Remind me again why we put this on the list?”
“Because we used to be good at handstands and we used to love to do them, and we’re trying to keep a little of our old selves alive as we grow up,” Kaylan explains. “It can’t all be new and exciting. Ya know?”
“Right.”
I plop back down on the grass, lie back, and stare at the sky the way we used to do in between activities at camp. When I did this at camp, it almost seemed like I could feel the earth moving very, very slowly.
But here, not really. It’s just too noisy and chaotic.
“I’m gonna do another one,” Kaylan says. “Watch my form.”
“Okay.”
“Pay attention!” Kaylan snaps, and I sit up.
Right as she’s curling up into a handstand I see Jason walk by. He stops and looks at us and then almost walks away, but then he stops again. I wonder if I should warn Kaylan or not, but I don’t think I can without making it too obvious.
My stomach sinks as he walks over to us.
It’s one of those moments where you see yourself in the situation and you really think you should be doing more to intervene, but you actually don’t know what you’re supposed to do. So you just watch it all unfold.
“Nice handstand,” he says while Kaylan’s still in position. “I think you can check that off the new list.”
Kaylan showed him the new list? I’m flooded with icky embarrassed feelings, like someone just walked in on me changing into a bathing suit. But I mean, it’s just Jason. He knew about our other list, so I guess he can know about this one, too.
She finally comes down from the handstand and her cheeks are bright red—could be from all the blood rushing to her face since she was upside down for so long, could also be because Jason, the boy she just broke up with, is standing right in front of her.
“Hi, Jason,” I say, confused about why he didn’t even say hi to me. “How was your summer?”
He raises his eyebrows at me. “Um, I’d say it was a mix of good and then terrible.” He turns to face Kaylan and glares at her.
I don’t think I know what’s happening here.
“Now you should ask her how camp was,” Kaylan instructs. My heart pounds, and I feel a sudden urge to run away and leave this awkward interaction
.
“I can decide what I should ask,” Jason replies. He sits down next to me on the grass with his back to Kaylan.
“How was camp?” he whispers, and I see a little crinkle of a smile form in the corner of his mouth.
“Amazing. Better than anything ever in the whole entire world,” I tell him. “I wish I could live at camp forever.”
“Wow.” He jerks his head back.
I sit up and look at him. “How are you doing, Jason?”
“Craptastic,” he says. “Your BFF is grrrrrrr.”
I giggle because I can’t really tell if he’s trying to be funny, but it’s good to laugh either way.
“Don’t laugh,” he says. “I thought things were good between us, and then she, like, just decides she’s done with us being an us.” He goes on and on, while I pretend to listen but mostly try to figure out how Kaylan can do all of these crazy gymnastics moves.
She’s doing handstands all over the grass, and cartwheels and back handsprings and roundoffs. It was totally not fair for her to put the handstand on the list. She’s super advanced at gymnastics, and I’m like a negative beginner.
“So what should I do?” he asks me.
I quickly scan my brain, trying to remember anything he just said. “Well, maybe she’ll change her mind again,” I suggest. “She kind of does that a lot.”
He shrugs. “It’s so awkward now, though. And why is she flipping all over the place in front of me? It’s weird.”
“No offense, Jason,” I start. “But she’d be doing this whether you were here or not. She likes to show off sometimes.”
“Why did I even like her in the first place?” he asks me like I should know the answer.
“Because she’s the best girl ever,” I remind him. “And you guys had good times together. But sometimes that stops. The good news is it can start again. You just need to wait and see.”
“I don’t like waiting and seeing,” Jason says. “I’m bored. I want to hang out with you guys.”
“Well, no one said you couldn’t hang out with us,” I tell him. “I’m cool with it. And you’re obviously still going to be friends. Plus school starts in, like, two weeks, soooo . . .”
We stand up and walk over to Kaylan, who’s talking to Jules and Noah by the snack bar. “I did some competitive gymnastics when I was in elementary school,” she tells them. “But then I stopped. It’s good exercise, though.”
“What did you order?” I ask her.
“Water, for the list,” she whispers. “I left my water bottle at the lounges. And also mozzarella sticks.”
“How’s your water drinking going?” Jason asks me.
“Doesn’t my complexion look fabulous?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “I don’t know what that even means, really.”
“Water drinking is going well.” I glare at him. “I feel like you’re trying to do the list with us. Are you?”
“Not anymore.” He sulks.
I’m starting to wonder if putting tell a boy how we really feel on the list was such a good idea.
THIRTEEN
WHEN I GET HOME FROM the pool, Gemma is watching TV in the den, still in her paint-splotched shorts and T-shirt from her last day of day camp.
“Where’s Mom?” I ask her. On the walk home, I realized I hadn’t told my mom that I was sleeping at Kaylan’s tonight, and I need to finesse this in just the right way so she doesn’t get all agitated and flustered that she wasn’t aware of my plans.
“Upstairs in the office with Dad. I’ve knocked three times so far asking if we can order pizza tonight, but they keep telling me they’re discussing something important and I need to watch more TV.” She stretches her legs out on the ottoman. “Can’t complain about that, though!”
I hang up my wet towel on the back of the laundry room door and then head up to my room to shower and change for Kaylan’s. On the way, I make a quick pit stop outside the office to do a casual eavesdrop and see what’s going on.
“Well, they’ve been alluding to this for months now, Marc,” my mom says. “It’s hard to live in this uncertain state.”
Who’s they? And what are they alluding to?
My dad mutters something back, but I can’t hear what it is.
My mom adds, “I just didn’t think we’d be in this position.”
And another mutter from my dad.
Then silence.
As much as I want to stand outside the office door for the rest of the night and figure out what’s going on, it actually ends up being pretty boring, and I do want to get to Kaylan’s for our big night ahead. I can’t wait to tell her all about camp and make the mac and cheese and see the sunset and the sunrise.
Whatever is going on with my parents is clearly a grown-up thing, and there’s no way I could do anything to help with it anyway. Might as well move on.
I hop in the shower and then take the time to really lather the shampoo, extra condition, and feel the warm water rushing down my back.
Ten minutes later, as I’m walking out of the bathroom with a towel on my head and another towel tight around my body, my mom stops me.
“Oh, you’re home,” she says.
“Not for long. Going to Kaylan’s and sleeping over.” I go back into my room, and she follows me. “Sorry.”
After a deep sigh, she says, “Okay, Ari, but please remember there is a lot to do before school starts. We haven’t even discussed the change in your classes for this year. Are you excited to be on the honors track? Stressed?”
“I haven’t really thought about it yet. It’s still summer.” I tilt my head, wondering how it’s possible to go from a super-relaxing shower instantly into a stressful line of Mom questioning. “Mother, I’m fine. Don’t stress. Seriously. I can handle it.” I do a little dance in my towel. “Do I seem stressed to you?”
She giggles. “Not really. No.”
“We’re good then.” I look in my closet for something to wear. “Okay, let me get dressed. Byeee,” I sing.
“I guess you’re at that age where you need privacy now, huh?” she asks, leaning against my doorframe.
“Ew, Mom. Don’t be weird.” I try to gently close the door. “Please.”
She walks away, and there’s a tiny speck of guilt on my brain that I was mean to her, but I wasn’t really. It’s awkward to talk about changing bodies and privacy with your mother. Moms should know that daughters don’t want to discuss it with them. It’s an unspoken rule to just ignore it until things feel normal again.
I take a final peek in the mirror, dab on some of my strawberry lip gloss, and head down the stairs.
“Bye!” I yell out to the house. “Going to Kaylan’s. Be back tomorrow!”
No one responds.
“Okay, bye for real!”
Finally, Gemma comes up from the basement. “Wait, you’re leaving me alone with them? Again?”
“Um, I guess so. Yeah.”
“Ari, something weird is happening.” Gemma looks at me all confused and frowny.
“Gem.” I pull her into a tight hug. “It’s not a big deal. Honestly. Grown-up drama. Who cares?”
“Whatever you say, Ari . . .” She turns around and goes back down to the basement.
I’m halfway out the door when the landline rings and no one seems to be answering it. It’s Bubbie’s number so I put down my overnight bag and pick up.
“Hi, Bub,” I say.
“Hi, doll. How are you?”
I lean against the pantry. “Good, going to Kaylan’s for a sleepover. How are you?”
“Good, good, but missing you. I’m sorry Zeyda and I aren’t coming for our end-of-the-summer visit, but with your bat mitzvah in November, it just felt like too much travel.” She sighs. “I’m an old lady.”
I laugh. “You’re not old at all, Bub. Don’t say that.”
“Okay. I won’t.” She pauses. “Okay, tell Dad to call me.”
“I will.”
“Bye, doll.”
I hang up
the phone and yell out, “Daaad, call Bubbie back!”
On the walk over to Kaylan’s, I think about how everyone in my house seems to be mildly freaking out, and how it’s kind of a startling way to zap back into life at home.
It’s summer—we should be experiencing the highest level of peace and tranquility.
I’m about to go down the walkway to Kaylan’s front door when my phone dings.
An email from Zoe!
Dearest Arianna,
My dad is into the set-up idea. I can’t even believe it! Maybe he’s just doing it to be nice, but he said he’ll meet Kaylan’s mom. We actually have plans to visit cousins kinda near you at the end of September. Will you guys be around? Write me back and tell me, and we’ll make a plan.
I miss you sooooooooo much. Can’t wait for next summer!
LOVE YOU FOREVER! Zoe
P.S. Have you heard from Golfy? ☺ ☺ ☺
I pause a second before I go into Kaylan’s house, slightly deflated that I haven’t heard from Golfy. What is he even doing? I don’t get it. I have no clue how boys spend their time, really.
I open the front door and run up the stairs to Kaylan’s room.
“Oh my G, look at this.” I shove my phone in Kaylan’s face. She’s on her bed, reading an issue of Seventeen.
“Oh my GGGGG.” Kaylan clenches her teeth. “I haven’t told my mom anything about this yet.”
“Um, okay.” I stare at the ceiling fan going around and around and try to think. “We can figure this out.”
She adds, “Also, this is still mildly awk, ya know. I’m into it, and it’s on the list, but still—red-alert-level awkwardness.”
I consider that for a moment. “I mean, not really. It’s like awkward in a way, but not totally. They’re just meeting, not like going on some romantic vacation to the Cayman Islands or something.”
Kaylan cracks up. “Ew, ew. Stop. Parents and romance, major ew.”
“We did put this on the list, Kay,” I remind her, hopping up to lie next to her on the bed.
“I know. Give me time.” She pauses for a minute, pushing the magazine away. “Your parents have to throw one of their famous barbecues. We can do it at the end of September and it can be like a celebration for the fact that we survived a month of school. They’ll invite my fam, and Zoe and her dad since they’re passing by or whatever, and then we’ll make sure they talk to each other.”
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