If he was being honest, this request, while ridiculous, was a welcome distraction. As Ethan added all three flavors of ice cream to the blender and topped it off with a splash of Pepsi, then root beer, then 7 Up, he forgot, for a moment, about everything. He watched the blender churn the ingredients together into a muddy grayish brown and thought about which toppings would best complement this concoction.
Juniper had returned to the counter and now leaned against its metal surface, watching Ethan’s progress. She oohed as he poured the float into a tall glass and spooned two, then three more, scoops of rainbow sprinkles on top. He finished it off with a leaning pile of whipped cream that had already begun to spill over the side of the glass by the time he pushed it toward her across the counter.
“It looks,” Juniper began, then burst into laughter. Ethan frowned as she leaned close to the drink, squinting at a cluster of sprinkles.
“It’ll taste better than it looks,” he muttered.
“We’ll see about that.” Ignoring the straw that Ethan handed her across the counter, Juniper perched in one of the spinning seats and lifted the glass to her lips with both hands. Whipped cream spilled across her nose as she took a long, loud gulp.
Ethan watched as she set the glass back down on the counter, licking her lips. She nodded thoughtfully for a moment, then turned to him and said, “Ethan Charlie Harper, I’ve gotta say—that is absolutely disgusting.” But even as she pushed the drink back across the counter, she was smiling,
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Really? Try it, I dare you.”
Rolling his eyes, Ethan stabbed a straw into the drink and took a big gulp—too big, he realized almost instantly, because as soon as the drink touched his tongue, he couldn’t help but spit it back out, straight onto the counter. Juniper leaned away from the splatter, cackling.
“What did I tell you!” she cried.
“Yeah, well”—Ethan wrinkled his nose—“at least I don’t have whipped cream all over my face.”
And Juniper did have whipped cream all over her face: on her cheeks, across her nose, and somehow on her forehead. As she squinted at the countertop, trying to see her reflection in the polished metal, Ethan smirked and passed her a handful of napkins.
“Thanks,” she said, scrubbing her face clean. Ethan watched as she balled up the damp napkins, amazed by how, even in her gracelessness, she moved with such confidence. He was suddenly aware of how small this town made him feel, so tightly wound, and so he straightened his shoulders.
“I think I’ll just have a root beer float.” Juniper pushed a quarter across the counter, her eyes bright with laughter.
“That I can handle,” Ethan said.
Juniper chatted to him as he made the drink, telling him about her weekend—how she’d tried to read an old book from her aunt’s library, but it was so dusty she couldn’t stop sneezing. Somehow, with her waving hands and impassioned drawl, she made the most mundane incident into a spectacular story. Ethan found himself transfixed even as he scooped ice cream into her float.
“And what about you?” she asked as he replaced his botched daily special with the new glass. She had concluded her tale by explaining how she had thrown the book across the room and nearly broke a vase that had been passed down from her grandmother. “How was your weekend?”
Ethan was caught off guard, blinking at her for a moment before answering. “Fine.” He wiped away the milk shake he’d spat out onto the counter.
Juniper took a long, loud slurp of her float, and Ethan could feel her eyeing him carefully. “Fine?”
“Fine.”
She was silent for a moment as Ethan moved to wipe another part of the counter, then said, “And what’s the real answer?” Ethan looked up. Juniper sat with both hands on the glass, the condensation making her palms damp, and gazed at him seriously. “I’m good at a bunch of things, Ethan, and one of them is knowing when people are trying to bamboozle me. So ’fess up, what happened this weekend?”
Since the day before, Ethan hadn’t felt like thinking, much less talking, about the incident. But something in Juniper’s face, wide eyed and kind, made him feel like he had to say something. In fact, her stare made him feel like he could say anything.
“My aunt,” he began, “said some things.” He recounted the whole story, still running the cloth back and forth across the counter. Juniper listened quietly, her float melting beside her, untouched.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Ethan finished. “Anyway, nothing I can do about it.”
Juniper reached across the counter to put a hand on Ethan’s arm, coaxing his gaze up to her face. “Sure it matters,” she said. “It made you sad.” When Ethan said nothing, she went on, “I’m sorry it happened. People are like that—I’ve seen it around this town before—but that doesn’t make it right.”
Ethan shrugged. Juniper studied him for a moment, her nose wrinkled in concern. Under the malt shop lights she was bursting with color, too bright for this little room and, Ethan thought, for this whole town. He wondered, as he had since meeting her, how she’d managed to turn out so different from everyone else he’d met in Ellison, and why, of all people, she saw a friend in him.
“Hey,” Juniper said, brightening suddenly. “I think I know something that’ll cheer you up.”
“You really don’t have to do that, I’m—”
She held up a hand, leaning across the counter. She said, “I want to tell you about my invincible summer.”
Ethan remembered the words she’d gushed at him when they first met, about having the perfect summer with him as her sidekick, about the adventures they’d have. She was smiling at him now, wide eyed. Ethan shrugged.
“Go for it,” he said.
She took a deep breath. “Summer is my favorite season,” she began. “It’s when school is out and the sunflowers are high and the lake is good for boating. There’s so much to do in Ellison that you wouldn’t even guess, especially when it’s so beautiful out. For all my fourteen-almost-fifteen years of life, I’ve wanted to spend a summer exploring it all with someone. But the thing is, I’ve never really had any friends here, except Gus the dock manager, who is old and has a bad knee. And he’s great, but I’ve always wanted a friend my own age.
“I love this town. I love it with every little bit of me. But people here aren’t always so kind. I guess you’ve noticed.” She smiled ruefully. “When I first saw you here the other day, well, I thought the town probably wouldn’t be so nice to you. And they aren’t so nice to me either. Folks around here think I’m weird. So I figured, you know, it never hurts to have a friend when things are hard. And there’s nothing like an adventure to take your mind off all the bad stuff.”