“How was your day, honey?” Mom asks.
“Fine,” I say, collapsing beside her against a pile of throw pillows. Billy quietly spreads out by my feet. “Got an A on my math quiz.”
“That’s great. Thank goodness you inherited your dad’s math skills and not mine. I was always terrible.”
Zoe makes a face. “But don’t you have to be kind of good at math to become a nurse, Mrs. P?”
“Yup.” Mom points her fork at Zoe. “So I had to work my butt off.”
I spear an egg roll and shove half of the greasy cylinder into my mouth, barely chewing. When Mom’s not looking, I sneak a piece to Billy, who swallows it in one grateful gulp. Zoe talks excitedly about which dancers she thinks will go through to the next round. Mom says she likes the dancer that “does the twirly flips.” She always uses words like twirly when she’s tired. She gets predictable. On nights like this, I can bet she’ll ask me a few more questions about my day, excuse herself to shower, and fall asleep on the couch while I finish watching my show.
“Did you do your homework?” she asks on cue.
“I’ll do it after this.”
“Do you have any school forms for me to sign?”
“No.”
“How was practice?”
“Hot.”
“Did you drink a lot of water?”
“Yup.” I hold up my Nalgene bottle for emphasis, taking a big, dramatic swig.
Mom stands up. “I’m going to go shower. You girls clean up during the commercials.”
Zoe and I sit cross-legged on the couch with pillows clutched against our chests. Together we laugh and yell at the screen, popping bits of lettuce and fried rice into our mouths, watching as Billy slurps up our litter. Hanging out with Zoe feels like the most natural thing in the world. She was my rock after Dad died, squeezing my hand as I cried myself to sleep every single night for a week, squishing herself into my tiny twin bed and abandoning her own spacious bedroom on the other side of town. When she finally went back home, she called me every night for months, making sure that I was OK.
“I should be a dancer,” she muses as the episode finishes and her favorite dancer is eliminated.
“Don’t you have to be graceful to dance?”
She throws a pillow at me. “I can be graceful.”
I laugh. Zoe is the type of girl who can’t peel a banana for lunch without it somehow managing to wind up under her feet. She jumps up to switch off the TV, and then attempts a few twirls in the air before giving up, standing frozen in the middle of the living room. We both watch the black screen for a moment.
“You still thinking about becoming a dancer?”
“Nope. I’m thinking about how my mom’s going to be here any minute to pick me up.”
“Should we wait outside?”
Zoe groans, dramatically draping her body over the couch. “I guess. It’s probably not as hot out anymore.”
We throw our dishes in the dishwasher and yell up to my mom before grabbing a juice box to share outside. Billy follows us to the door, and I hook him to his leash. “Told you I’d take you out next time,” I whisper. He seems to smile as we make our way out onto the front steps.
Zoe was wrong: It hasn’t cooled off.
“We so shouldn’t have to go to school tomorrow,” she moans. “There should be laws against making us go to school in this kind of heat.”
I notice that Zoe is hogging all of the juice and I yell at her to share. She laughs and squeezes some at me. We’re the only noise on the street. There is no sign of life in any of the other houses. It’s kind of eerie even though it’s not completely dark yet, but then again, Goodie Lane has always felt a bit eerie.
I flash a curious look over to the Oldies’ houses, which sit quietly in a row across the street. I remember Ms. Bea earlier this morning, watering her roses, looking as plastic as a mall mannequin, and then I think of Mike and what he said about Mr. Brown. Parker, he was fast . . .
“How long do you think the Oldies have lived here?” I ask.
Zoe takes a seat on the top step, motioning for me to join her. “Forever,” she says. “Remember when you first moved, and we used to pretend to be detectives? We’d spy on them through your living room window and follow them around the neighborhood. I think we called ourselves the Q and Z Investigators.”
“Right! How could I forget? You’d blow our cover every time by laughing whenever we got close.”
“Remember that one time with Ms. Bea and Ms. Attwood? They were on some kind of power walk around the pond. We were following them. Ms. Bea heard me giggle and turned around and yelled ‘Boo!’”
I nod. “We ran all the way home.”
“Yup. And then we officially closed down the detective business.”
I smile at the memory. A pang of guilt punches me in the stomach as I think about Mike’s and my secret, about our own investigation. Part of me wants to tell Zoe about it, but I promised Mike that we’d work alone. Not to mention, it’s one thing to be a kid detective when you’re seven, but quite another when you’re thirteen. But what if . . .
I meet Zoe’s eyes. “Seriously, though,” I start, “do you think something’s up with them?”
Zoe raises an eyebrow. “You want to reopen the case? Get the Q and Z team back in business?” She snorts at the thought before breaking into a full-on laugh that rings out through the now-dark street.
My heart sinks. Her laugh is the only answer I need. I can’t tell her about the investigation. Not now. Not ever.
“You still thinking about the neighbors?” she asks.
“No,” I lie.
She looks from side to side. “Speaking of which, where is everybody? Your street is so quiet. I feel like we should be whispering.”
“I don’t know. It’s always like this at night.”
“You think Mike’s home?” she asks.
“How should I know?”
“I never see his parents’ cars anymore when I’m here.”
I shrug. “I don’t see them much either. Mike told me that his dad got promoted. Now he’s like the president of the whole university. And his mom works there, too.”
Zoe whistles. “Fancy.”
“Yup. Mike said it’s an extra big deal because his dad is the first African American to run the college.”
“That’s cool,” Ava says. She then flashes me a mischievous smile. “Did he talk to you at practice?”
“Nope, Coach separated the boys and girls today.”
“I bet he missed you.”
Before I can argue, a pair of headlights flash around the corner of Goodie Lane, and then Zoe’s mom eases her car into our driveway.
“Hi, girls,” she calls with a smile. “Zoe, you ready?”
“I guess,” Zoe mumbles, pulling herself to her feet along with her backpack and her skateboard. “See you tomorrow, Quinn.” She hops into the passenger’s seat of the car, waving wildly from the window as her mom drives them away.
I remain on the front steps as I watch the headlights fade, leaving Goodie Lane dim and still once again. Billy moans against my leg, signaling for me to take him back inside where it’s cool, and lit, and safe.