“She likes hearts, is all,” I add, trying to convince him and me it means nothing. “I saw this at the mall, so I bought it for her. No big deal.”
“Right,” Justin says. “Forget it. I’m just giving you crap, bro. It’s okay. Use your own judgment.” He squeezes my shoulder. “You two are tight, so you know her better than I do. Just don’t get burned, that’s all.” I nod, because maybe he really is trying to protect me. “Anyway, I’m heading to Chance’s. We’re gonna go take the Angler out to the Point. Mom won’t be home until late, so if I’m not back by dinner, there’s stuff in the freezer. Microwave something. She’s got a double shift at the Dolphin.”
I nod again.
The Dolphin is where Mom works, a diner with a bar in it, so it stays open till midnight on the weekends. The Angler is the inflatable fishing boat with the trolling motor that Rand left behind when Mom booted him out last November, once and for all. It’s pretty much the only good thing that came from his living here. Everything else was just sad.
Don’t get me wrong, though: the Angler wasn’t a gift or anything; Rand just couldn’t fit it on his Harley when he left, and he didn’t have his truck anymore because he totaled it, drunk driving. He says he wasn’t drunk, but the cop said he was, and that was the last straw. Luckily, no one was hurt, not even him, just the truck and the side of a dumpster on Route 35 and the lamppost that used to be right next to it. Anyway, Mom kicked him out after that, so who needs to think about him now?
“You listening, Lukas? Double at the Dolphin. Late.”
I nod again. “Yeah, I heard you.”
If you live here long enough, you learn everything in this town is called something Dolphin or Seaside something, even our crappy apartments. The Port Bennington Dolphin Garden Apartments, to be exact, not that dolphins have gardens, so why bother? And not that there’s really any garden here, unless you count the small strip of grass with a fence around it, and a few benches and a set of swings that everyone calls a playground. The space that basically separates our building from the train station and tracks.
I’m not complaining. The Port Bennington Dolphin Garden Apartments are fine, if not as nice as our house in the Estates, where we used to live, not that I can remember it so much, but Justin is always saying so.
“Okay,” I say, to make sure he knows he’s good to leave, since he’s still standing there, even as I’m also wondering if he’s supposed to be home later, to keep an eye on me. Not that I need him to, but sometimes, when Mom is out late, she likes him to be here with me, even when Rand was still here. If he’s not back, I won’t rat him out, but it does cross my mind to make him think I might, because then maybe he’d take me with him to the Point. The Point and the lighthouse at Execution Rocks are the two coolest places on earth, even if I haven’t actually been out to the lighthouse yet. Who doesn’t love a place called Execution Rocks? With or without Justin, I’m going to go one day really soon.
“Have a good time” is all I say.
When I’m sure Justin is gone, I wrap the pendant, carry it to my desk, and reread the note. I decide to add something else, something Justin made me think of. So I rip that one up and start again, writing the whole thing over with new stuff. I reread it, weird nerves squeezing my chest, but the stuff I added makes it better.
When I have it all wrapped and I’m ready to go, I glance back at it all. I’m still not sure but I have a whole day to make up my mind.
I never had the chance to open Lukas’s envelope, the first clue, which would have led me to the first stop on my Birthday Scavenger Hunt. I never had the chance, and then when I did—days later, after things calmed down, after the police came to our door, after the funeral, after everyone had come and gone, family, friends and strangers, teachers and kids—I didn’t want to anymore. I put it away in my desk, and I never looked at it again.
“You’re not eating,” my mom says. She pushes my bowl of milky, sweet rice cereal, topped with fresh strawberries, closer, but I’m not hungry.
“I will, Mom.” I look up across the table and smile. “Thanks.”
I’ve learned to smile, because if I don’t, everyone gets all worried. For a while, my mom and dad wanted me to see a therapist, someone aside from the lady doctor who came to our school. But Lukas Brunetti is my friend, my best friend, and I didn’t need my own special doctor to tell me that.
I still can’t talk about Lukas in the past tense. I just can’t.
I take a big spoonful of my birthday breakfast as Isabel and Davy come clomping down the hall. From the sound of their footsteps, I can tell they are carrying something big. Usually I know what present my family has gotten me before I open it; usually because it’s something I asked for or because Isabel can’t keep a secret.
But this year I haven’t asked for anything, so I have no idea what my little brother and sister are lugging into the kitchen. Whatever it is, my dad is right behind them.
“Surprise!” he calls out.
We are all crowded around our kitchen table, but I am the only one still sitting down. Natalia came running in from the bathroom, her wet hair half up in a towel twisted like a turban, shouting, “Wait, wait for me. Don’t start singing yet.”
Isabel gives the present one last shove along the floor, and she tells me, “Open it, Jolie.” Davy stands next to her, with his arms stiffly at his sides, because he is trying so hard not to tear into the wrapping himself. Lukas used to think that was so funny.
Then, even though I don’t want my brain to do it, there is a flash of a memory from when we were in school. I am eight years old, and so proud and excited, standing in front of the whole class. I can smell the confection, the sugar, the homemade sweetness, still softly rising into the air.
Now there is something telling me that if I don’t remember this, it will all float away. If I don’t tell the stories—of cupcakes and scavenger hunts and holes in the sand—they will be lost forever.
I must have that sad, faraway look on my face, because Isabel is stamping her feet, and Davy’s baby morning breath is warming the back of my neck, and Natalia is looking at me, with concern, from across the table. My mom puts her hands on my shoulders like she needs to hold me up, and my dad lifts the box and puts it on the table in front of me.
“Happy birthday, my sweetheart,” he says.
“What is it?” I slide my fingers under the crinkly paper, and I am smiling. I am excited. The first bit of writing from the cardboard box underneath appears: ELECTRIC.
“What could it be?” I ask. My hands are moving faster to keep up with my heart beating.
But Isabel can’t wait one more second. She dives in, pulls off the last, long sheet of wrapping paper.