Amy Doan - The Summer List

“Right.” Casey took a deep breath. “I’ll try it for now. Whatevs , as Elle says. On one condition.”

“Okay.”

“You can’t ask me why I’m doing it.”

“You asked me why. Not exactly fair.”

“Your answer was bullshit.”

I nodded, slowly. “Okay.”

“We’ll see how it goes.”

“Anyway we’re already doing it. Your mom’s psychic. Listen to Clue 1:

“‘This little lacy room was not

True shelter from a storm

But the perfect place to shade yourselves

On summer days so warm

Bring me one square of blue, it’s the least you can do.’”

I tapped the mosaic. “We’re supposed to pry a tile off and bring it to her.”

“My mother’s such a delinquent.”

“Unlike you. Anyway I paid for it. We can borrow one tile.”

“What was that line about ‘monitoring our progress’? You think she’s watching from the bushes with night-vision goggles?”

“Bought at the Sharper Image with the Polaroid.”

We stared out at the dark.

“We know you’re out there,” Casey called.

No answer except from the frogs. Casey walked down the steps, rooted in the bushes, and came back with a stick. She knelt and dug at the grout, trying to dislodge a tile near the base. “This grout is way stronger than the old stuff. I’m not making a dent.”

I commanded Jett to sit, and after a minute she settled enough so I could split the flimsy ring of her collar with my fingernail and pull off the rabies tag. I handed the thin silver medallion to Casey. “Try this.”

While Casey scraped I scooted to the center of the gazebo where the light was brightest. I pulled the hundred-dollar bill from my pocket. “We could make her pay for dinner. She owes us that, at least.”

“But what about our gas and incidentals? Dare we risk not having enough funds for the incidentals?”

“I’m starving.”

“Me, too.”

“What are the options these days? Josefina’s Pizza or the Creekside?”

“They’ll be madhouses. Tourists up for the weekend.”

“The Greek place?”

“Became a Taco Empire four years ago, then closed for health violations. We could do the skating rink clue and eat at the snack bar. Kill two birds with one stone. Except.”

“The food? I can handle fluorescent orange nachos for dinner. It actually sounds fantastic.”

“No. The food’s not bad these days. But...”

“But what?”

Casey stopped scraping and glanced over her shoulder. “He owns it now.”

“Who?” I examined the hundred. It was a 2008. Someone had carefully outlined the triangle above the pyramid, the one holding the eye, with blue pen.

I studied the bill, reading Latin over and over ( Annuit cœptis , Novus ordo seclorum ), but I could tell by Casey’s silence that I hadn’t fooled her. I knew who He was. She knew I knew who He was. There was only one He in Coeur-de-Lune, for me.

And it wasn’t the He worshipped in my mother’s old church.

I looked up from the bill. “So he’s been here this whole time?”

“He has a house in Red Pine.”

“You’ve been there? To the rink?”

“Elle loves it. We have every birthday party there.”

“She’s a good skater, then?”

Casey turned back to work on the tile, speaking to the mosaic wall as she scraped. “Is that really the question you want to ask me right now?”

Hardly. I could think of a dozen that interested me more than little Elle’s aptitude for gliding around on eight wheels— Is he married? What does he look like? Does he have kids?

Does he ever talk about me?

Casey answered only the question I’d spoken aloud. “She’s a good skater.” She paused, but couldn’t resist adding, “J.B. helped me teach her.”

Jett whimpered. I’d wound her leash around my wrist so tight she couldn’t move.

“Finally!” Casey stood and held out the small blue tile triumphantly. “A little chipped in one corner but it’ll work.”

As we walked back to Casey’s house, she said, “You’re sure you’re up for the rink? You don’t want to work up to it?”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Got it.”

“We’re all grown-ups.”

* * *

I drove us to the rink. If I’d been alone I would have done some serious primping in the rearview mirror first. Lip gloss, extra mascara. I would have taken my hair out of its twist and done a Level Three hair brushing, which required flipping my head upside down in pursuit of what my stylist called “volume at the crown.”

More than any of that, I wished I could try out reactions in the rearview mirror. Practice molding my face into various bland masks. Oh, hey, J.B. , I’d say. Neutral, composed. Over it. A “no worries!” tone.

But I could only manage the lip gloss. I did it stealthily, transferring a dot to my finger, then my lips, while we were at a stoplight and Casey was calling Alex.

Casey put her phone on speaker. “Hey, it’s Alex! Sorry I missed you. Don’t take it personally.”

“Mom. You total sneak. We got your list, and we’re maybe going along with it. Maybe. But only so we can figure out how soon we need to check you into the asylum. So don’t think you’re not in trouble. Laura’s furious. I’m furious. Call.” A pause. “And don’t forget Elle’s multivitamins and calcium. One of the clear gummies and one of the opaque sugarcoated gummies a day. Goodbye, liar.”

I’d always envied the effortless way Casey talked to her mom, like they were girlfriends. Even when they were fighting, there was an easiness between them.

Casey sighed. “Elle worships her, naturally. It’s my mom who found her, at this place where she was volunteering.”

“An orphanage?”

“Tutoring center. She was born drug affected. But now she’s doing brilliantly. It’s the next turnoff.”

“I remember.”

* * *

Casey swung open the door to the Silver Skate ’n Lanes, unleashing a familiar mix of throbbing bass and arcade beeps. The rink smelled the same, too. Sweaty rental skates, overly sweet first perfumes, fake-butter popcorn.

“You’re sure about this?” she said.

“It’s no big deal. He wouldn’t recognize me anyway.”

Here’s where she was supposed to say, Of course he would, you look exactly the same. You look fabulous . But she was silent, walking ahead of me down the dark, carpeted hall to the counter. I lingered for a minute by the entrance, watching kids play with the gleaming metal marble run on the wall. It was all in perfect order.

The middle-aged cashier smiled at Casey. “You skating? No Elle?”

“We’re just getting a snack, Deb.”

“Session’s over soon. No charge.” She taped glow-in-the-dark bracelets around our wrists. “Disco night, God help us.”

We pushed through the turnstile to the rink. “Disco Duck” was blasting. The smiles on the faces whipping by said, Yes, we’re doing this silly thing, but isn’t it glorious? The wind, the hundreds of tiny near misses, the satisfaction of a graceful turn, the soothing repetition of it. The rink was as effective as any monk’s meditation labyrinth.

“Let’s see that clue again,” Casey said.

We read silently by disco light:

Here you used to glide and spin

Young and swift and free

On hoofs of brown and orange you’d win

A game, a heart, a key

Visit the ancient chest of tin, take a picture to bring to me

“Is it the same one?” I looked around for the silver treasure chest. Automatically, illogically, because he would be forty now, I searched for another gleam of silver: a metallic uniform T-shirt, and The Boy with black hair who wore it.