I STEPPED OUTSIDE the hardware store, blinking in the early summer sunshine.
“Penny? Is that you?”
Micah’s smile stayed fixed on his face as he crossed the distance between us in two giant steps and gathered me up in a hug.
“Hi,” I squeaked, my face pressed against his letterman jacket.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” Micah said. “It’s been forever.”
He pulled back, and I tried to regain my balance as gracefully as possible.
“I know.”
“No, seriously,” he said. “When’s the last time we saw each other?”
“Hmm . . .” I said, pretending like I was trying to remember. In truth, I remembered the last time I’d seen Micah Jameson very clearly, but he hadn’t seen me. Last summer, Dad had sent me on an early morning grocery store run to get more bread and mustard, and I saw Micah pulling a gallon of milk from the dairy fridge one aisle over. But I’d been wearing pajama bottoms and flip-flops, and was too embarrassed to go say hi.
“Wasn’t it Reese’s birthday party?” he asked. “In like eighth grade?”
Seventh.
“Yeah, that sounds right. Wow, you look the same.”
“Thanks. I think.” He laughed. “So you back for a little bit?”
“A few months, actually. Practically the whole summer.”
Micah smiled again, like he was genuinely pleased to hear I’d be around for a while. My stomach swooped again.
“Sweet. You got any plans while you’re here?”
“Um . . .” I became aware again of the spiral notebook in my hand. It contained, along with my laptop, pretty much the entirety of my summer plans. I thought about the list I’d made the night before, of potential interviewees. Micah’s name was at the very top of that list. Getting him to talk on record about his dad was essential. But as I looked into his face, with his dark blue eyes squinting in the sun, his long lashes casting shadows over his cheekbones, it was like my entire project just flew from my mind, leaving a gaping hole behind. I scrambled to say something—anything resembling human speech at all—but the gears in my head had ground to a stop. Nothing worked.
“I, uh . . . nothing really. I’ll be helping out at the ice-cream store a little,” I managed.
“Cool,” Micah said.
“Yeah. Ice cream’s the best.”
Ice cream’s the best? What the hell was I talking about? Where was my head? Micah smiled so wide that for a moment I wondered if he was making fun of me. But no—that was just how he smiled.
I scanned my brain for something rational to say.
I used to write your peewee football jersey number on the back cover of all my notebooks. No.
Remember when we played spin the bottle at Reese’s birthday party, and my spin landed on you, but I was too nervous to kiss you, and I think you knew that, so you just kissed my hand instead? Probably not.
Hey, wanna talk about your dead dad for a minute to help me get into college? Definitely no.
If I couldn’t even manage a regular conversation with Micah at the moment, asking for an incredibly personal interview was probably not the best move. I’d have to work up to it. And if “working up to it” required possibly hanging out with Micah this summer, well, then that was a sacrifice I’d just have to make.
For journalism.
“So, um . . . what are those?” I asked, trying to keep my voice bright as I motioned to a bundle of papers in his hand.
Micah’s expression darkened. He angled the papers so I could see. The black-and-white faces of Cassidy Jones and Bryan Ryder stared up at me.
“I’m just hanging up some more flyers,” Micah said, his voice low.
“Oh, right. I can help with a couple if you want.”
“Thanks, Penny,” Micah said, handing me a thin stack. “That would be awesome of you.”
“So there’s still no word?”
Micah shook his head. “It just doesn’t make sense, you know? Everyone’s saying they maybe just skipped town, but we’ve got summer practice starting tomorrow. No way Bryan would miss that. Not for anything.”
I nodded hard, not sure what to say. It made total sense to me that someone would give up on the glory of summer two-a-days to get away for a while. Maybe even start over somewhere new.
Micah shrugged. “Or maybe I’m just overreacting, and they’ll show up tonight, ready to party, acting like nothing ever happened.”
I continued nodding, as though I had any idea what Micah was talking about.
“Now that you’re back in town, you’re coming to the party, right?”
“Um . . .”
“You should definitely come. It’s out at Millers’ barn. You know it?”
“Oh. Yeah. That’s . . . a good barn.”
Micah laughed, just a little bit harder than the nonjoke really warranted. I joined in.
“Cool,” he said. “I hope I see you there.”
“Oh, you will. If I go. Which I probably will. So you probably will. Um. See me there.” I cleared my throat and held up the small stack of flyers in my hand. “Anyway, better get started on these.”
“Yeah.” Micah nodded, then reached out and touched me lightly on the shoulder. “Thanks again, by the way.”
“Oh yeah, no problem,” I responded, giving him a thumbs-up.
A thumbs-up?
But Micah just cocked his head a little to the side and laughed. “All right. Well, see ya later.”
I just nodded. Nodding was safe—I should just stick to nodding.
Micah crossed the road then, and I watched him saunter off, while I clutched the flyers in my hand. I couldn’t help smiling a little as I swung my bike around on the sidewalk, already wondering how I would get to the barn party. I was barely paying attention to my surroundings when I looked up, and my heart froze.
Reese was staring at me from a few shops down the street. She’d grown out her wavy blond hair and was a few inches taller, from what I could tell. But her expression was exactly the same as the last time I’d seen her. She’s the only person I’ve ever known who’s looked at me like that—with an actual hatred. As we made eye contact, the look morphed into one of cold indifference. She tore her gaze from me when the door of Vinny’s Bar opened behind her. Reese’s mom, Julie Harper, stepped out into the sunshine. She looked up and saw me, and if her daughter’s face was a mask of coldness, Julie’s was one of shock.
God, this really was a small town.
I willed myself to pump my legs forward and ride away as quickly as possible, but I felt stuck like a butterfly under glass, pinned in the moment by Julie’s stare. Reese took her mother’s arm and turned her toward a car that was parked on the curb.
I tried to push the Harpers from my mind as I hung up a few flyers in the window at Sweet Street and put a few more up on the bulletin board at the post office. By the time I started pedaling home, my thoughts swung back to Micah. I remembered how genuine he’d looked when he invited me out to the Millers’ barn party—like he wasn’t just being polite, but really did want me there—and I felt a smile cross my face again.
I wondered what I’d wear to the party, and whether or not I’d find an opportunity to ask him for an interview. My notebook was heavy in my purse, pulling down on my shoulder as I pedaled. I hadn’t really gotten any new information or usable quotes; I’d gotten weirdly similar quotes from Cindy and Hector, but not useful ones.
I turned onto the cracked pavement of my quiet street, and my eyes automatically went to the driveway. Dad’s truck was still gone. But another car on the road nearby caught my attention. It was black and sleek, so new-looking that it stood out against the dusty street. I didn’t recognize the car; it didn’t look like something anyone in Bone Lake would drive. At first, I thought it was parked across the street from Dad’s, but as I pedaled closer I realized it was actually moving, just very slowly. It rolled inch by inch past our house.
I swerved out of its path, and as soon as I did the car picked up speed, kicking up a pebble that flew into my bike rim with a small pinging noise.
“Hey,” I said angrily, looking up at the car as it moved past me.
I tried to see inside, but the windows were tinted almost black. It had a blue-and-white license plate—definitely from Michigan—but the plate itself was spotless. No rust, no dirt. It looked like it had just been taken through a deep clean. Or just been issued.
The car braked as it turned the corner, and then it was practically gone.
“City jerk,” I muttered after its retreating taillights. The words sprang automatically to my lips, and a half second later I realized with a cringe that they weren’t mine at all—they were my dad’s. That was the expression he’d use whenever someone cut him off in traffic or sped by in a hurry. To him, it wasn’t the “jerk” part that mattered—it was the “city.” The ultimate insult in his eyes. He continued to use it all the time, even though his own daughter had been living in a city for the past four years.
But maybe four years wasn’t long enough, I thought as I put up the kickstand on my bike and started toward the house. After all, I’d been home only a day, and already my dad’s expression was coming out of my mouth as naturally as if it belonged there. It shook me, hearing myself repeating his words like I used to when I was small.
I pictured my bedroom in Chicago, my school, my unfinished college applications. That was who I was now, the real Penny Hardjoy. Bone Lake Penny was just a kid. A kid who believed everything her father ever told her.
Good riddance to that Penny.
But as I unlocked the front door and turned the handle to walk inside, the motion of it felt like second nature, like a muscle memory too deep to extract. No matter how many years had passed or how much I’d changed, my body still knew this was what it felt like to come home.