TWO

WE’RE WALKING OVER TO THE snack bar to get lunch when we hear someone say, “Ari! Hey! Over here.”

We look all around, not knowing where the voice is coming from, and finally we find the person. She’s so tall, with the longest legs I’ve ever seen. She doesn’t even have her hair pulled back; it’s just blowing in the breeze, but not at all in her face. And she doesn’t even look sweaty! We walk over to the section of lounge chairs in the sun, near the deep end.

“Oh my God, hi,” Ari says, leaning in to give the tall girl a hug.

“Ari, you look soooo tan,” the girl says. “B. T. Dubs, Tamar said she was coming later.”

B. T. Dubs? Ew.

“Oh cool.” Ari smiles. “I haven’t talked to her since the end of Hebrew, when she went away to camp. How was your summer?”

Ari’s voice always gets super-high-pitched when she’s excited about something, and now it’s just, like, normal. I’m getting the sense that Tamari really is over. Good.

“It was amazing,” the girl replies. “I was on this teen tour with Phoebe, you know her, right? We had the best time.”

I’m just standing there, feeling really stupid because I don’t know this girl, and Ari hasn’t introduced me. I shift my weight from my left foot to my right foot and then back again. Should I go to the snack bar and meet Ari there? I don’t want to interrupt, but I also don’t want to keep standing here, like I’m hovering on the side of their conversation.

“That’s awesome,” Ari says. “Oh, do you know Kaylan?” She turns to me. “Did you guys ever meet? I can’t remember. Jules moved here last year; we’re in Hebrew together.”

“I don’t think we’ve met,” I say to the girl. Jules, I guess. “I’m Kaylan, but duh, Ari just said that.”

“I’m Jules. Also, duh.” She laughs. “You guys go to school together?”

Ari nods. “Yeah, are you gonna be at West Brookside? I forgot where you said you were going. Doesn’t the end of Hebrew feel like so long ago?”

Jules plays with the beads on her bathing suit top. “It totally does. I’m not going to West Brookside, I’m going to East, but some of my other friends are going there.” She looks back over at them. “I’ll introduce you.”

I say, “Introduce us after lunch, okay? I’m staaarrrrviiiiinnnggg.” I try to imitate this line I heard in a movie once, but neither of them get the joke.

“Oh, uh, sure!” Jules bounces on her toes. “See you guys later.”

She goes back to her group, and Ari and I keep walking to the snack bar, not saying anything. We overhear Jules say, “Oh, that’s Ari, she’s cool, she’s, like, the only reason Hebrew School is tolerable.”

Ari and I look at each other then and raise our eyebrows. “That’s, like, a major compliment?” I tell her, trying to imitate Jules’s sing-songy voice.

“I know, right?” Ari squeals.

It’s a weird thing to know that your whole life is about to change really soon but have no idea how that change will affect you. I mean, I’ve been going to school with pretty much the same kids since kindergarten, and in just a few weeks I’ll be in this giant school with a bazillion kids I don’t know. Okay, maybe not a bazillion, but lots of new people. It’ll feel like a bazillion. Maybe even a bazillion plus one.

“Hello, Brookside Pool!” We hear Joey scream through the loudspeaker. “I said, ‘Hello, Brookside Pool!’”

A few enthusiastic pool goers yell back, “Hello, Joey!”

“That’s not good enough!” he screams.

So then we all yell, “Hello, Joey!”

Ari and I laugh at ourselves and everyone else for how seriously we take the Brookside Pool rituals.

“Who is ready for Freeeeeeezzzzze Daaaannnncce?” he asks.

Oh no. Not Freeze Dance. Not now. Not when we’re in such a visible spot between the lifeguards and the snack bar. We were just going to casually get our lunch, and eat on our lounge chairs, and process that whole Jules interaction.

“Ari!” I talk through clenched teeth. “Our mozzarella sticks are getting rubbery. Come on, run!”

“We never miss Joey’s Freeze Dance,” she says, putting an arm around me. “Come on! We’re amazing at it. We were reigning champs two years in a row!”

Joey turns up the music. Because I’m happy, clap along if you feel—Ari and I are dancing, totally getting into it, doing the twist down to the pool pavement and back up. Slapping hands and shimmying all over the place.

The music stops and we freeze instantly.

We are Freeze Dance rock stars, and we know it. A bunch of people get called out, but we’re still in. We’ll make it to the final round; I know we will.

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth.

We grab hands and dance around in a circle for the next round. It feels like everything is okay. A blanket of calm spreads over me. And all that matters right then is Ari and me and the pool and Joey’s Freeze Dance competitions.

“‘Because I’m happy,’” I sing along with the music.

“Oh my God,” I hear someone say as they pass us. “What are they doing?”

“They’re, like, way too old to be that into Freeze Dance,” another person says.

My cheeks flash red. My stomach sinks. I freeze, and not because the music shut off. I look around. They were talking about us.

I glance in their direction. The bikini boobage girls? They’re whispering behind their hands.

They were definitely talking about us.

“Come on! What are you doing?” Ari yells. “We’re still in this! We can win!”

I wonder if she heard what they said.

I keep dancing with Ari, but my heart’s not in it. Those bikini boobage girls are watching us, leaning against the wall to the bathrooms, heads close together, whispering and laughing.

“Okay, Kaylan Terrel, sorry to say this, but you are out,” Joey says over the microphone. “Good effort. Good effort.”

I walk over to a lounge chair and pretend I didn’t hear what those girls said, that I didn’t just lose Freeze Dance.

“Sorry, Kay,” Ari says, all out of breath. “Those eight-year-olds are fierce. We’ll get ’em next time. Come on, let’s go get lunch.”

“Did you hear what the boobage girls said?” I whisper. “They were totally making fun of us!”

“They were?” Ari crinkles her nose, looking around to find them. “I didn’t hear that.”

“They were making fun of us for freeze dancing,” I explain. “We’re too old to be that into Freeze Dance, something like that.”

She looks over to where they’re sitting and smooths out the sides of her cover-up. “Well, that’s rude. We’re so good at freeze dancing. There’s no age limit for it, obviously.”

She hesitates, still staring at them. Finally, she pulls my hand to get me to stand up. “Come on. I don’t want to walk alone to the snack bar, and I’m really hungry now.”

We walk quietly, trying to avoid eye contact with the boobage girls and their guy friends as we pass them. “Ari, um, I mean, Arianna,” I say under my breath. “We cannot sprint to the entrance when we hear the ice cream truck, okay?”

She looks at me crooked. “Huh?”

“If Eddie runs out of the chocolate-dipped pops, we’ll just have to deal.”

“Um . . . okay.” I’m not sure why it’s taking Ari so long to see where I’m going with this.

“We can’t make fools of ourselves anymore.” I pause, and wait for that to sink in. “Okay? We need to be normal. Try to be normal.”

Ari puts her arm around me. “I get what you’re saying, totally. But on the other hand, we gotta be ourselves. Ya know? People who run as fast as we can, get the best ice cream. That shows determination and dedication and athletic prowess and—”

“Okay.” I laugh. “I get it. I get it.” I wriggle away. I’m too sweaty to be that close to another person, even if she is my best friend.