Abbie Garber hung up the telephone and leaned against the kitchen counter.
“Hell on a hot plate!” she shouted to the various jars and bowls taking over the counter space. “Two hours? Who does she think she is?”
She went to the stove with her tongs and lifted the jars of peach preserves out of their boiling bath, then set them on a towel to cool. She’d dealt with last-minute orders before, but never one in such a short amount of time. Still, surprised as she was to get the call, new clients were a necessity, even if the client was Nadine Brannan. Abbie wondered if there was a motive behind it. The Brannans had never been friendly, even though they owned part of the forest behind Garber Farm, but their recent history—more specifically, the unfortunate ties binding Nadine and Emmett—gave Abbie pause. She’d said yes to the order partially because she couldn’t say no, but also because she was curious as to why she’d been asked in the first place.
“Right,” she said to the cupboards. “Zucchini bread, Earl Grey peach preserves, which I already have, and a pickle sampler. Easy enough.”
She rushed around the kitchen simultaneously cleaning up and gathering her baking ingredients. And though it had been a while, she switched on the stereo and cranked the sound to energize her less-than-pleased mood.
Abbie smiled at the song, however bittersweet the sound. She hadn’t realized how long it had been since she’d listened to music in the house, but hearing Josie’s mix CD brought her back to the last time she ever saw her best friend. They’d been up late drinking red wine and baking, laughing about Emmett—who was in the barn watching a baseball game—and talking about their best kisses. Embarrassed at the memory, Abbie recounted a clandestine moment drunk at a hotel on the Sunset Strip. Josie was particularly wrapped up in her own story, which remained vague in location but rapturous in the description of “a week-long kiss.” Abbie gagged at what she could only imagine was Emmett in his much younger years.
Abbie turned the music up, cracked a few eggs into the mixing bowl, and began whisking away. She wondered how long it had been since she’d had a kiss like that. She hadn’t been on a proper date in years. “Probably not since ‘Barracuda’ was on the radio. Jesus,” she thought to herself. And though she’d already blocked this particular daydream more than a few times before, her mind wandered all the way down the road and through the open doors of Will Carson’s café. She wished Josie were sitting in the kitchen with her so they could dish about the new chef in town, dissecting his looks and gasping at his age, while swooning at the prospect of his availability. And because she knew her friend hadn’t meant to destroy their friendship the way she did, Abbie indulged her imagination for a moment, pretending Josie was at the table listening anyway.
“You gonna burn, burn, burn, burn it to the wick, aren’t you, Barracuda?”
She sang along while sifting her dry ingredients into the egg mixture, dancing around while beating it all together, enjoying the release. When she turned around to grab the grated zucchini, she screamed—there was someone sitting at the table. Minerva Shaw smiled and put up her hands as if to say, “Please continue.” Abbie dropped the zucchini and turned off the mixer.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Minerva said over the music. “Thought I’d wait to make my presence known until after you finish doing whatever it is that you’re doing.”
“Did you let yourself in?” Abbie said, switching off the stereo.
“Of course I did—rang several times, but there’s no way you’re going to hear me over that noise, my dear. I could hear it plain as day from the front porch. But I apologize for interrupting this moment. Lord knows we’ve all turned to Heart at some point or another during our middle-age crises. More of a Linda Ronstadt fan myself.”
“What do you need, Minerva?” Abbie said. She wiped flour across her brow. “I’m right in the middle of a last-minute order.”
“Working overtime for that strapping new chef in town? Don’t blame you. Word’s out, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s no hiding it. You’re over there every week and, I mean, look at the guy. Best to do what you can until the can is gone.”
“He’s a client,” Abbie said, grabbing her loaf pans and making a point to set them down hard on the counter.
“He’s calling the place The Bracken; the sign went up today. It’s sure to raise many an eyebrow in these parts, let me tell you . . .”
“Are you here for cider or preserves?”
“Both. And there’s another matter . . .” Minerva looked down. “That girl you have living with you. The Mexican girl.”
“Yes. Ana.”
“I think I might have misunderstood when she was over at the mansion that one time. Apparently, there is such a thing as Mexican Coke.”
“There is indeed. I can’t speak for her myself, but she was very sorry for the way she spoke to you.”
“Well, I share the same sentiment and am here to make it known. You do realize I’ve hardly seen you since then? I fear the little misunderstanding has somehow soured our friendship, Abigail.”
Abbie sighed. She didn’t have time for this, but she thought it amusing that Minerva considered them friends, especially because Minerva spent her side of the relationship meddling and passing judgment. But Abbie knew, even after all of their squabbles, their years-long acquaintance was more than that. Minerva had been kind to both her and Emmett after their father died. And she’d known their mother too. “Besides,” she thought, “who else do I have left?”
“So this girl, Anna—”
“Ana,” Abbie said. “Oh my goodness, Ana! What time is it?”
“Just fixing to turn three o’clock.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“Barracuda!”
• • •
Ana waited in front of the school, watching the steady stream of students filter around her in the race toward home. She remembered all the bus rides, long walks, or long waits of her past.
Ana looked for Rye on the way out of the building but realized she still didn’t know where Rye’s locker was. She watched the door periodically and scanned the parking lot, waiting for her to emerge. The time continued to pass—still no Rye and no Abbie, who was supposed to pick her up—so Ana concentrated on the mundane details surrounding her, hoping for tiny miracles shown only to those willing to see them. A hand in a jacket pocket pulling out a lollipop, a snapped broom discarded next to a trash can, a boy nuzzling the neck of a girl in a Jeep with a license plate spelling out DAIRYQN.
She put her hat back on and leaned against the low wall next to the flagpole, wishing Brady’s mother hadn’t picked him up already. She felt the same stares and kept her head dipped into her notebook, double-checking the homework she’d already finished. It was the first time she truly looked forward to her farm chores and to the ride back to the farm. It was the first time she didn’t worry about looking over her shoulder.
“Nice hat.”
“Of course it’s Cole. Of course he’s with his friends. Of course I’m gnawing on a granola bar at this very moment,” Ana thought.
“Need a ride?” he asked.
“No, thanks.”
“Just hanging out by the flagpole?”
“Looks like it, doesn’t it?”
“I like your backpack. Did you draw all that yourself?”
“Uh, yes, who else would have?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know you that well. Yet.”
“No, you don’t.”
He continued to stand there, looking at her.
“My buddy Jim’s got his pickup . . . we can drop you anywhere you need to go,” Cole said as three guys in Lions jackets came into view, the very same ones she’d encountered at lunch. “There’s room in the back. I’ll sit with you.”
“No offense, but that sounds like a death sentence—literally and metaphorically. Your friends are the worst.”
“Have you even met them?” he said, taken aback.
“It’s one thing to jab at the new girl, which is unoriginal at best, but making fun of—”
“I don’t know what happened, but—”
“Ask them,” she said, looking over at all three of the guys who were making a point of ignoring that she was even there. “Rye didn’t deserve it. No one ever does.”
“They said something about Rye?” Cole asked, concerned.
“You can discuss it during your joyride. I need to get back to my homework, thanks.”
There was a honk. Manny pulled up to the curb in Emmett’s truck, Vic and Rolo waving in the back.
“That your dad?” said the guy Ana assumed was Jim. “Or do you pay them by the hour?”
Ana shut her notebook and slung her bag onto her shoulder. “The worst,” she said to Cole before heading to the truck. She jumped into the front seat as Manny maneuvered around the parking lot traffic and Cole walked away with a shake of the head. His backpack was just as worn and scribbled on as her own, she noticed. He seemed to know everyone he passed, exchanging nods and high fives with a select few. Though he didn’t engage with his friends, he followed them through the parking lot to an oversize pickup truck with obnoxiously tall wheels. The girl in the blue dress emerged from a car parked nearby. She encircled her long arms around his neck. They exchanged a few words before Cole climbed into the passenger seat of the truck.
“Everything okay?” Manny asked.
“Everything’s fine.”
“Those boys bothering you?”
“Nothing I can’t handle. Where’s Abbie?” she asked.
“Ran into some trouble prepping a last-minute delivery, so she sent me. Sorry I’m late. The tractor broke earlier, so Emmett said we’re done for the day. I’m dropping off the guys on the way back to the farm.”
“I’m not working this afternoon?”
“You’re off. Not bad for the first day, no? How did it go?”
“To echo your words, ‘Not bad.’ Not great, either. I didn’t get into the art class I wanted to take.”
“Why not?”
“Because Em—. It was full.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. I know how much you were looking forward to it, mija.”
“I have independent study, which means I get to study in the library.” She sighed. “The universe keeps throwing me into libraries, Manny. Not much has changed there.”
“It’s funny. I remember visiting my brother down in Chula Vista. My nephew always wanted to go to the library instead of the beach, said it was more fun. Always had his face in a book; real curious, loved to learn. Reminds me of you.”
“I’ve still never been to the beach.”
“We’ve got one, you know. Ask Abbie to take you. It’s just down the road, borders the end of the forest.”
The ride back to Garber Farm was a pleasant one, Ana thought. It was a cool, crisp afternoon and what she imagined autumn should feel like. Before Manny dropped them off, Vic and Rolo opened the window behind Ana’s seat to ask her about her first day. They, in turn, told her about the tractor problem and Emmett’s subsequent meltdown.
“Reminds me,” Manny said as they got nearer to the farm, “Emmett wants you to take Dolly for a walk before he gets back.”
“Where did he go?”
“Up to Keyserville to pick up some parts for the tractor; said he’d be back around dinnertime. I don’t know if Abbie’s still there with Minerva, but I know she’s leaving to make the delivery.”
“Minerva Shaw is there?” Ana said, wishing she’d never climbed into the truck.
“She is. I’m late getting home, so I’m going to drop you at the gate if that’s okay.”
“I always forget you have a family. I don’t mean it like that. . . . I just hope I didn’t make you late.”
“Never. Uncle Manny’s here to help whenever you need him.”
• • •
Ana took her time walking down the field road to the farmhouse. If there was one person she didn’t want to see, it was Minerva Shaw. She stopped to pick the remaining in-season blueberries as a quick snack, hoping no one was watching her from the window. When she got to the barn, she jingled the keys at Emmett’s door, making Dolly bark before she let her out to run in circles in the dirt. She grabbed a leash from inside and peeked into Emmett’s darkened living room. It was spare and cleaner than she imagined, with a small couch and leather chair next to a stone fireplace, a television in the corner. She tiptoed out as if it were occupied.
“C’mon, Dolls,” Ana said, putting the dog’s leash on and walking her through the garden to the back door of the farmhouse. She bent down to rub Dolly’s head as she looked past the gardening shed to the entrance of the forest in the distance. “Stay,” she said to Dolly. She went inside to unload her backpack, expecting to see Abbie and Minerva Shaw, but neither one of them was there. In their place was a bottle of Mexican Coke sitting on the counter with a note attached that read “With apologies—Minerva F. Shaw.”
“No way,” Ana said. She picked up the bottle not believing it was real. Though a part of her didn’t want to accept it on principle, she believed the apology was sincere.
She ran upstairs, pulled the map out of the Frida book, and switched her boots to sneakers before running back down again. She unloaded half of her backpack in the kitchen, keeping her sketchbook and tossing some dog treats into it. The Coke sat there still demanding her attention, so she tossed it into her bag as well and headed outside.
“Adventure time, El Perro de Peril.”
Ana had studied the map of Hadley enough to know the woods behind Garber Farm were protected lands shared with Alder Kinman and one other property much farther away over the hills. She also knew, per the map and Manny, that the forest edged out along the ocean. Dolly kept to her side as Ana made her way past the shed and closer to the entrance where there was a visible path, worn yet slightly overgrown. She stepped over some branches, Dolly sniffing behind her, and followed it in.
Birds chattered in the branches above as Ana crunched her feet down the winding path. The late afternoon light dimmed, and the sound of flowing water in the distance echoed off the tree trunks. Walls of green surrounded her on all sides as if the forest were swallowing her, she thought. She took deep breaths, stopping every now and then to crane her neck up to the towering redwoods, barely able to see their tops, let alone the sky. The forest was dark and alive, slices of white sunlight crisscrossing along the path. “There’s nothing more beautiful than this,” Ana thought, imagining unseen fairies floating in the dust that hung in the patches of light.
Dolly sniffed everything around them, so Ana stopped to let her explore the base of a tree that was covered in clinging moss. She bent down to take a closer look at what she thought were tiny white flowers sprouting along the visible roots but realized they were mushrooms. She pulled Dolly away as they continued along the trail. “Why Abbie and Emmett don’t spend more time back here is both a mystery and a travesty,” Ana said to Dolly. They came to a fallen tree in the pathway. Dolly scrambled right up, but Ana took a few tries before digging her sneakers in and hoisting herself up and over. On the other side, they found themselves at the edge of a gurgling creek. “A good place to stop,” Ana said, leaning up against the fallen tree, listening to the flowing water mingle with other unknown sounds hidden deeper in the neighboring thicket.
Dolly sniffed the ground and looked up at Ana, her enormous tongue rolling out of her mouth. “Here you go, girl,” Ana said, giving Dolly a treat from her pack. She walked them over to a large rock on one side of the creek and sat down in the middle of it while Dolly rested at her feet. She pulled out her sketchbook and pencil and began to shade the water onto the page, trying to mimic the way the water rolled over the rocks into a deeper pool where dragonflies danced on the surface.
Ana had never experienced this kind of solitude. “You can hear the silence,” she thought as she drew in Dolly’s silhouette, the dog’s ears held up by minuscule fairies. She took out the bottle of Coke but realized she didn’t have a bottle opener. She took deep gulps of air instead, letting the air out slowly through her nose, still not fully believing where she was. She likened it to the densest parts of downtown L.A., the trees standing in for buildings, the creek its traffic, the sun blighted by the congested atmosphere. She could almost hear the rush of vehicles, the snarl of an angry driver, until she realized that was exactly what she was hearing.
There was a blur of blue and green camouflaged by the forest foliage until the dirt bike, tipped in silver and red, leaped out of the path on the other side of the creek. It zigzagged up and down making its way to the water, filling the silence with a tremendous motorized roar. Ana remained still, grabbing Dolly’s leash and standing up. The bike jumped from the path and into the water, skidding to a halt and spraying water as it passed them, before falling over along the embankment.
“Are you okay?” Ana yelled from across the water.
The rider pushed the bike up and then himself, ripping off his helmet. He sat in the dirt running his gloved hands over his head before staring up at her. She stared back. Dolly barked and barked.
“Are you hurt?” she asked again.
“Don’t think so. What are you doing here?” Cole answered.
“Was about to ask you the same.”
“I’m riding. This is our land.”
“I’m sketching. This is our land.”
“Whose?”
“Abbie and Emmett’s—Dolly’s,” she said, rubbing the dog’s head to get her to stop barking. “Guess you took that joyride seriously.”
“I’m not joyriding, I’m testing my bike and prepping for a race.” He stood up and Dolly started barking again. He checked his bike and propped it up before turning toward her, arms crossed.
“What?” she said.
“Can I come over there for a minute?”
“Stay on your side of the creek, please,” she said, letting Dolly stand in front of her. “That is your side, isn’t it?”
“Yep. That side’s yours,” he said with a smirk. “I want to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For my lame friends. I’ve known them most of my life, and they’ve always been that way. I guess I’m just used to it.”
“Doesn’t excuse their behavior.”
“No, it doesn’t. If it makes you feel any better, I told them off.”
“My hero,” Ana said, shushing Dolly again.
“Why do you dislike me so much?” Cole said. “You don’t even know me.”
“Why do you keep trying to get to know me?”
He shook his head, took off his gloves, and splashed across the creek. Dolly pulled at the leash, barking louder than ever, and when Cole got close, he knelt down and let her sniff the front of his hand. “Hey, girl,” he said. Dolly licked his hand, so he rubbed the top of her head and behind her ears, and then continued crossing the creek.
“You’re trespassing,” Ana said.
“I’ll suffer the consequences.”
Cole leaned up on the edge of the rock, continuing to rub Dolly, who wanted nothing else to do with Ana. “I’m really sorry if you weren’t welcome at school today. It’s a small town.”
“So I keep hearing.”
“I’ve been away most of the summer and it’s like I came back from another dimension. People at our school can be rather limited in their thinking, but that’s mainly because they live in a bubble. I’m just putting in my time before I can get out again.”
“You sound like Rye.”
He smiled what seemed to Ana a sad smile.
“That your Coke?”
“I couldn’t open it.”
He glanced down at the ground and picked up a flat rock. “May I?” Cole said, to which she nodded her head. He wedged the rock under the bottle cap and popped the cap open before handing the bottle back over. “So, what about you? I heard you’re from L.A., and I know you live with the Garbers . . .”
“Hold on,” she said, taking a sip of the Coke before chugging half of it. “I thought you were gone forever,” she said to the bottle. “Want some?”
“No, thanks. So, what, are you a Garber relative or something?”
“Not exactly,” Ana said, finishing the bottle and putting it back in her bag, realizing then she was now full of bubbles. “I’m an intern, I guess, working on the farm, going to school, that kind of thing.”
“Your family’s still in L.A.?”
“I don’t have any family,” Ana said, having said it so many times before.
“So the Garbers are—”
“My foster guardians at the moment.”
“Oh,” he said with a quizzical look.
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s just you don’t come across like a—”
“Like an orphan? It’s okay, we do exist in this post–Oliver Twist world.”
They both stared at the creek.
“So, the Hex,” Cole said, changing the subject, though for his benefit or hers she couldn’t be sure. “They’re way better than I gave them credit for.”
“Of course they are, Bad Brains.”
“How did you know I was into Bad Brains?”
Ana rolled her eyes. “Please.”
“No one around here is into what I’m into,” Cole said, crossing his mud-covered arms. “Well, hardly anyone. For a while I did what was easiest and just went along with the flow, being one person at school, another person after school. I’ve been riding bikes all my life, with my dad mostly, so I’ve grown up going out of town for races almost every weekend, living a double life. I’ve never been as close to people at school as they are with one another.”
“Looked like you fit in just fine.”
“That’s because I know everyone.”
He wanted to tell her that it was more that everyone knew him, or thought they did. “It’s always easy coming back to the places where people know your name, until you realize it isn’t,” he continued. “People make judgments, even if they’re wrong, and it sucks when those opinions stick. It’s like you can’t escape your own situation sometimes, you know? Even if you’re trying to move on from it.”
Ana’s stomach sank thinking about having to go back to L.A. at the end of the semester. She wondered which group home she’d be sent to for the holidays, which fake tree they’d force her to sit around. “I know what you mean. Sometimes it’s about duality,” she said. “I’m living two lives too, especially here. Where’d you go away to?”
“Back down near San Francisco, where we’re from originally.”
“You mean you weren’t born in Hadley like everyone else?” she said with a look of horror.
“Nope.” He smiled. “You and me are the city folk around here. Anyway, I was grounded for the entire summer. I spent the first part of it in Yosemite. It wasn’t really my choice. My parents sent me away on one of those forced camping retreats.”
“Why?”
Cole hesitated. She didn’t need to know all the details, he thought, not that she’d care. “I kind of maybe started a bonfire on our front lawn that may or may not have spread. Luckily it didn’t do any damage, unless you call obliterating my relationship with my parents damage. Not that they aren’t capable of doing the same.”
“Is that why you keep trying to talk to me? You’ve got no one left.”
He laughed at her sad eyes and look of despair.
“That and because I think we’re into the same music.”
“You mean you’re not mesmerized by my curls?”
He turned and looked right at her like he did in the bookstore. She looked back.
“I’m way more into the attitude, but yeah the curls work too. Are you going to keep giving me a hard time about that?”
“No. Maybe. Who knows? I better go,” Ana said, putting her sketchbook into her backpack and calling to Dolly, who was sprawled at Cole’s feet.
“Guess you’re set on going ‘in the opposite direction in this too-big world,’” he said.
“No, I just have to get back,” she said.
“It’s a Kerouac quote, lame, I know.”
“What is it about guys and Kerouac?”
“On the Road is a great book, you said so yourself in class.”
“I stand by what I said, but let’s not get into some deep conversation about it because it’s the only book I’ve finished of his other than Tristessa, which is a whole other conversation. His lead characters are self-centered and always himself. And don’t even get me started on his possible homophobia and ‘little Mexican girl’ fetish. But I get that you’re into it. It’s written all over you.”
“Wow, you have me so figured out,” Cole said with a smirk that Ana felt wasn’t entirely out of line. “Tristessa has its moments, sure, but it’s poetic and sad. I think that’s the point. He loves her but can’t tell her, wants to help but knows it’s doomed . . .”
“But what’s he in love with?” Ana asked, reminding herself to take a breath. “Tristessa’s a beautiful junkie who nods off all the time and won’t give him what he wants.”
“He’s just as messed up as she is, in a different way. The tragedy is neither one of them knowing how to hold on to the other. It’s like he says, ‘The beauty of things must be that they end.’”
Ana didn’t know what to say. She remembered reading Tristessa after finding an old copy of it at the library and being intrigued by the description. She’d read it in one sitting, resisting the urge to throw it across the room at the end.
“I really have to go,” she said.
“Do you?”
She was so surprised she paused. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to continue the conversation, as enthralling as it was talking to a guy her age about something she found interesting. The only other person Ana had discussed her feelings about Tristessa with was Ronnie back at the library, who had lived the tale himself. But she paused for another reason too; ashamed as she was to admit it, she liked the way Cole was looking at her.
“I’m not supposed to be back here,” she said.
“Neither am I.”
“Gasp! Rebels.”
“Can I walk you back?” he said, making a move to follow her.
“I think I should go on my own, but thanks for the offer . . . and for the conversation.”
“What about my bottle-opening expertise?”
“On point, Brannan. Just stay away from lighters.”
• • •
It was a quicker walk back to the farm than she’d imagined. To her surprise, neither Abbie nor Emmett was pacing up and down the back porch waiting for her to emerge from where she wasn’t supposed to be. She let Dolly off her leash and watched the bouncing yellow dog bark all the way back to the barn, its door opening to let her in and then promptly shutting behind her again. Ana walked through the garden, still lush and flowering in the cooler evening temperatures, and hopped up the back steps into the kitchen where Abbie was busy reheating a stew.
“Did you enjoy your walk?” Abbie asked, not looking up. “Emmett said you took Dolly.”
“I did, into the woods. I hope that’s okay.”
“I’d prefer it if you let me know next time so I can show you which land is off limits,” Abbie said, focusing on the stove top.
“Got it. How did it go? With the delivery.”
“Made it just on time. She’s a difficult client but one I can’t say no to at the moment.”
“Who was it?”
Abbie sighed and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Nadine Brannan.”
“Any relation . . .”
“She’s Cole’s mother, yes, and not someone used to hearing the word ‘no.’ Her husband owns most of the dairies around here, some of the smaller farms too—they own half this town, including the land. I don’t want to get into it now, but please do your best not to bring her name up around Emmett. I’m handling her orders on my own.”
“Okay,” Ana said, detecting a mood, understanding why Cole might need the escape. “Can I talk to you for a moment, while you’re cooking?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“It’s about my art class.”
Abbie sighed and put down the spoon. “I completely forgot to ask how your first day went. I’m all over the place tonight. Tell me everything.” She put a lid on the stew pot and leaned against the counter.
“It was fine except—”
“Was Mrs. Molloy still in the front office?”
“She was.”
“Ah, the Iron Lady! She was there when Emmett and I were in school. What about English? Who’s your teacher?”
“Ms. Gregg. Do you know her?”
“Don’t think so.”
“She seemed kind of youngish.”
“Then I definitely don’t know her.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Didn’t take it like that. My English teacher is probably dead. If my prayers have been answered.”
Ana laughed, a release of tension built up from the day.
“She was the worst,” Abbie continued. “Everyone called her the Succubus. She used to drink from a Shakespeare goblet we all knew was filled with vodka. She sometimes fell asleep on the desk.”
“Drama.”
“I know. Put me on the spot once too, made me recite something from Hamlet like I didn’t understand it.”
“What did you do?”
“I performed the ‘To be or not to be’ speech in its entirety.”
“No way!”
“It’s the only thing I’ve ever memorized. I’m a sucker for tortured souls with daddy issues.”
“Who isn’t?” Ana said. “So, the rest of my classes were normal, except for art, which I wanted to talk to you about . . .”
“What about it?”
“Why did you and Emmett cancel it without telling me?”
“What are you talking about?” Abbie said, untying her apron and taking out some bowls.
“I got my schedule this morning,” Ana continued, “and it said I had independent study, not art. I asked Principal Tucker and he said he talked to you and Emmett and that someone had suggested I needed a study hour more than art class.”
Abbie set the bowls on the table with a clunk, her head dropping back as if she were about to scream through the ceiling.
“I’m going to school with you in the morning,” Abbie said, as she began ladling the stew into bowls.
“You are?”
“You will be in that art class. Tucker owes me one. And now so does Emmett.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“‘To take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them’!” Abbie said, flinging stew at the pale pink rhododendron print on the wall. “Men. To hell with all of ’em.”