Day 36—Saturday

Saturday’s market was a total wash.

Literally.

As soon as Earl and I started loading up the truck with zucchini and kale, the sky let out a rumble louder than a hundred garage doors closing at the same time, and then spewed rain down on us.

We spread a tarp over the flatbed but only had time to tie it down in three spots before a knife of lightning sliced the sky right above our heads. The rain was pelting us so hard it almost hurt, and we both raced for the safety of the front seat. We hopped in our sides and slammed the doors shut behind us. The furious drumming of rain softened and we sat like that, sealed in our small dry pod, catching our breath while staring out the windshield at the watery world around us.

“So,” I wondered, “was that in the forecast?”

Earl thought for a moment, then said, “Well, come to think of it . . .”

“Earl!”

“I was going to the market either way, so what does the forecast matter?” he defended himself.

“Well, that answers my next question.” I sighed and squeezed water out of my ponytail onto the truck floor. “Will there be other people there?”

“Most of the vendors will be there, you can count on that,” he said. “There just won’t be as many shoppers. You can count on that, too.”

Fewer shoppers meant less work to do at the stand, which meant more time to spend with Angel.

If he showed up.

It took us forever to get to the market because the rain wouldn’t let up and Earl had to drive way below the speed limit. He was hunched forward in his seat, hands gripping the steering wheel like he was hanging from a ledge, squinting through the back-and-forth rush of the windshield wipers to read the blurry road in front of him. By the time we finally pulled into our space, he looked completely fried.

“No rush to set up just yet,” he said wearily. “Rain’s bound to lighten soon. We’ll do it then.” Then he closed his eyes, folded his hands in his lap, and leaned back into his headrest like it was his favorite pillow cradling him.

Earl was right. Almost all the regular vendors still showed up, and at least half the shopping population decided to stay dry and cozy at home rather than face the morning storm just to buy a few local vegetables.

Which worked out perfectly for Angel and me.

The hard rain finally calmed itself into a steady drizzle, and Angel made his move then. He showed up with an umbrella and a smile and a bright-green-eyed invitation. Earl told me to take my time. Business was slow.

The air hung thick over us, heavy and soggy. Angel and I huddled under his umbrella on our regular bench eating doughnuts while we argued over which one of us had gotten more drenched that morning.

I’m pretty sure I won.

My toes still squished loud enough to hear inside my waterlogged sneakers and my sweatshirt sleeves were water-stained from the elbow all the way down to the cuff. My hair was still damp, even though his was dry as a bone.

“One of the advantages of a crew cut,” he bragged.

“Yeah, I’m not so sure that look would work on me,” I answered.

“You never know till you try. We have scissors in the truck.” And he acted like he was going to run over and fetch them.

“I’ll stick with my rainy hair, thank you very much.”

“Rainy hair?”

“It’s been rained on, so it’s rainy.”

“You’re weird,” he said.

“Gee, that’s exactly what I’ve always wanted a guy to say to me.”

“No,” Angel laughed, “weird in a good way.” He stared at me for a beat, then broke the last doughnut in half and gave me a piece. “In a really good way.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just bit into the doughnut and chewed.

When Angel finished his last bite, he crumpled the paper bag into a ball and stashed it in his apron pocket. Then he slipped his hand over mine and asked, “Any news from your parents?”

“No,” I told him, my gaze settling on his tanned skin. “We had Visiting Day last week and neither of them showed up, but I already knew they weren’t coming.”

He nodded and waited for me to say more.

“I got to visit Freddy, though, at Forest Lake, and I loaded him up with so much ice cream he got sick to his stomach and had to spend the rest of the day in bed reading comic books!”

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” Angel chided me.

“It is. He was in the infirmary, so he didn’t have to watch all the kids hugging their parents goodbye, and he didn’t have a chance to get sad about not seeing his own. It was brilliant.”

“And this is why you’re weird,” Angel laughed at me. “Who else would even think of that?”

“Another weird person,” I answered.

“The good kind of weird person,” he clarified.

A silence fell over us as the light drizzle became heavier. Angel huddled closer to me to stay under the umbrella.

“So, can I have your cell number?”

I laughed so hard I almost spit doughnut crumbs at him.

“Gee, that’s exactly what I’ve always wanted a girl to do to me. Laugh in my face when I ask for her phone number.” He crossed his arms over his chest and slid away enough that rain was hitting him.

“I’m not laughing at you,” I said, trying to pull him back over. “It’s just that my cell phone is in my bedroom in Pennsylvania, so I won’t get your call for another few weeks.”

“Whoa, your camp is harsh. You can’t have a phone at all, not even for emergencies?”

“We’re not even allowed to use the regular phone without permission. There’s no contact at all with the outside world for us Meadow Wooders. Except by flat mail.” I rolled my eyes as I said it.

“What’s flat mail? Is that something Eleanor Roosevelt invented?”

I laughed, then explained.

“So we’ll keep writing letters, then,” Angel said. “Fine.”

“Unless . . .” An idea started to hatch in my mind. “You know what? Give me your cell number. Just in case.”

“You’re not going to break into the office for the phone, are you? I don’t think they could take that after the canteen tragedy.”

I had caught Angel up on the latest camp drama. “No, not break in. But maybe . . .” I didn’t want to make any promises I couldn’t keep, so I didn’t finish my sentence. “Just write your number down for me, in case.”

He ripped off a piece of the bag in his apron pocket and printed his number on it. “Here. But don’t do something dumb and get kicked out of camp,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because then you’d get sent back to Pennsylvania and there would be no more doughnuts, that’s why not,” he answered.

But I knew it wasn’t about the doughnuts.