THE RAIN IS BLOWING in sheets outside the back of the music room, pattering lightly, rhythmically, on the awning that hangs overhead. Tru is harmonizing with it as he searches out a melody. I am listening to the birth of a song.

It opens slowly, the way the petals of an orange blossom take their time to unfurl. It is light dancing on the water, or the wind rustling through the marsh grass. It’s sweet and a little sad, but also hopeful. It carries me halfway around the world, to a river whose name I don’t know, where waves lap the sides of boats with unfamiliar shapes and the air is scented with exotic flowers.

“Does it have words?” I say. The spell breaks.

He shakes his head. “It’s really just stealing riffs from this traditional Vietnamese song,” he says. He plays a few chords. Like the ones he just played but more measured. “Like this one. It’s kind of hard to translate,” he says as he plays on. “Something about the moonlight and clouds. Waiting for someone. It starts raining — it’s always raining in Vietnamese songs. Also, there’s something in there about soup.”

The weather is lousy, so there’s no one else outside the music room but us — a rare occasion. I feel like I have kind of, sort of made friends with Derek and Chase in the past couple of weeks. But moments like this, alone with Tru, have become what I wait for, long for. His music has started to trickle into that big empty space in me where home was, where certainty was. He’s doing the rescuing this time.

It feels the way it does when I’m fishing before first light with Daddy. When the sun comes up over the water and all those shadows fill into shapes and become clearer. That’s the way it is with getting to know him. The colors and shapes fill in slowly. The music, of course, is the first thing that comes into focus. He makes me three CDs of the blues and Dixieland greats he loves: Tru Tunes, he labels them, volumes 1, 2, and 3.

“You seem sort of upbeat for someone who’s so into the blues,” I say.

He tells me about his adopted grandpa and next-door neighbor back in St. Bernard, Mr. Monks. He gave Tru his first guitar and taught him how to play. He was a blues great, Tru says, playing in honky-tonks all around the South in the ’40s and ’50s. “And you know, it’s kind of a misnomer,” he says. “The blues aren’t really about being sad. Some blues songs are really joyful. It’s just a particular type of musical expression.” I had never even heard the word misnomer before and didn’t know what it meant. Tru is smart.

He strums a sitting-on-the-front-porch-in-the-heat-staring-out-at-the-cotton-fields-nursing-a-black-eye-a-hangover-and-a-broken-heart kind of song for me. It makes me ache for home. That muggy, muggy southern Louisiana heat that no one in her right mind would miss. I love that he can make me feel that with his music.

I find out that his family is living in a place like the one we’re in, except that it’s two families — nine people — in the same amount of space. “It’s cozy,” he says. But in a way, he says, it’s not that weird for them. His parents grew up in refugee camps in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, so they were used to sharing everything. When they bought their trawler, a bunch of cousins chipped in and owned it together. They are used to having lots of people around.

One day, we’re walking around the side of the school past those sketchy loners. Tru waves to one of the guys, who’s all tatted up and looks like a biker. He goes over, shakes his hand. They laugh a little and he comes back.

“You know that guy?” I ask, not able to hide my surprise.

“Yeah, Sam. He lives in my apartment complex. He’s a good guy. He’s been through a lot. He’s trying to get it together. Addiction is really tough.”

Pretty much any other guy I know would have called Sam a dirtbag-loser-crackhead and made jokes about him. Tru has a big heart. It’s like there’s room in there for everyone.

Conversations with him are not what they are with other people. He cuts to the chase, to the heart of things. “Do you believe in fate?” he asks one day. I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that question before.

“I don’t think I can anymore. I mean, I used to kind of think there was this great big good thing out there that was supposed to happen to you. That was your fate. And you get it because you deserve it. And now. With everything that’s happened. I don’t want to think that this was my fate. To lose everything, you know? That I deserved what happened.”

“But what if the good thing is wrapped in a bad thing?” he asks, looking serious and thoughtful. “What if when you go through the bad thing, the good thing’s on the other end? Or if you respond to the bad thing in the right way, you get the good thing?”

My first thought is that I wonder — I hope — that he is thinking the same thing I am. That maybe we had to go through losing everything to meet each other again. And that’s the good thing. “Maybe. Maybe things aren’t supposed to be easy. Maybe we’re supposed to work for it,” I say. “Why, do you believe in fate?”

“My parents really believe in fate. It’s a Vietnamese thing. Everybody’s name is in a big book with their whole life story written next to it. But I guess they also believe it’s written in pencil, because they think you can erase it and rewrite your story if you work hard enough. I think it’s an excuse parents give their kids to make them work harder.”

“So what’s written next to your name?” I ask.

“‘Legendary bluesman,’ of course,” he jokes. He gestures like he’s putting his name up in lights. “What do you think yours says?”

I look out into the bland blankness of that soccer field. When I look into my future, what I wish for isn’t a job or a title or anything like that. I’m not like Mandy, who wants everyone to admire and love her. For me, it would be enough to have one person. Someone who looks into my eyes and really sees me. To have that, that one person and this whole big ocean to explore and take care of, to keep for those who come after me. That would be enough for me. That would be everything for me. But that, of course, isn’t what I say. “I honestly don’t know” is what I say.

“What do you love?” he asks, and the question makes me blush. “Not love to do, but what do you love.”

I think back to the times when I’ve been happiest, when I feel like everything is right with the world. I take a deep breath. “I love water. Open water. The light on it, especially in the late afternoon. I love fishing. Not just catching, but fishing. Waiting and then excitement when you feel a tug on your line. I love birds. All kinds of birds, but especially sea birds. Their feathers and wings and grace. I love the way the seasons come and go, and at home at least, you can actually feel them coming and going. I love music. The way it can take you places you’ve never been before and how sometimes it just captures exactly what you’re feeling. I love Louisiana food. Food that brings people together, I guess. I love belonging to something. Being part of something bigger than myself.” I feel embarrassed now. Like I’ve gone on too long and said too much.

“I am soooo glad you didn’t say shopping,” he says, half laughing. “I think the things we love are what lead us to our fate, you know? Maybe that’s what fate is. When you catch up to the things you love.”

There are some people that when you spend time with them, you walk away feeling empty and drained. When I am with him, I walk away feeling so full, overflowing. Better than I was before. I know more, I feel more, my brain and my blood are buzzing. And I need that so much right now.

The shock and pain of missing Danielle, knowing nothing about where she could be, has started to dull a little. I’m still checking the message boards every week. But not every day. I feel guilty for being happy when I’m with Tru, like being happy is a betrayal of her, of her memory. That makes it sound like she’s dead. And there’s a real chance that she could be. I’ve gone over and over it in my head. If she is out there, she wouldn’t be able to find me, either. I’m not where I’m supposed to be. Maybe she’s trying. Maybe she’s worried about me, too.

We’ve gotten in the habit of going to Aunt Cel’s every Monday night for red beans and rice. One day after we eat, Aunt Cel and I are alone in her kitchen and she brings up Danielle. “You know,” she says hesitantly. “I’ve been doing some inquiries about your friend. I haven’t heard anything concrete yet, but I did get the contact information for someone at the Red Cross who could be very helpful.”

Mama walks in. “Did I interrupt something?” she asks.

Aunt Cel looks uncomfortable. “I was just telling Evangeline that I’ll do everything I can to help Danielle,” she said.

Mama gives Aunt Cel a cold look. “Of course you will,” she says. “You’re always here to take care of things we can’t handle ourselves.”

“That’s not what I meant,” says Aunt Cel. This conversation is suddenly not about me or finding Danielle.

“I sincerely hope that they have started a new life happily somewhere,” says Mama, exiting the kitchen on the other side. “But not being a part of it may be the best thing for Evangeline.”

I feel a surge of anger boiling up. “Why does she hate Desiree so much?” I spit out at Aunt Cel. “I mean aside from the obvious reasons of her being a terrible mother and wrecking Danielle’s life. Which is not Danielle’s fault.”

“Things happened,” Aunt Cel mutters. “It’s a long story. Regardless, you’re right. It’s not Danielle’s fault. And I know you won’t be satisfied until you know what happened to her. I’m going to keep trying, too. We’ll find her.”

Mandy. She is lost in a different way. The cheerleading thing sent her into a downward spiral. One day, I saw her as I was coming back from the soccer-field hill. Just as I was crossing that bit of parking lot in front of it, I saw Mandy in the passenger seat of Lacy’s car. They both stared out at me. I made a motion for her to roll down the window. Shockingly, she did it.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“We’re going out to lunch. Pretend you didn’t see me.”

“You’re going to get caught.”

“I’m not going to get caught. Don’t be such a goody-goody.”

Lacy smirked at me and waved. “Laaater,” she bleated. Then she squealed out of the parking lot.

Of course they got caught, and of course Mandy got suspended.

Then there is more drama.

Byron has really moved on. There’s some girl called Elena in Nashville where he’s living now. Mandy broke her own rule and called him after she didn’t hear from him for a few weeks. I overheard the whole thing, listened to her trying to act cool on the phone and then descending into desperation. “What’s her name? Just tell me, what’s her name? Is she a cheerleader? . . . Then what does she do? . . . Great. That’s just great. Have a nice life, Byron.” I nearly got hit by the phone as she threw it across our bedroom. So I spend a lot of time trying to be where she is not.

The same goes for Mama. But if I’m in the living room, I can hear her on the phone in the kitchen talking to her new work friends. She doesn’t sound like herself at all, not just her voice, but her words. She has this attitude that I’ve never seen before, complaining about the kids and the laundry, talking about going out for margaritas with the gals after work. I don’t think she’s ever had a margarita. Where would you get a margarita in Bayou Perdu? She’s a chameleon. A phony. When she acts like that, I can’t look at her.

But it’s worse between her and Daddy. If the distance between their feelings about going back to Bayou Perdu was a channel, it’s now a gulf. I can hear them arguing through the walls and the closed doors. Not the actual words, just the rhythm of the fight, like the hum of some horrible machine. I don’t want to know what they’re saying, but it’s like slowing down to look at a car wreck. Sometimes I sneak into the hall and stand outside the door to listen.

“We could live in Bellvoir,” says Daddy. “I can commute to the marina.”

“I don’t want to live in Bellvoir. What’s in Bellvoir? How are we gonna afford that?”

“There’s a trailer park there. We can get a trailer and stay there until we can rebuild.”

“Why would I live in a trailer when we’ve got this nice place here?”

“Here.” Daddy’s voice steels up. “In a cardboard box in a parking lot. The whole city is a parking lot.”

“So you’re gonna drive two hours a day and spend all that money on gas to live in a trailer. You think that’s better?”

I hate her.

“It’s better because that’s where our life is,” Daddy replies.

“My sister and my mother are here. I’ve got a good job. Our life can be here now. We don’t have to make it harder than it has to be.”

“This is harder for me, Vangie. There’s nothing for me to do here. I am a fisherman, and I’m five hundred miles from the sea. I’ve never done anything else. I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“You’re not trying, John. You’re not trying. You could get a real job. One that’s not dependent on the weather and the price of gas and the damn hurricanes. Five years from now, there may not be a fishing industry in Louisiana. We’re hardly making do as it is. This is our chance to secure our future. This is it!”

These arguments always end with her making some huge declaration like that and him going silent. These days, I’ve stopped being sick about them. They’re the new normal. Part of the new rhythm in my life, which goes like this: Go to school and count the minutes until lunch. Collect my moments of hope and happiness at lunch with Tru. Sit uncomfortably through Political Science, with Tate there next to me, knowing that I’m eventually going to let him down. Ride home with increasingly hostile and negative Mandy. Tiptoe around Daddy, wondering when the paperwork for our trailer will come, when our ticket home arrives. Wonder when and if I’ll ever hear from Danielle. Have a hollow exchange with Mama when she comes home. Play the blues from my Tru Tunes CD until Mandy screams at me and makes me turn it off. My only breaks come on the two nights a week when I babysit for Aunt Cel’s neighbor while she works late, and I blessedly get to sleep over there and take the bus to school in the morning. That’s the new rhythm. If my life were a song, it would be almost unlistenable.

But those sweet notes. When they come, they just resonate, like the twang of a single guitar string, vibrating long after it’s plucked. While Mandy’s suspended, I have to take the bus. After school, I’m walking to catch it when a big, shiny black SUV pulls up alongside me and the window opens. “Hey, lady, want a ride?” It’s Chase, and Derek is in the passenger seat. Tru pops his head forward from the backseat.

“Sure,” I say, and the back door opens.

I slide in next to Tru. I feel somehow like we’ve reached a new level. We’ve gone beyond the bounds of the music room. “Hey,” he says. “Welcome to the Chasemobile.”

The seats are leather. Everything about this car oozes money. “This is not what I expected you to drive,” I say, immediately wishing I’d kept that thought inside.

“I know,” says Chase. “It’s embarrassing. It totally clashes with my punk image. It’s pretty ironic, though, so I’m going with that. By the way, you don’t really need to be somewhere, do you?”

I think about it. Home. Homework. Room. Nothing. “Not really.”

“Great, you’re coming to my house to help us rehearse, then,” he says.

I glance over at Tru, who shrugs. “This is why your parents always warn you not to get into the car with strange men,” he says.

I feel a pang of guilt. What if Daddy wonders where I am? But he probably won’t notice; he notices so little these days.

We pass the main road with all the commercial buildings and apartments, into the nice neighborhoods with tree-lined streets. The houses become bigger. Bigger than Aunt Cel’s, even. Chase turns onto a cul-de-sac and up a driveway so long you can’t even see the house at the end of it. When we finally arrive, I’m overwhelmed. His house is like one of those country estates in movies. Derek turns around from the front seat and catches the shocked expression I’m trying to conceal. “I know, right?” he says.

“Me and Derek were the first Asian and black guys to come in the door who weren’t delivering pizza,” says Tru.

“Hey, we’re rich, not racist,” says Chase, getting out and shutting the door. “Yes, I’m loaded. My parents are loaded, that is. And I’m an anticapitalist. What can I say? ‘I am large, I contain multitudes.’ That’s Walt Whitman, by the way. I like to sprinkle my conversation with literary quotes just to confuse people who probably think there’s no brain under this Mohawk.” That’s the thing about Chase. He points out the pretentious aspects of his personality before anyone else can. It makes him seem humble. At least to us. Everyone else at school definitely thinks he’s pretentious.

The house is enormous inside. Everything you see on home shows on TV — towering ceilings, a big stone fireplace, a grand piano. There doesn’t seem to be anybody there. We follow Chase into the kitchen. The pantry is the size of our whole kitchen, stuffed with five of everything. “What are you in the mood for?” he asks. “As you can see, we’ve got enough to sustain us for a year when the apocalypse comes.” He gets out bags of chips and busts them open. The boys get something to drink and I wander into the living room. The shelves are stuffed with books and expensive-looking objects. There’s a whole wall of pictures of Chase when he was little: Chase at the piano playing in some important-looking recital; Chase on a boat in someplace that might be Europe; a bigger Chase in a bigger, fancier recital. From all this I gather he’s an only child. He comes up behind me, eating chips. “Oh, so you found my shrine, I see,” he says.

“Where were you in these pictures?” I ask, gesturing to his piano recitals.

“That was at Carnegie Hall.” He points to the big one. “That other one was at my school,” he says.

“How . . . ?” I start.

“Child genius,” he says. “The second-youngest person ever accepted to the Manhattan Music Academy. Blah, blah, blah.”

I’m dumbfounded. “And now?”

“Got kicked out,” he says. “Not serious enough. So it’s back home.”

Tru comes up behind him. “Yep, and now he’s slumming with us.” He pats him on the back.

I look at the photos again. “You’re a natural blond,” I say.

“Yeah, but I think pink suits me better,” he says. “It’s got the element of surprise.”

We go up the massive staircase to his room, which is really a series of rooms, with its own bathroom and a music room. It’s bigger than our whole apartment. There’s typical guy stuff in here — game console in front of a big flat-screen TV, clothes on the floor — but there’s also a shelf full of trophies and ribbons, from his music. There’s an electronic keyboard, a guitar, a set of drums, huge speakers, and what looks like a sound-mixing board.

The guys mess around on the instruments. “We better get started if we’re going to be ready in two weeks,” says Tru.

“Ready for what?”

“Heller works at this ‘performance venue’ at night, and he said if we came up with an original tune and played it there, we’d get an A,” says Derek. “So now we just have to work on a song.”

I watch them trying to mix their instruments, trying to blend their musical styles. Tru is working on the drums, Chase on the keyboard, and Derek on his trombone. “Wait, what am I supposed to do?” I ask.

“You can be our manager,” says Tru.

“Or our groupie,” says Derek. “I always wanted a groupie.”

“I’ll get T-shirts made with the band name,” I say. “As soon as we figure out what that is.”

The time passes quickly. I’m watching them zigzag all over the musical map, from modern jazz to R&B. There’s a kind of vibe developing. Not a Tru-and-Evangeline-like-each-other vibe, but an Evangeline-is-just-one-of-the-guys vibe. Like at the marina. I’m with him, and that’s better than nothing, but my spirits start to sink. Every once in a while I chime in with what I hope are witty comments like “Needs more cowbell” or “Sound pitchy.” I’m not even aware of the time until I look out the window and it’s dark. I realize I don’t have an exit plan. When there is a lull, I say, “Well, I guess I need to head out.”

Chase looks up. “Oh, right. You’ll be needing a ride.”

“I’d better go, too,” says Tru.

“Not me,” says Derek. “I’m moving in.”

As we’re coming down the stairs, Chase’s mom enters through the front door. You can just tell she is rich. She’s probably about my mom’s age, but she looks older in a way. She says hello to Tru and Derek, then shakes my hand when Chase introduces me. “Nice to meet you, Evangeline,” she says. “I’m Carol Lowndes.” She says it the way she’d say it to a grown-up.

When we get in the car, I give Chase directions to Aunt Cel’s house because I don’t want him to see where we live. Tru sits in the backseat with me again, and when Chase goes around a turn too quickly, Tru slides into me. We sit like that for the rest of the ride, staring ahead, our shoulders, part of our arms, hips, and thighs touching. One time, I look at him and he is looking at me. He doesn’t look away. We hold each other’s gaze for a few moments. I stay very still, as if moving would make this moment disappear. Does he feel the same way? Is his heart beating as quickly as mine?

At Aunt Cel’s, I call home to ask if I can spend the night. Daddy doesn’t even seem to have noticed that I was gone. But Aunt Cel has some good news for me. “My contact at the Red Cross found a Watts, family of two, who had been registered at a shelter in Baton Rouge. The whole shelter was cleared out within the first month, though, and the people there were transferred to different places all around the country. He’s going to see if he can find out if it was them and where they were transferred to.”

I’m afraid to get my hopes up, but I feel a surge of optimism. And I get to spend time with Mamere. I’m brushing her hair, our ritual that makes me feel closer than I feel to anyone.

“How’s that young man you went to the dance with?” she asks. “He seemed real nice.”

“He is nice,” I say. “He’s very nice. But it’s not that way. There is someone else, though.”

“I knew it,” says Mamere. “I can tell, the way you’ve been humming and looking in the mirror more.”

I’m mortified. “I have? Really?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

I tell her almost the whole story. How I met Tru at the Blessing and then we saw each other again and it seemed like it meant something. Not just because our paths crossed again, but because it happened just when I needed it. How he reminds me of home, but it’s more than that. That I’ve never met anyone like him. I tell her all the things I’ve noticed about him: his kindness, his humor, his passion for his music.

“Dawlin’,” Mamere says very seriously. “A girl could really fall for a boy like that.”

Fall. I feel like I could fall. Just let go of all caution and good sense and just grab him and kiss him one day. But that’s not the rhythm of this thing. It’s like that song he was working on before, opening slowly, slowly as orange-blossom petals. “You don’t go from ‘What’s your name?’ to ‘I love you’ in a week,” I remember Mamere chiding Mandy one time. It will take its time moving from a bud to full bloom. The anticipation is ripe and delicious, but it’s still so fragile. I remember walking through the groves with Grandpere and seeing all those oranges that would never get beyond green because of a hard frost. I am taking it day by day now, feeling it come in and go out like the tides. I’m used to waiting. I’m an angler. I’m as patient as the moon.

After school the next day, I don’t get quite as far toward the bus when Chase pulls up. Derek rolls down the window. “Get in,” he says in a fake menacing voice. I smile and hop in without a word, sliding in next to Tru in the backseat.

“Don’t you guys need a band name?” I ask when we’re at Chase’s house and up in his room.

“We do need a band name,” Chase says. “Too bad ‘The Beatles’ is already taken.”

“How about this?” I say. “Everyone contribute three names. I’ll be the judge.”

After about ten minutes of joking about it, I press them to submit their final three. Chase comes up with Staccato Underground, Fruit Bat Conspiracy, and A Deceit of Lapwings. “It’s a real thing,” he says. “You know, like a herd of cows? A bunch of lapwings is called a deceit.”

“What’s a lapwing?” Derek asks, looking confused.

“I don’t know,” says Chase. “Some kind of bird, I think. I just read it in a list of names for groups of animals.”

Derek has come up with three, too: the Derek Turner Experiment, the Derek Turner Project, and the Derek Turner Experience. Tru’s contributions are the Uptown Howlers, Gumbo Night, and the Thursday Night All-Stars.

“This was a tough call,” I say after a reality-show-style dramatic pause. “All of these names were worthy. So I think I’m going to use part of all of them. Your new band name is Underground All-Stars Project.” They applaud.

The energy level in the music room seems a little higher, and the guys practice with more focus than they did before. When we’re getting ready to leave, Chase’s mom comes home again. She mentions an upcoming weekend at the lake with Chase, and it’s clear that Derek and Tru are going with them. “Evangeline,” says Carol, “would you like to join us?”

I freeze. “Um, that would be great,” I mumble. “But . . .” I trail off. This has taken me completely by surprise.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she says, reaching out and touching my hand. “You wouldn’t be the only girl. Chase’s cousin Sophie is coming with a friend. They’re freshmen at the University of Georgia. I can chat with your parents if you like. I’m sure they’d feel better about it if they knew there was parental supervision.”

How awkward will that conversation be? Very.

Carol calls later that night, and I can hear Mama’s half of the conversation. I think she is happy that rich people have asked me to their lake house. “Well, that would be just fine. Thank you for inviting her,” I hear her say. What a relief.

“She seems like a nice woman,” says Mama.

“She is.”

“And that boy, her son, he’s really just a friend?”

“He’s just a friend,” I say, careful not to mention anyone else who will be there.

I babysit for Aunt Cel’s neighbors the next night, so I sleep over there.

“You’re starting to make a life here,” Mamere says while I’m brushing her hair before bed, and the words hit me like a knife to the heart. No. That’s not it. I’m not making a life here. I’m going home. But I know the reason her words hurt is that there’s some truth to them. She has named that feeling, the guilt I have for enjoying the last few weeks. The way it is slowly tugging me away from my resolve to be home. To rebuild the place I love.

“It’s not that,” I say unconvincingly. “I’m just making the best of how things are.” It’s that pebble-in-my-shoe feeling again. All I can think about is Danielle. If I “make a life” here, as Mamere says, it feels like I’m forgetting about her.

“That’s what making a life is, cherie,” says Mamere. “Everything is changing all the time, and that’s the way it should be. You know, when your Grandpere died — oh, Lord. The love of my life was gone. I didn’t think I could go on. But you came to live with me, and now look at us. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Doesn’t mean I miss him any less.”

“Do you ever think about staying in Houston?” I ask Kendra when I talk to her later.

“Hell no,” she answers. “First of all, the scholarship competition is much worse here.”

She’s so single-minded about basketball, about college. I’ve always wished I could be more like her. But that’s not me.

Later, when I’m reading Evangeline, a line jumps out at me. It’s after the Acadians have been expelled from their home in Canada and they are just starting to arrive in Louisiana. Evangeline is separated from her love, Gabriel, and missing home, but from there in her boat, she’s taken by the “inexpressible sweetness” of this new place. She looks around and notices everything. Above her is the Louisiana sky. Below is its reflection in the water. She is there in her boat, suspended in the middle, “hanging between two skies.”

I can’t help but feel like that Evangeline, hanging between two skies: the endless, inexpressibly sweet one at home and the one here, where the dark clouds are now edged by silver.

We leave for the lake house Friday after school. It’s as big as their house house. It sleeps eighteen, Chase tells me. There’s a grand piano here, too. I get my own room with this big cushy bed. Carol brought up a bunch of prepared food from some market and sets it out for us. “Chase’s dad is the cook in our house. He’ll be here soon,” she says. I look around at the expensive stove and double oven. Mama and Mamere would die to have a kitchen like this.

We walk down to the dock with Chase. There’s a little chill in the air, but it’s not really cold yet. I breathe in the smell of the lake. It’s not the same as salt water, but it’s water. The leaves have mostly all turned or fallen off. I have to admit, it’s beautiful here.

On top of the dock, there’s practically another whole house, screened in, with really nice furniture and a refrigerator and sink. There’s a set of stairs that leads down to the dock. Here, there’s a Jet Ski, two kayaks, and a canoe. The big motorboat has been dry-docked for the winter.

“Are there fish in this lake?” Tru asks.

“Hmm. Not really sure. I think so.”

Tru points over at the fall of rods and reels. “Have you ever used those?”

Chase grimaces. “I don’t think anyone has ever used those. But you can.”

Tru looks at me. “Want to go fishing tomorrow?”

My heart leaps. “Of course,” I say.

“The boat’s been — what do you call it? Winterized, though,” says Chase. “I don’t think you can get it down.”

“We can take the canoe,” says Tru.

“You know how to operate one of those?” Chase asks.

Tru looks over at me and smiles. “We both drive forty-five-foot shrimp boats. I think we can handle it.”

When we come back up to the house, Chase’s dad, Eric, is in the kitchen cooking, a glass of red wine on the counter. Chase’s cousin Sophie and her friend Claire arrive a little while later. They’re kind of the anti-Mandy, wearing mismatched clothes that look stylish together, no makeup, messy hair. We sit down at a feast of a dinner, with the fire blazing in the other room, jazz on the incredible sound system. I’ve never been in a scene remotely like this before. I’m terrified that someone is going to realize I’m too poor to be here. I think Tru might be feeling the same way. Derek, on the other hand, seems right at home. “I could really get used to this,” he says after he polishes off a huge slab of cake.

We head down to the dock house once the dishes are done. The girls are there already, and I can smell that they’ve been smoking pot. They’re sitting in the dark with their feet up on the tables.

“Hey!” says Sophie. “Want some?” She offers it to Tru and me.

“No, thanks,” says Tru. “I’m high on life.”

I shake my head.

Sophie moves on to Derek. He gives her a shocked expression. “Are you kidding?” he says. “My lungs are like a finely tuned engine. A Ferrari. I can’t damage that priceless machine with smoke.”

“OK, Mr. Ferrari Lungs.” Sophie laughs. “I know you’ll have some, cuz.”

“Yeah,” says Chase. “Because you’re the one who corrupted me in the first place.”

Tru brought his guitar down. Everyone starts making requests and he honors them to the best of his ability. After a while, bleary-eyed Chase notices that his parents have lit a fire in the outdoor fire pit. “Oh, look,” he says. “A fire. That means s’mores.” He gets up and heads out with Sophie and Claire, who has been flirting with Derek. Derek follows along. But Tru lingers. I feel this joy spreading over me. He lingers because of me, I think.

“How ’bout this?” he says. “This place.” He shakes his head. “I never thought I’d be in a place like this.”

“Me neither,” I say. And I tell him what I was thinking at the dinner table.

“I was thinking that, too!” he exclaims. “You don’t think Chase is just hanging out with us for the novelty of having poor friends, do you?”

“I think Chase is just excited to have friends,” I say. “I mean, he’s great. But he’s kind of an acquired taste.”

He strums his guitar and starts singing a Howling Wolf song that was on one of the CDs he made me; it’s about a poor boy, with no happy home to go back to.

We laugh a little and then we’re silent. “That’s for sure,” he says.

“You mean you don’t have a home to go to, or the one you do have isn’t happy?”

“Things are not so great with my dad’s cousins. It’s their house and they’re giving my dad work, but you know. He wants to be his own boss again.”

“It’s the same with my dad,” I say. “I mean, he doesn’t like to accept charity. He wants to be back out on the water again, but we have to wait for a trailer and the insurance payment for the boat. My mom just wants to stay here.”

“What do you want to do?” he asks.

I was afraid he’d ask. Because if I tell him, I’m saying I want to be where he is not. “I just always thought we would go home,” I say. “I mean, obviously I don’t belong here.”

He nods. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

My stomach is in knots. “What about you?” I manage to croak, not really wanting to know the answer.

“I don’t know.” I can tell he feels some of what I’m feeling. “I don’t really have a choice in the matter. We’re here now. And there are some good things about it.” He gives me a look as if he is about to say more, but the screen door swings open and Chase walks in.

“Come on,” he says, sounding loopy with a mouth full of marshmallows. “You’re missing the s’mores.”

We sit around the fire, under the blankets that Carol and Eric brought out. Claire and Sophie have gotten over their case of the giggles and are looking a little glassy eyed. There’s jazz coming from the speakers mounted on the trees, and the sky is so clear. You can see tons of stars. It’s like a dream. But in my heart, in my head, there’s a voice. Not even a little one. A strong and sure one, that says, You don’t belong here. And I know it’s right. This place is amazing. But it’s not my place. It’s not my home.

It’s still dark out the next morning when there is a knock on my door. I’m not sure where I am at first, but I fumble around, find the handle. Tru is outside, and for a split second, I think he wants to come into my bedroom, and I have a moment of panic. But he puts his fingers to his lips to say shhh and mimics casting a line, and I realize he has woken me up to go fishing. I nod, give him the “just a second” sign and go get dressed. When I come out, he has assembled some sandwiches for lunch. He holds up some chicken. “This is all we’ve got for bait.”

I scrawl a note and leave it on the counter: Gone fishin’.

It’s cold and black out when we head to the dock and collect the rods and reels. There’s a thick mist coming off the water. “Do you know where we’re going?” I ask as we start to paddle out.

“No idea,” he says.

“I’m starting to see a pattern here. Out on the water with no sense of direction and no navigational equipment,” I say.

“Ouch,” he says. “Well played.”

“Just kidding. How big can this lake be?”

We paddle out as the dark begins to soften. That peace comes over me. A flock of geese fly in formation above us, their barely audible honks echoing across the lake. They’ll be arriving in Louisiana soon, I think, remembering this time of year at home. It would just about be orange-harvest season, too, just a few weeks before the festival. But almost all the oranges are dead this year.

“You’re quiet back there,” says Tru from the front of the canoe. “What are you thinking about?”

I tell him. “I was thinking about home, too,” he says. He tells me that he used to come to the Orange Festival every year. His little sister wanted to be on the court one day.

“I think my sister is more upset about not being on Orange Court than she is about losing our house,” I say. “My mom was on the court when she was in high school.”

“So not only are you Fleet Queen, but you’re orange royalty, too? Man, who cares if Chase is rich? You’re royal.”

“Yep. My blood runs orange.”

“You know, I asked my cousin Hip about you,” he says. “After we met that day.”

“You did?” I’m terrified at what Hip might have said. Probably “Who?” and then “Oh, Mandy Riley’s little sister?”

“He said you were cool,” he says.

“He did not say that.”

“Well, he said that he knew you were the one who always won the fishing rodeos. So I’m a little intimidated going fishing with you.”

“Yeah, you should be. Totally.”

We decide to try the banks, since we know nothing about this lake. But everything seems to be private property. We finally find this little island and haul out just as my arms are starting to get tired of paddling.

At first, there’s this nervous energy. I feel like I have to show off and catch something right away.

“Ah, I see you have a slight flick,” he says. “Is it trademarked?”

“Don’t even attempt it. You may injure yourself.”

We fish. The conversation ebbs and flows like tides. It starts to develop a rhythm, like a waltz, sometimes quick and witty, sometimes slower, deeper, more reflective.

“When you’re fishing like this,” he says, “do you ever imagine that you’re on a fishing show, like Bassmasters? And narrate what you’re doing?”

“You do that, too?”

“Yeah, you can be a guest star on my show today.” He puts on a redneck announcer voice. “Today, we’re here with Evangeline Riley, five-time Bayou Perdu Fishing Rodeo champion, who’s going to show us how to bank fish in North Georgia —”

“Hey, what’s your show called? Tru Bayou?”

“Good one.” He puts his announcer voice back on. “We’d like to welcome Evangeline Riley to Tru Bayou today.Evangeline, tell me how you do it.”

“Well, Tru, you have to think like a fish. . . .”

The day is warming up. There are other boats out fishing. We move to different spots around the island. Not surprisingly, we catch nothing with chicken. We decide to have lunch. Light is coming through the trees on the little island, soft and warm. He says his brothers are studying business at LSU and the idea was that when they graduate, they were going to start Nguyen Brothers Seafood Enterprises. Not just fishing, but distribution. He was going to join them after school and pursue his music on the side. But now . . . Who knows how long it will take to save for a new boat?

It gets too warm to fish, so we head back. He’s in front of me in the boat, looking out over the water with his hair blowing in the wind, the billowy clouds in front of him. I feel this image of him imprinting on my memory, as if years from now, I’ll always remember him exactly this way.

He helps me out of the boat onto the dock. A strand of my hair falls, and he reaches over and pushes it back, his hand warm, strong, but soft. A shiver runs through me, the way an egret’s feathers ripple slightly in the wind as it’s about to take flight.

When we get back up to the back deck, Chase is still in his robe, hanging out with Sophie. “Oh, God,” he deadpans. “We thought you had capsized.”

“We didn’t really think that,” Sophie says. “We just woke up.”

“Where are all the fish you caught us for lunch?” Chase asks.

“Well, we didn’t have any actual bait,” says Tru.

“We can get some,” says Chase. “We need to go to the general store anyway. A terrible thing has happened. We’re out of coffee.”

We take the little country road to the store and pick up some bait, the coffee, and a few other things, and I’m standing at the cashier with Chase when I turn around and there’s Tate. His jaw drops. Mine probably does, too.

“Evangeline! What are you doing here?”

“Just up here for the weekend.” Why do I feel guilty? I turn to Chase. “With friends.”

Tate looks at Chase. “Hey,” he says. Even though Tate would probably never show disdain to anyone, I can tell that he knows Chase and doesn’t like him.

“Well, see you at school,” I say as we head out to the car. For some reason, I feel like I’ve been caught doing something I’m not supposed to do.

“You know Tate?” I ask Chase when we’re back in the car.

“Not really. We went to preschool together. I think we went to each other’s birthday parties until we were, like, five. How do you know him?”

“Political Science.”

“He’s harmless,” says Chase. “Just a little uptight.”

The afternoon is dreamy. We eat lunch out on the deck. It’s warm and sunny. There is a football game on in the living room that Derek, Claire, Sophie, and Eric are watching. Carol is reading a book. I get in the hammock near the lake and stare out at the water. After about ten minutes, Tru comes down. “Mind if I join you?” he asks.

For a second, I think he’s going to get in right next to me, but he goes to the other end and we swing there, the way Kendra and I used to do. I tell him about her. He tells me his older brother, Than, is his best friend and adds, “It would be cool if you could meet him sometime.” It’s the first hint that he is starting to see me in his future. That tiny little voice in the back of my head chimes in: But you don’t belong here. I brush it aside.

I tell him about Danielle. That we’re best friends, that we’ve been each other’s anchor for years. And then in one day, she was just swept away.

“I feel like this limbo we’re all in is just temporary,” he says. “It might take some time, but I know you two will find each other. This being apart doesn’t erase all the years you spent together.”

“Her life in Bayou Perdu was never great, though. Maybe they just moved on. Maybe she doesn’t want to remember.”

“I don’t believe that’s it. The friendship you just described seems stronger than that.”

In this time that we are here together, sandwiched between two trees, our bodies thrown together, I study the details of him: his hands, the line of his cheekbones, the exact color of his eyes. What would it be called? Chestnut? It’s a warm brown, not ordinary. It’s a brown that’s just his, almost a honey, golden brown. I have started zeroing in on his lips. I have to stop because the line between looking at them and wanting to lunge at him and kiss them has grown dangerously thin. All those clichés about love: it turns out they’re true.

Later, there is another incredible dinner, and afterward everyone gathers in the living room this time. Eric lights a fire and everyone gets under blankets and unzipped sleeping bags.

“I would love to hear some New Orleans music,” says Carol. “Since we’ve got two New Orleans musicians here with us.”

Derek offers to play “Basin Street Blues.” Tru begs off, so he does it with Chase. When they’re done, Carol says, “Derek! Amazing. I had no idea you were such an accomplished musician!” He shrugs a little. But not too much.

Carol is quizzing him on his musical background. “Have you ever thought of applying to a conservatory?” she asks.

“I was supposed to go to this academy in New Orleans,” he says. “Before Katrina.”

“He should audition at Manhattan, don’t you think, Chase? We know some people in admissions.”

“He can have my old spot,” says Chase, sounding a little bitter.

Tru picks up his guitar and sits on the edge of the fireplace. There’s something in his voice when he begins. It takes me a second to recognize that he’s singing Louis Armstrong’s “A Kiss to Build a Dream On.”

He is looking straight out over the room for almost the whole song, but he catches my eye for a second and smiles. I feel myself blushing.

“Absolutely stunning,” says Carol when he’s finished. “Chase, your friends here are as talented as your friends at Manhattan were.”

“What can I say? I attract talent,” he says.

Tru comes and sits next to me.

“Wow,” I squeak out. “That was amazing.”

He shrugs. “It seemed like the right time for that song.”

The song was a tough act to follow, so no one does. Sophie, Claire, and Derek start playing Trivial Pursuit. Chase wanders off to his room. I help Chase’s mom with the cleaning up. When I finish, Tru, who has been in the living room messing around on the guitar, comes in to join us.

“Do you want to go outside?” he asks. I can barely breathe. This is the tug on my line. This is it.

We walk out beyond the squares of light spilling from the house. When we pass into the darkness, Tru grabs my hand. We walk down to the dock together that way. My thinking breaks down. Stars, the chill in the air, that smell of lake water, his hand in mine. My mind has slowed to a crawl and it’s only my senses. His hand in mine. I think words are coming from my mouth, but I couldn’t tell you what I’m saying. Now we’re face-to-face. Eye to eye. I could lift off the ground, I’m so light.

And then he is kissing me and I’m kissing back.

He breathes out and pulls me close to him. “I kissed the Fleet Queen!” he says, his face beaming. “I’ve wanted to do that since the day we met.”

“Why didn’t you?” I ask.

“I was scared, of course,” he says. “I thought you would laugh. Or leave me out there.”

“I was covered in water and smelling like fish. Why would you want to kiss me?”

“The shrimp crown really caught my eye, you know, earlier in the day.” He tilts his head back and laughs. “Seriously, though, I noticed your looks first. But then it was your superpowers. You just jumped right into alligator-infested waters and set me free and that was it. Boom. Lightning bolts.” Kiss. “Then there’s your sense of humor.” Kiss. “Confidence. The way you sing in French. Everything, basically.” Kiss. “What about you? When was the first time you knew you wanted to kiss me?”

“It was pretty much the same time.” We’re kissing again.

We go into the dock house to be alone, settle down under the unzipped sleeping bag that someone left out there last night. I can’t really say what happened next. Talking, kissing, a soft blur like that song that took me so far away to someplace I’ve never been. A place I want to visit again and again. It’s like the wings of this big white bird spread out and then settle over me. I’m so close to this beautiful, fragile thing — this feeling. I’ve been close to it before, but didn’t want to get nearer. Like I was afraid any movement would scare it away. But now I feel like I belong. Here. With him. We go back in when we see the lights start to go out inside the house. He drops me off at my door like a gentleman and says good night. I can’t sleep. I feel like I just woke up. For the first time ever.

During breakfast, Chase senses what’s going on. And since Derek and Claire have disappeared, I think he’s feeling like a third wheel. “You know, when I invited you guys up here, I had no idea this was going to turn into the love hotel.” He puts his coffee cup down on the table just a little too hard.

In the afternoon, everything is sort of fuzzy. We all play card games with Chase and Sophie for a while. Tru brushes up against me a few times and I feel electrified. I can’t seem to focus on anything but him. Later, we break up into smaller groups. We both spend time with Chase alone, out of guilt for me, at least. Then Tru and I have a few minutes alone on the back deck. I am dying to kiss him and wondering if he is thinking the same thing. But there are people just on the other side of the glass. Then it’s time to head back.

When Chase drops me off at Aunt Cel’s at the end of the day, I say good-bye to Tru in the backseat, but then he gets out and comes around the back of the car. “Wait, we need to have a real good-bye.” He touches my shoulder, then puts his hand on my hip, pulling me closer to kiss him, a kiss that goes right through me. I’m like a leaf that fell into the water, picked up into his flow, gliding along with it. I forget who and where I am and I’m liquid. I could float away, evaporate.

“Oh, God, you two, get a room,” Chase moans out the car window.

I have to pull myself back to stay in my own skin, but the feeling echoes as the car pulls away.

As I’m going to bed that night, I think about Mandy’s stupid advice about dating. For me so far, falling in love has been nothing like fishing. It is more like making music. Trying to find a melody and matching the words, and then when they’re together, getting lost in it. Carried away. You carry it in your body so that sometimes it bursts out of you and other times it’s quiet and so unconscious that you’re humming and you don’t even notice it. It’s that slow unfurling of the orange bud. And now I am that tiny orange bud bursting into blossom.