TWELVE

“HOW WAS YOUR LESSON?” MY mom asks me as I get in the car.

I reply, “Good,” and buckle my seat belt.

I expect her to ask more questions, but that was it. She stays quiet and doesn’t even turn on any music.

“Oh, can you please take me to the pool?” I ask her, flipping through some playlists on my phone.

“You have your suit with you?” She turns to look at me for a second and then stares back at the road in front of her.

“Always do.” I smile. “You never know when you’ll find yourself in front of a body of water.”

“Is that so?” She half smiles. “Sunscreen too?”

I nod.

Something is up with her, but I have no idea what. We stay quiet for a few minutes until my mom launches into a reading of her to-do list.

“Oh! Ari, I almost forgot. We must finalize address labels, confirm our caterer meeting, order the yarmulkes—did you say you wanted navy blue or we could also do a houndstooth pattern—that would be cool, right?”

“Houndstooth yarmulkes? Um, yeah, could be cool.”

“We also need to figure out if we want to do a brunch on Sunday for out-of-town guests,” she says, talking to me, but more like talking to the air. “It could be too much, but then again people do need to eat before they leave town.”

I rest my head against the window and let her keep talking. I think it calms her to say everything aloud, even if I don’t respond.

“All right, well, see you later, Mom,” I say when we get to the pool entrance.

“It looks like you’re settling just fine into life at home.” She seems to be starting a conversation when I’m already halfway out of the car. I never understand why people (mostly moms) do that.

“Yeah, I guess.” I shrug. The truth is, I don’t know if I am or if I’m just pretending to be. I wish I was still at camp, no doubt about that. But I’m here. And there’s stuff to do—like the list, and figuring out what’s up with my parents, and studying for my bat mitzvah, and all of that.

Might as well lean in, as people say.

I walk into the pool, write my name in the sign-in book, and scan the area to find Kaylan and the lunch table girls. I also kind of want to see if Jules is here, so we can discuss bat mitzvah lessons and preparing and stuff. I think her bat mitzvah is in December.

“Hey, Arianna,” Noah says, catching me completely off guard. “I didn’t know you were back from camp.”

“Oh, I just got back yesterday,” I tell him, startled. “I thought you were, like, in Australia or something?”

“I was,” he says. “I just got back a few days ago. And then Jules invited me to the pool today, so yeah, I’m here now.”

Jules invited him to the pool? “Cool.”

I look away, trying to think of what to say to him. We didn’t really keep in touch over the summer.

“Did you have fun at camp?” he asks.

“Yeah, best time ever. I loved it.”

“That’s cool.” He shuffles his feet on the pavement. “Anyway, I better go. Jules ordered us lunch. See ya around, Arianna.”

I look away, and then back at Noah. “Um, okay, bye.”

“Ari!” I hear someone scream and look around. I’m pretty sure that it’s Kaylan, but I can’t seem to find her. “Ari! . . . Here! . . . By the diving board!”

I nod and walk over to where Kaylan’s sitting. She’s not in our usual spot, and I never would have expected I’d find her sitting over there. She’s with Cami, June, M.W., Amirah, Kira, Sydney, and Marie. She really did mean the whole crew.

When school started last year, we were definitely two separate groups—me with Sydney, Kira, M.W., and Marie, and Kaylan with June and Cami. I don’t really remember where Amirah fit in, but it doesn’t really matter. Little by little, we all became fused together into one big group.

That girl Lizzie’s here, too, Kaylan’s lab partner from last year. I wonder if she’ll sit with us at lunch now.

“Hi, guys,” I say, plopping down on an empty lounge.

“Arianna’s back, and she’s better than ever,” Cami sings. “Hey-la, Arianna’s back.” She gets up and starts doing a little shimmy, and I gotta admit—it’s a little much.

If I had to describe Cami in one phrase, that would be it. A little much.

“Nice to see you missed me.” I smile at the group. “So what’s up? Tell all. Spill it. Fill me in. What did I miss in Brookside?”

They all look at one another, silent for what feels like three centuries, and then they stare back at me.

“What?” My cheeks feel hot.

“Um, your boobs got really big over the summer,” Marie whispers, but loud enough for the whole group to hear. “Did you have to get new bras?”

I crack up. “Wait, what? For real?” I fold my arms across my chest.

“It’s true,” Kaylan adds.

“Guys, first of all, shh.” I move closer to the group. “Awkward to talk about boobs at the pool, first of all. And second of all, I’m still wearing the same sports bras I was wearing last spring, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

June shrugs. “Okay, well, maybe the sports bras stretch or whatever. You have, like, serious big boobs now, Arianna.”

“They’re really big,” Kira and Sydney say at the same time, and then stop to do their jinx ritual.

“Stop!” I laugh. “I don’t want big boobs. How come I don’t get a say in my boobage size?”

They all start cracking up.

“But seriously, what did I miss when I was away at camp?” I grab my sunscreen out of my pool bag and start dabbing it all over my legs.

“See what I mean.” Kaylan rolls her eyes at the others. She whispers, “She’s obsessed with this place.”

I ignore her comment and roll my eyes right back at her. I didn’t even say anything obsessive.

M.W. clears her throat. “Well, there was that incident with the slimy noodle.”

“OMG, slimy noodle.” June cracks up, falling back onto her lounge and almost onto the pavement. “Slimy noooooooodle.”

“The slimiest,” Kaylan adds.

“No one would believe noodles could be that slimy,” Lizzie says in a spooky voice.

Marie is laughing so hard she’s not able to get any words out, and finally she just shakes her hands and admits defeat in that area.

Amirah raises her eyebrows. “Obvs.”

“Okaaay.” I scrunch my face tight. “I guess I’ll just have to accept the fact that I missed the slimy noodle incident.”

They all start laughing again, but no one explains it. It’s not like I really care to understand it, since it seems like one of those “you had to be there” moments. But it’s still a little awkward.

Cami announces, “We’re going to swim,” and all the others follow her.

Kaylan stays behind, lying back on the lounge, reading something on her phone.

“I didn’t know you and Lizzie were still hanging out,” I whisper, making sure no one can hear.

“Oh yeah, well, she’s been at the pool all summer, so she just started hanging with us.” Kaylan looks up at me. “It’s just been, like, whoever’s here kind of hangs out.”

I nod. “That’s cool.”

Kaylan goes back to looking at her phone, so I tap her knee and announce, “Jules invited Noah to the pool today.”

“That’s a little strange. I haven’t seen them hang out all summer, really. But who knows.” She shrugs. “So this mac and cheese is going to be literally life changing. I’ve been prepping. I have all the ingredients ready at my house. So when we’re done with the pool, we’ll both go home, shower, get into comfy clothes, and get started.” She claps. “Okay?”

I nod. “Sure. Sounds good.”

“Ari, you need to be more pumped up,” she insists. “Please. Come on. Show me some camp-level enthusiasm here.”

“I’m pumped, I’m pumped.” I fist-bump the air. “But should I tell Noah I’m not really into him anymore?” I ask Kaylan. “Can that be my tell a boy how I really feel thing?”

She considers it for a minute. “Nah, doesn’t seem big enough. Plus I don’t think you need to—you didn’t really hang out much last spring, either.”

I stare at the sky. “True.”

“Okay, come on, handstand time,” Kaylan says. “Lounging here isn’t accomplishing anything on the list, though that would have been a good list item.”

I crinkle my eyebrows. “What? Perfecting the art of lounging. We’ve already mastered that.”

“Yeah, true.” She grabs my hand. “Come on, let’s go to the grassy area by the basketball courts and practice handstands.”

As we walk over, I think back to last summer and realize that pre–middle school Kaylan would never have suggested this. Handstands in public? With kids we know from school here? No way. But now she’s all about it.

Maybe she’s more go-with-the-flow than she thought.

The more time I spend with her, the more I realize that Kaylan’s changed. I didn’t think it was possible to change so much in four short weeks. I guess it is.

“Okay, I’ll go first,” Kaylan says. “You judge me, give me pointers, stuff like that. And then I’ll do the same for you. K?”

“K.” I plop down on the grass and rub my eyes under my sunglasses. I don’t think I’ve fully recovered from camp fatigue yet.

Kaylan kicks off her flip-flops, stretches, and stands up straight with her feet apart, one in front of the other. Then she tips her body forward and keeps her arms perfectly straight. She ends up in the most perfect handstand. Legs toward the sky, arms secure. It looks like she could stay in that position for the next three hours and be totally fine.

She comes down and stands normally with her hands on her hips. “So?”

“Perfect. That was definitely a ten. You mastered it.” I lean back on my arms.

“I did,” she says, sounding disappointed. “I kind of wanted to keep working on it. Maybe because all the other stuff on the list is super hard.”

“Maybe. I mean, you can keep working on it, but it’s pretty perfect,” I say as I stand up. “Okay, my turn.”

“Make sure you kick with your dominant leg,” Kaylan instructs. “I think that’s the key part of it.”

I try to follow exactly what Kaylan did, but I can barely do it. When I’m up there, my palms are flat on the grass, and I try as hard as I can to keep my legs straight, but I know they’re crooked, lopsided, like a pair of scissors, and when I try to straighten them, I fall forward.

Kaylan stands back, assessing the situation, a finger on her lip. “Yeah, so it needs work, Ar. But you’ll get there. Let’s hold off on the JHH, though.”

I nod. “Yeah, I’m too tired to jump in the air. I could high-five or hug, though. . . .” I sigh. “I am not a gymnast. Remind me again why we put this on the list?”

“Because we used to be good at handstands and we used to love to do them, and we’re trying to keep a little of our old selves alive as we grow up,” Kaylan explains. “It can’t all be new and exciting. Ya know?”

“Right.”

I plop back down on the grass, lie back, and stare at the sky the way we used to do in between activities at camp. When I did this at camp, it almost seemed like I could feel the earth moving very, very slowly.

But here, not really. It’s just too noisy and chaotic.

“I’m gonna do another one,” Kaylan says. “Watch my form.”

“Okay.”

“Pay attention!” Kaylan snaps, and I sit up.

Right as she’s curling up into a handstand I see Jason walk by. He stops and looks at us and then almost walks away, but then he stops again. I wonder if I should warn Kaylan or not, but I don’t think I can without making it too obvious.

My stomach sinks as he walks over to us.

It’s one of those moments where you see yourself in the situation and you really think you should be doing more to intervene, but you actually don’t know what you’re supposed to do. So you just watch it all unfold.

“Nice handstand,” he says while Kaylan’s still in position. “I think you can check that off the new list.”

Kaylan showed him the new list? I’m flooded with icky embarrassed feelings, like someone just walked in on me changing into a bathing suit. But I mean, it’s just Jason. He knew about our other list, so I guess he can know about this one, too.

She finally comes down from the handstand and her cheeks are bright red—could be from all the blood rushing to her face since she was upside down for so long, could also be because Jason, the boy she just broke up with, is standing right in front of her.

“Hi, Jason,” I say, confused about why he didn’t even say hi to me. “How was your summer?”

He raises his eyebrows at me. “Um, I’d say it was a mix of good and then terrible.” He turns to face Kaylan and glares at her.

I don’t think I know what’s happening here.

“Now you should ask her how camp was,” Kaylan instructs. My heart pounds, and I feel a sudden urge to run away and leave this awkward interaction.

“I can decide what I should ask,” Jason replies. He sits down next to me on the grass with his back to Kaylan.

“How was camp?” he whispers, and I see a little crinkle of a smile form in the corner of his mouth.

“Amazing. Better than anything ever in the whole entire world,” I tell him. “I wish I could live at camp forever.”

“Wow.” He jerks his head back.

I sit up and look at him. “How are you doing, Jason?”

“Craptastic,” he says. “Your BFF is grrrrrrr.”

I giggle because I can’t really tell if he’s trying to be funny, but it’s good to laugh either way.

“Don’t laugh,” he says. “I thought things were good between us, and then she, like, just decides she’s done with us being an us.” He goes on and on, while I pretend to listen but mostly try to figure out how Kaylan can do all of these crazy gymnastics moves.

She’s doing handstands all over the grass, and cartwheels and back handsprings and roundoffs. It was totally not fair for her to put the handstand on the list. She’s super advanced at gymnastics, and I’m like a negative beginner.

“So what should I do?” he asks me.

I quickly scan my brain, trying to remember anything he just said. “Well, maybe she’ll change her mind again,” I suggest. “She kind of does that a lot.”

He shrugs. “It’s so awkward now, though. And why is she flipping all over the place in front of me? It’s weird.”

“No offense, Jason,” I start. “But she’d be doing this whether you were here or not. She likes to show off sometimes.”

“Why did I even like her in the first place?” he asks me like I should know the answer.

“Because she’s the best girl ever,” I remind him. “And you guys had good times together. But sometimes that stops. The good news is it can start again. You just need to wait and see.”

“I don’t like waiting and seeing,” Jason says. “I’m bored. I want to hang out with you guys.”

“Well, no one said you couldn’t hang out with us,” I tell him. “I’m cool with it. And you’re obviously still going to be friends. Plus school starts in, like, two weeks, soooo . . .”

We stand up and walk over to Kaylan, who’s talking to Jules and Noah by the snack bar. “I did some competitive gymnastics when I was in elementary school,” she tells them. “But then I stopped. It’s good exercise, though.”

“What did you order?” I ask her.

“Water, for the list,” she whispers. “I left my water bottle at the lounges. And also mozzarella sticks.”

“How’s your water drinking going?” Jason asks me.

“Doesn’t my complexion look fabulous?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “I don’t know what that even means, really.”

“Water drinking is going well.” I glare at him. “I feel like you’re trying to do the list with us. Are you?”

“Not anymore.” He sulks.

I’m starting to wonder if putting tell a boy how we really feel on the list was such a good idea.