Page 28 of Summer Reading

We were grinning at each other, and then she rotated into a Charleston step, which I copied. She looked impressed. I decided to kick it up a notch and rolled into the T-step. She followed me. We traded more moves back and forth until the song ended. There was a smattering of applause, and I saw that my squad was watching and we’d drawn a bit of a crowd from the inn as well.

“I’m Sonu,” my dance partner said. She was a bit winded, like me. Her thick black hair was styled in onefat braid that reached halfway down her back. She wore the standard waitstaff uniform of a white shirt and dark pants. There was a sparkle in her deep brown eyes that I understood completely. Shuffle dancing had helped me work out a lot of anxiety in my life.

“Sam.” I held out my hand and we shook. “You’ve got some nice moves.”

“You, too,” she said. “Do you know this one?”

She executed a sideways moonwalk that was so smooth it was like she was gliding on ice.

“Let me see,” I said. I studied her feet and then fell into rhythm beside her. It took a few tries but I got it and we began to move in sync.

“Nice,” Sonu said when we both slid to a stop. We exchanged a high five and paused to catch our breath.

“Is that your sister?” I heard someone ask.

I glanced over at Tyler and saw a girl about his age standing next to him. He looked pained when he said, “Yes.”

“She is so cool,” the girl gushed. She was almost as tall as Tyler, willowy, with shoulder-length hair that had a faint pink tinge to it. “I wish I could dance like that.”

Tyler looked at her as if she must be joking, but the girl looked at me as if I was the raddest person ever. In that moment, with the success I was having both in the kitchen and on the dance floor, I felt like she wasn’t wrong.

“Sonu, let’s go!” a waiter called from the door of the kitchen.

“Gotta bounce,” she said. “We’ll have to meet up again.”

“I’ll be here every Friday,” I said.

“Excellent. See you around,” Sonu said before she disappeared into the kitchen.

As I rejoined my group, the girl who’d been talking to Tyler left with her family. He turned on me and demanded, “Whatwas that?”

“Whowas that?” I countered.

“You first,” he said.

“Shuffle dancing.”

“She’s no one special,” he said.

I blinked at him. He was a terrible liar. He was sweating and his face was so red he looked like he had a rash.

“No one special?” Ben asked. “Sophie’s one of your fellow robotics campers.”

Tyler shrugged.

“Sophie?” I asked Ben, knowing I would get nothing from Tyler.

“Sophie Porter,” he said.

I glanced at Em. “Know the family?”

“What?” Tyler asked. “No, you are not asking questions about my robotics friends.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Maybe we know the family.”

“We don’t,” he said.

I glanced at Em for confirmation.

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