Page 10 of The Summers of Us

Age 10, June 18

I stared at the Rivera-Sanchezes’phone number on the fridge for the next few days. I sipped orange juice for breakfast and watched it taunt me next to a Hammerhead’s menu.

What if I called and they hated me?

What if I called and theydidn’thate me but then one day decided that they did?

Blair pushed me to call, insisting they’d be crazy not to love me. I pretended to believe her, chewing on a hangnail while she dialed.

Mrs. Rivera-Sanchez picked up after the first ring.

Haven got to the phone so fast you would have thought she’d been waiting for it.

That brought us here, on a dock on the sound side of the island. Holden unloaded fishing gear and three fishing rods from his wagon.

Blair promised me it was okay to walk there alone since we were only a few streets from the twins’ house, but I asked her not to tell Mom anyway. Mom never let me play alone with the neighborhood kids back home. I was less than a week into my new life and already a liar, but what Mom didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

The air squeezed like a pair of tights after a warm shower. There was a pinch of fish guts in the air, but the wind pushed away the rotten part before it got too close. Haven and I stood on ballerina toes for a peek at the water below.

“Do you guys do this a lot?” I asked Haven’s reflection in the dark water below.

Haven flashed a peace sign on the calm ripples. “Holden does and Mom makes me babysit.”

Holden shook his head from the fishing line tangled in his hand. “Don’t believe a word she says.”

“I guess Quinn will be the tie breaker,” Haven said.

I looked at the purple polish chipping off my toes. I didn’t know which twin to believe, but if fishing was just like the movies, I’d rather watch nail polish dry. But Holden had dug through a can of worms for me, so I was willing to give it a shot.

Holden wrapped a wriggly worm around a hook, kissed the air around it, and bowed his head in salute. “I’m sorry, worm. Thank you, worm.”

He launched the worm into the water, then showed me how to cast my own. I nodded my head with uncertainty like my mom did when she wanted people to stop talking to her. Finally, my bobber bounced with the tide.

After two hours,all the worms had died for nothing. The fish made a meal of the worms but were too smart to bite. I sat next to Haven on the dock, our rods propped on our knees.

Haven reeled in another half-eaten worm. “I can’t do this anymore. This was my fourth worm.”

“Dad got us two cans,” Holden said, leaning over the rail covered in sun-dried fish scales.

“I don’t care. We’re bored.”

“You too, Quinn?” Holden looked at me with soft eyes.

His voice was so close to hurt that I didn’t want to tell the truth, but my mom taught me that lying was worse than stealing. If you steal, at least tell the truth about it. “It’s not that. It’s just that we haven’t caught anything.”

“We’ve been hanging out,” he said with a shrug.

He was right, and I felt bad for complaining. Maybe that was the point of fishing. Wehadbeen hanging out and learning about each other. I learned that they moved here from Mexico when they were four. Haven never went to bed without braiding her hair in an effort to train her wavy hair. Holden always gave his ice cream cherries to Haven. Haven’s favorite shade of yellow was the center of a daisy. Holden liked rainy weather since it made the best fish hungry.

Holden taught me about fiddler crabs and the migration of blue herons and the time he swore he saw a mermaid tail off this very dock.

After Haven told me about the mermaid show at the local aquarium, she asked me to join them sometime. We talked about big dreams of opening mermaid museums, owning a mansion on the water, cooking s’mores for dinner, and eating cherry popsicles until we threw up.

The feeling in my gut left me breathless. I felt included and wanted, like I’d been best friends with them for my whole life. I wished I’d met them sooner. I wished they lived in Raleigh with me, or that I lived here with them and never had to hear my mom cry herself to sleep again.

I’d never met anyone who talked so much about things that didn’t matter, never met anyone who made me care about every little nothing like it was everything.

Haven talked like she couldn’t say enough.

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