sixth birthday in that meadow? I just remember you burst into tears when your mom brought in those cupcakes.”
“Oh, right,” Pinky said, laughing. “I’d imagined the butterflies bringing them to me, like in a fairy tale or something.”
Dolly chuckled. “Yeah. I didn’t know that until I was older and you told me.” She sighed and gave Pinky a quick hug. “This place has always meant so much to you.”
“Not just to me, to a lot of people,” Pinky said, her eyes sparking. “We have to do something.”
They heard voices then and turned to see five people, a middle-aged white woman in a business suit, two white men, about the same age, in rumpled T-shirts and pants, and two older women, one black and one white, in shorts and T-shirts, walking through the grove of pines toward them.
“All of this,” the woman in the business suit was saying in authoritative tones. In spite of the heat and humidity, her short blond hair was perfectly straight and silky. She sliced her arm through the air, her index finger pointed. Her nails were done in an understated plum-gray color. “I need it flat.” The two men nodded.
“If you could reconsider, that’s all we’re asking,” the older black woman said. “This habitat is an important piece of town history.”
The woman in the business suit smirked. “History is best left in the past. I’m talking about bringing in millions of dollars in revenue to Ellingsworth Point. Besides which, there’s no point talking about all of this now. The contract’s already been signed; the paperwork’s done.” She turned dismissively away, not giving the other two women a chance to respond.
“What the hell?” Pinky muttered, looking from the woman in the suit to the other two women. And then she began to stride forward.
Dolly looked at Samir and shrugged. “All we can do now is follow.”
Pinky
Pinky strode toward the group, the last lingering effects of the extremely serviceable practice kiss with Samir burning off in the heat of her outrage. (Okay, so the kiss had been more than serviceable. It might, in fact, have been the best kiss she’d ever had, real boyfriends included. And somewhere along the way, she’d… stopped practicing. But that was an issue for another day.) (Seriously, though. Where had Samir learned to kiss like that?? As far as Pinky knew, he’d never even had a girlfriend before. Where was the buttoned-up, boring, Harvard lawyer–wannabe mama’s boy she’d loved to make fun of?)
The woman in the crisp business suit was briskly giving orders, and the men were nodding but not saying much themselves. The woman was obviously in charge. The two older women who’d tried to talk to her were standing off to the side, deep in conversation. Pinky walked up to them, and Samir and Dolly joined her on either side.
The black woman was the first to notice them. “Hi,” she said, a small wrinkle between her eyebrows. The white woman just looked at them, her eyes slightly narrowed.
“Hi.” Pinky stuck out her hand, and the two women took turns shaking it, looking slightly confused. “Pinky Kumar. These are my, um, people, Samir and Dolly.”
“I’m Gloria,” the black woman said, “and this is my wife, Dolores.” Dolores gave the three of them a suspicious glare.
Pinky glanced over at the businesswoman and her two lackeys. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with that woman, and I want to volunteer my time.”
“Volunteer your time for what, honey?” Gloria asked.
“Anything at all,” Pinky said. “Whatever your plan is to stop the razing of the habitat.” Gloria and Dolores looked at her blankly. “You… do have a plan, right?”
“Nothing concrete yet,” Dolores said, slightly cagily, Pinky thought. “Why? Why are you so interested?”
“This habitat was built when I was, like, three years old,” Pinky explained. “And every summer I come back to—”
“So you’re a summer person,” Dolores said, folding her arms.
Pinky blinked. “Yeah. My parents have a house out by Ellingsworth Lake.”
Gloria looked over at the woman in the business suit, who was now tromping back around toward the parking lot with the two men. Looking back at Pinky, she said, “Whatever we do, it’s going to take some serious commitment and some serious work. It’s not just a side project for when you get bored.”
Pinky shook her head. “I won’t get bored. I love this habitat. Some of the best memories in my life happened here.”
“You don’t know Pinky, so you can’t know this,” Dolly explained, smiling, “but she’s the last person who’d ever