The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,26

said decisively.

“Can we focus here?” Toby asked, raising her voice. “If Andie’s in town, that means we’re all here for the summer, for once.”

I looked around the table and realized this was true. Last year Bri had spent all of July visiting relatives in India, terrified she was going to lose her memory because of the side-effects warning on her anti-malarial medicine. (We’d probably had more fun with that than we should have, making up things that hadn’t happened, pretending she should know what we were talking about, then acting overly concerned when she got confused. Bri, understandably, hadn’t brought us back any souvenirs from that trip.) And the year before that, Palmer had spent the first half of the summer doing a service program, building houses in New Orleans, and come back with a drawl she didn’t lose until November.

“You know what that means you’ll be here for, right?” Palmer asked me, raising her eyebrows.

It took me a moment, but then I sat up straighter, seeing the first silver lining of that morning. “The scavenger hunt?”

“The scavenger hunt!” Palmer agreed, banging her palm down on the table and setting the plates rattling. For the past five years Palmer had organized a scavenger hunt, usually taking place in August, when she felt things needed to be spiced up a little. Scavenger hunts were an Alden family tradition, and as soon as we’d all become friends, Palmer had started organizing her own. I’d missed last year’s, when I’d been stuck in bed with the stomach flu, getting photo updates so I could see just how much fun everyone was having. The year before I’d lost by a single point, something that still irritated me whenever I thought about it.

“I’m sorry, are you referring to my greatest victory?” Tom asked with a grin. “How many points did I win by last summer?”

“Nineteen,” Toby and Bri said in unison.

“And I’ve already started working on this year’s list,” Palmer said, mostly to me. “It’s going to be great.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding. It wasn’t like it was making up for missing my summer program, but it was something, at least. “When?” I attributed my loss two years ago to the fact that I’d spent far too long trying to get the impossible, high-points items, rather than just getting more of the easier, low-points ones. I wondered if I still had the list somewhere, so that I could use it to start refining my strategy.

“Just plan on August for the moment,” Palmer said, smiling down the table at Tom. “We have to look at the performance schedule.”

“Oh, right,” I said, nodding, feeling my stomach sink. “The play.” I realized as I looked around that all my friends’ plans were set already, and had been for weeks now. Bri, our cinephile, was working at the Palace Movie Theater. Toby was volunteer docent-ing at the Pearce, the art museum in town—which, I now realized, explained Bri’s Monet reference. Tom was acting in the community-theater play, and Palmer was stage-managing it.

“So everyone else has a plan,” I said, looking around, realizing that for the first time I could remember, I was the one at loose ends, with no solution for this in sight.

“You’ll find something,” Palmer said confidently to me as she took a sip of her Coke. “It’ll all work out in the end.” This was Classic Palmer—she was hardwired for optimism and seemed absolutely incapable of not seeing the bright side. All the Aldens were like that. They didn’t dwell; they looked for solutions, made some snacks, and kept moving forward.

“Okay,” I said, sitting up straight, figuring that maybe I could learn something from her. “I have to fix this.” I needed some sort of plan. I didn’t even care if it was a good plan right now. Just so long as it was something concrete. “I have to do something. I can’t just hang out all summer.”

“We always need people to help build sets,” Tom interjected from the end of the table. “I mean, it doesn’t pay or anything. And some prior set-building experience is preferred. But I could put a good word in for you.”

“And all the really good internships are gone,” I continued, not letting myself get distracted by this. “Same thing with summer programs and volunteering slots.”

“Do we need to be here for this?” Toby whispered to Bri.

“So I need to do something else,” I said, my fingers itching for a pen so I could start brainstorming. “Something that might not look as