by showing him how much support there is from the locals.”
Samir shrugged. “Yeah, I guess that could work. So are we going to try to get an appointment with him?”
“Well, I already did. For Thursday morning.”
“You did?” Samir raised his eyebrows. “That was quick.”
“I think they’re really slow in the summertime or something. You’ll go with me, right? I’m asking Dolly, too.”
“Sure.”
“Because I was thinking… I mean, it’ll be good to go show our support and stuff, but what if we took it one step further?”
Samir frowned, not understanding. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, say the mayor’s actually right. Say the big problem really is that the contract’s been inked, so they can’t stop the condo development from happening. But what if we were able to find a different, equally feasible location? And somehow convince the developer to move to that location instead? That way the mayor won’t have to break the contract and the town can still get the revenue.”
Samir smiled. “That would be a really good solution. I can help you look for alternative locations before Tuesday. The plan is to present the mayor with it then, right?”
Pinky grinned. “Exactly.”
They looked at each other for a moment, their smiles fading as the reality of her rejection settled back in like a heavy lead cloud. “Right… so…” Samir patted the top of the railing with an open palm, his mood dampening again as he remembered that she didn’t want him like he wanted her. “I’ll help you with that. But right now I’m gonna go take a shower and read for a bit, okay?”
Pinky looked at him, a long, lingering thing that held hints of sadness. Like she knew he needed time alone to lick his wounds, to get over what had just happened. “Yeah,” she said. “Sure. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Samir nodded at her and walked back toward the house, forcing his gait to be lighter and quicker than it wanted to be. She’d rejected him. The first girl he’d ever had any real feelings for had rejected him out of hand. Everything he’d thought he’d seen in her eyes, all the hidden, secret messages he thought he’d gotten when they’d kissed, when she’d been in his arms—it was all self-delusion on his part. He was just some naive, ridiculous, hearts-in-his-eyes cartoon character mooning after the worldly, sophisticated girl. He knew it and she knew it. Time and space, that’s what he needed now.
He could feel her gaze on his back as he went, but he forced himself not to look.
Pinky
Pinky closed her eyes when she heard the firm, final thunk of the French doors closing behind him. All the things Samir had said… they were perfect. It was like he’d really seen her, all of her, even the parts that he thought of as her worst qualities, and he’d appreciated all of what he’d seen. He wanted to be a part of it. No boy before him had ever come close to appreciating her so well-roundedly. No boyfriend she’d ever had had openly admitted that there were things about her that they simultaneously were aggravated by and loved. No one had ever been that honest, that funny, that… that Samir. And she’d turned him down.
A part of her felt relieved that he’d gotten the message so quickly; she’d made the decision to keep him at bay for a reason. Someone like him belonged in a different sphere from someone like her. It would never work. They’d be fighting all the time.
But another part of her was scared—terrified, actually—that she always sabotaged herself because somewhere deep down she didn’t believe she deserved happiness with a guy like Samir.
Gripping the railing with her hands, Pinky listened to the crickets chirp in the darkened corners of the backyard. She’d never heard such a lonely sound.
* * *
It was the next evening, which was also the night before the meeting with the mayor, and Samir and Pinky were sprawled on the floor in her room, a giant paper map of Ellingsworth Point Island spread out between them. They had the windows open, and a lake breeze blew in, trying to make off with the map. Pinky set her box of markers on the corner to weigh it down.
“I still don’t see why we’re doing it like this,” Samir grumbled. “We could just pull it up on my laptop.”
“Yes, but it’s so much more satisfying to be able to circle things physically,” Pinky said, using a fat purple marker to