Fifteenth Summer - By Michelle Dalton Page 0,16

family, who looked blurry and ghostly now that the sun had set.

“Isn’t it time for frozen custard?” I asked.

It was funny that we had so many rituals in Bluepointe, when we had hardly any in LA.

At home we went to whatever brunch spot had the shortest line. Here we might wait for ninety minutes to get Dutch baby pancakes (and only Dutch baby pancakes) at Francie’s Pancake & Waffles.

In LA my mom marked our heights on the laundry room wall whenever she remembered. Not on birthdays or New Years or anything that organized.

But in Bluepointe we always took the exact same photo on the exact same day, which was the last day of our visit. Hannah would kneel in the sand, Abbie would sit next to her, and I would lie on my stomach, my chin on my fists, at the end of the line. We even took that shot in the rain once, because there was no leaving Bluepointe without the “stack of sisters” shot.

Yet another tradition here was frozen custard on our first night in town. We always went to the Blue Moon Custard Stand.

As we drove there Hannah said, “I wonder what color it’s going to be this year.”

The Blue Moon got a new paint job every summer, going from bubble-gum pink to neon yellow to lime green—anything as long as it was ridiculously bright. I guess it was easy to paint, because the stand was no bigger than a backyard shed. There was barely enough room inside for two (small) people to work, and even that looked like a struggle. They always seemed to be elbowing each other away as they took orders, exchanged money, and handed cones through the stand’s one tiny window.

This meant the line was always long and slow-moving, which was part of the fun of the Blue Moon.

Sure enough, when we pulled up to the stand (purple!) just outside of town, there was a crowd milling around it. But as usual nobody seemed to mind the wait. The evening air was cool and breezy, and the air was so lit up with fireflies, it made the weedy gravel lot feel like a fairy ring. Nobody was in a rush, and you didn’t even have to expend mental energy mulling your custard order, because the Blue Moon had exactly two flavors: chocolate and vanilla.

We always ordered the same thing anyway. Dad and Hannah got hot fudge sundaes, hers with sprinkles, his with nuts. I got chocolate custard in a cake cone. Mom had a cup of vanilla drizzled with chopped maraschino cherries, and Abbie got a butterscotch-dipped sugar cone. We all got huge servings, even though frozen custard is about as bad for you as a bacon-topped donut, as distant from the calorie-free, pomegranate-flavored frozen yogurt of our hometown as you could get. That was exactly the point. This first-night ritual was our way of saying good-bye to California for the summer, and hello to Bluepointe, where things—until now—had always been as sweet and easy as frozen custard.

I took a giant bite of my cone as soon as the kid behind the counter handed it to me.

“Oh!” I groaned through a messy mouthful of chocolate. “Thish ish shooo good! How do I always forget the perfection that is frozen custard?”

“If you remembered,” my dad said, wiping hot fudge off his chin with his napkin, “you’d never need to go back for more. And what fun would that be?”

I grinned and took another huge bite. As I swallowed, though, I felt a wave of cold surge though my head.

“Owwwwww, brain freeze!” I groaned. I turned away, squeezed my eyes shut, and slapped a hand to my forehead.

In a few seconds the yucky feeling in my frontal lobe passed, and I opened my eyes—to find myself looking right at—Josh! He was just walking away from the Blue Moon window, holding a simple vanilla cone. Behind him was his mom, digging into a sundae with about half a dozen colorful toppings on it.

Also just like me—he seemed stunned. After what felt like a long moment, during which we just stared at each other, he gave me a little wave.

I gave him a little smile.

And then Stella spotted me. Waving at me with her fudgy spoon, she said, “You were in Dog Ear today, weren’t you, honey? How do you like that book?”

“Oh,” I said, trying to sound breezy and comfortable even though I completely wasn’t, “I haven’t had a chance to start it yet.”

“Well, you let