we always bought our corn and tomatoes. Mr. Jackson had given me a 75 percent discount because the planting season had pretty much ended.
“I don’t know if they’ll make it,” Mr. Jackson had said to me as he’d helped arrange the seedlings neatly in the wagon. The plants looked even more spindly in his big, meaty hands. “They’re pretty leggy—the ones everybody else passed over.”
“And I know nothing about gardening,” I’d said, biting my lip.
“Well, the good news is these are easy plants,” Mr. Jackson had said. “Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, lettuce . . . I mean, all they want to do is grow.”
“Oh!” I’d said. “I forgot one more thing I wanted. Radishes. Do you have any of those?”
By dinnertime my pathetic little plants were in the ground. I’d followed exactly the instructions Mr. Jackson had written for me on a sheet torn off a yellow legal pad, spacing the tomatoes eighteen inches apart and tucking the radishes into two neat rows.
I grinned at my baby garden as I gave it a gentle spray with the hose. Then I pulled off Granly’s pink gardening gloves, went inside, and opened the spice cabinet in the kitchen.
“Cayenne pepper,” I whispered, finding a big bottle of the orange-red stuff near the back.
Mr. Jackson had sworn by it.
“Just sprinkle it all over the garden after you water each morning,” he’d told me. “Oh, that’ll keep all the critters away.”
As I dusted my garden with the red hot pepper, I pictured the beautiful basket of plum tomatoes, romaine lettuce, and crunchy pickling cucumbers I’d be pulling out of this garden in August. Not to mention the egg-shaped heirloom radishes.
I thought Granly would be proud of what I’d made of her little garden.
I couldn’t help but think about what would be different by the time these little sprouts were ready to harvest (if they made it past the first week).
The summer would be almost over.
I’d be saying more good-byes—to Granly’s cottage, to Bluepointe, to Josh.
But at the moment that seemed as distant and unreal as the idea that these little sprouts could grow into big, succulent vegetables.
So I just shrugged my shoulders, gave the garden one last shake of cayenne, and went inside.
I waited until the morning of the DFJ to tell my family about my date.
Mostly because it took me that long to be able to whisper the words “I have a date” without covering my mouth and giggling like an idiot.
The day of the fireworks started off feeling like any other, except for the fact that my dad was making us banana pecan pancakes instead of working.
When he plopped a trio of them onto my plate, they each had two round ears.
“Dad!” I complained. “I don’t eat Mickey Mouse pancakes anymore!”
“Oh, lighten up,” Hannah said. “He made them for all of us.”
“Even me!” my mom said, coming to sit at the table with her own plate of Mickeys. “I don’t know. Somehow they taste better with those little ears.”
“Well . . . okay,” I grumbled. I poured a puddle of syrup into the space between my mouse ears, and said, “So . . . what are you guys doing tonight?”
Mom and Dad glanced at each other with raised eyebrows.
“What are we doing tonight?” Mom said. “Um, watching the fireworks with our three daughters, of course. Why, did you have other plans?”
“Well, yes,” I said. “I—I have a date.”
Mom and Dad looked at each other again, and their eyebrows went even higher.
“With this boy, Josh?” my mom said.
“Of course with Josh,” I said. “We’ve been together for, like, weeks now.”
“Together when?” Dad said. His fork was poised over his own plate, but it wasn’t moving.
“Well, that’s the thing,” I said. “We’ve only seen each other before and after work. And during, sometimes. So he asked me out for the DFJ. You know, fireworks, picnic, marching band music?”
“Marching band music?” Abbie snorted.
“It’s a figure of speech,” I growled. I sliced an ear off one of my Mickey Mouse pancakes and shoved it into my mouth.
“How old is Josh?” Dad asked. “If he’s your boyfriend now, we need to meet him.”
“That’s the whole plan!” I said. “He’s fifteen, and he’s picking me up at seven. You can meet him then.”
“Honey,” Mom said gently, “we were really looking forward to spending the evening with you girls. I mean, you’ve been working so much, and Hannah—well, who knows if she’ll be with us on the Fourth next year. Right after breakfast your dad and I are going shopping for