Fifteenth Summer - By Michelle Dalton Page 0,56

grin.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, stepping off the front steps into the gravel with my arms crossed. I was wearing my favorite bathing suit, the high-waisted black halter with the white polka dots. It wasn’t vintage but looked it. Over that I wore my gauzy, flowy cover-up. “I thought we were going to the lake!”

“We are,” Josh said. “Just not Lake Michigan. We’re going to Wex Pond. Well, to be specific, we’re getting into a boat on Wex Pond. My parents’ landlord has a little rowboat there, and he said we can use it whenever we want.”

Wex Pond is what Bluepointers called the Albert R. Wechsler Reservoir, because that was a pretty fancy name for what was really just a big bowl of water surrounded by farmland, some crooked trees, and a few docks.

I propped the oar on its end next to me and looked at it dubiously.

“I think you’ve got the advantage here,” I said dryly. “Is this thing gonna give me blisters?”

“How about we just try it,” Josh proposed. “I packed us a mayo-free lunch and everything. If you don’t like it, we can go back to the beach. I promise.”

I couldn’t help but smile and nod my consent. It was so easy to be adventurous with Josh. I think I would have even agreed to go fishing with him, even though that would have driven my dad crazy.

“Let me just water the plants,” I said, laying the oars down in the gravel and leading him to the backyard.

“Oh, yeah. How’s the garden?” Josh asked. He walked over to check it out while I unwound the hose from its reel on the back of the house.

“Wow!” he said.

“I know!” I said, proudly pulling a couple weeds from around the lettuce plants. “I mean, about half of the radishes croaked, and one of my cucumber vines is looking pretty puny, but everything else is getting huge.”

It was a little embarrassing how proud I was of my garden. The tomato plants got visibly bigger and fluffier every day. The pale-green romaine leaves were looking less delicate and translucent. They stood straight up. And most of the other plants had started sprouting trumpet-shaped yellow flowers.

“Hey, look!” Josh said, bending over to peer closely at the biggest tomato plant.

I crouched next to him to squint at the fuzzy branch. Then I gasped.

One cluster of little yellow blossoms had been replaced by tiny tomatoes! They were as green as Granny Smith apples and just as hard, but they were unmistakably tomatoes. Each had a little cap of pointy leaves that made it look like a gift-wrapped present.

“That was so fast!” I exclaimed. I did a quick inspection of the other plants and shrieked again when I found a collection of little cucumbers, curled under the big, flat leaves like shy caterpillars.

I jumped up and down with my garden hose, accidentally spraying Josh a little bit.

“Sorry!” I said. “I just can’t believe I actually grew something. I mean, all I did was stick them in the ground and water them, but still! Pretty cool, huh?”

“Pretty cool,” Josh said with a crooked smile and a hint of a tease in his voice.

“Okay, I know it’s dorky,” I said. “But I don’t care. I’m super-proud of my little vegetables, and I will not be inviting you over for salad when they’re ready.”

“No!” Josh said, rushing over to put his arms around me. “Salad vegetables are the only ones I like. Please?”

“I’ll consider it,” I said. I finished spraying the soil. The July heat was getting so bad that the dirt caked right back up by late afternoon. I put the hose back and grabbed my jar of cayenne pepper from the windowsill. After giving the plants a quick sprinkle, I led Josh inside.

My mom was at the kitchen table, pinning pink and pinker squares together in a complicated pattern.

“Hi, Josh,” she said warmly. Even though I still thought her baby clothes quilt was a little weird, I was happy to hear a normal warmth in her voice again, instead of that forced perkiness that had been there when we’d first arrived in June.

“I’m just going to get my bag from the bedroom,” I told Josh, slipping into the hall.

When I got there, Abbie was sitting on the floor with her legs stretched out to the sides. On the rug between them were various piles of papers. They were in all different sizes, colors, and states of wrinkliness, but they all looked old.

“What’re those?” I