rules dictated that anyone who could drink three of their thick, ginormous shakes got a fourth on the house, but my father had upped the stakes by deciding the loser would get dinner and dish duty the following night. Three years out of three, Dad wound up flipping post-challenge burgers—in Aunt Tess’s pink-flowered apron. That part was Uncle Tommy’s stipulation.
“Come on, girls.” Dad clapped his hands, my cue to turn off the TV. “Hope you’re hungry.”
As we headed down the driveway like a little caravan—we always walked to preempt some of the sugar—David’s father emerged from the house next door, holding a big cardboard box.
“Hey, Jimmy!” Uncle Tommy called. “You guys wanna join us for some ice cream?”
“Thanks, Tom.” Mr. Kerrigan hoisted the box onto the trunk of his car and fished his keys out of his pocket. “But I have to get this junk to Goodwill before my father changes his mind again. I’ll bet David might like to go, though.” He nodded at Miranda and me. “Why don’t you girls run in and get him?”
Miranda needed no further coaxing. She took off on her bony legs, leaving me to catch up at the Kerrigans’ back door. The TV was so loud that I wondered if David would even hear her musical little knocks, but a moment later he appeared. When we told him where we were going and asked him to come along, he didn’t hesitate to accept.
David retreated to the living room, where his grandfather grunted in response to his statement that he was going out with the neighbors. A second later he reappeared, and I stepped aside to let him through the screen door. Before he could shut it behind him, his eyes dropped to my leg and his face filled with horror.
“Oh, shit!” He clapped his hand over his mouth and apologized for cursing, probably more for Miranda’s benefit than mine, before motioning to the huge purple and blue bruise on my thigh. “Did I do that? The other day, when I hit you with—”
I shook my head and tugged my shorts lower before he could finish the thought. “No, no, that was already there. Tripped over something. I bruise easily. It looks worse than it is.”
“Besides, that’s not where you hit—,” Miranda started, but I led her toward the steps by the crook of the arm.
“Come on, everybody’s waiting.”
Once we got to the ice-cream shop, Dad and Uncle Tommy’s competition drew a little crowd. Probably because we weren’t exactly inconspicuous, pounding our fists on the table, chanting, “Chug, chug, chug!” Among the onlookers were three girls eating cones, looking like they’d just come from the beach, bikini straps tied around their necks visible beneath tank tops and sundresses. My socks, sneakers, and T-shirt made me look like a tomboy in comparison. But after seeing David’s reaction to the bruise on my thigh, I was glad I’d worn something that covered the ones on my arm and foot—the ones he had given me.
The girls stood behind Mom, and she wasted no time swiveling around to chat them up. The woman would talk to walls if she thought there was any chance they’d talk back. We were similar in a lot of ways, but that wasn’t one of them. A fact she refused to accept. Which was why I slouched in my seat the moment I heard her say, “Oh, you’re the same age as my daughter!” She turned to me with excited, expectant eyes, like she wanted me to burst off my chair and hug them for sharing my birth year. “Kelsey, this is Marisol. Her name means ‘sea and sun’ in Spanish. Isn’t that pretty?”
I nodded and tried to form my mouth into some semblance of a smile. I hated when she did this. She was forever dragging me into conversations like a reluctant dog on a leash, lecturing me to socialize as if the fact that I preferred keeping to myself was a defect in me she was determined to fix.
“Marisol,” Mom said, “do you go to school here?”
“Yep.” Marisol wiped a stray drip of mint chocolate chip from her chin. “But I’m actually going to Costa Rica to study abroad next semester.”
My mother’s widened eyes met mine. “Isn’t that exciting?”
“Wow, qué bueno,” David piped up, causing the girls to twitter with laughter.
“Mm-hm. Really cool.” I meant it, but I had no interest in learning this girl’s life story when I’d probably never see her again and had nothing even half as noteworthy