the Jersey Shore. Welcome to the summer. It’s gonna be a hot one today. Stay tuned to WLEO all season for the latest happenings.”
My mom stopped in front of 603 Whalehead Street. “Listen, Stell,” she said. “Stay out of trouble, okay? If you get a third strike… Well, you know.”
“I got it, Mom.”
She leaned over and kissed me. “Have a great summer. Say hi to Josie for me, and cawl me.” Mom sounds like me—a total New Yorker. “And text me every single solitary day. And send lots of pictures.” She sighed and put her hand on her heart. “Ugh, I miss you already.” She kissed me again and drove away without saying hello to her first husband, my dad, Gary Higley.
I barely got up the gravel driveway before my sister, Josie, ran out of the house.
“Stellaaaa! You’re finally here!”
As soon as I saw Josie, I knew things were going to be different this summer.
Well, Josie herself wasn’t different. She seemed exactly the same as last summer, and the one before, and the one before that, right down to the Whalehead T-shirt and gray gym shorts.
That was the problem.
I’d expected the ready-to-enter-high-school version of Josie. After all, I’d become the ready-to-enter-high-school version of me, partly thanks to some new friends who turned out to not really be friends and caused me to get in trouble. Twice.
Well, I guess it wasn’t all their fault. Anyway, I couldn’t get in trouble this summer, which wouldn’t be any problem, because I’d be with Josie, and she never did anything bad.
“G’day, Stella!” Josie hugged me and bounced up and down. “Put your stuff away so we can hit the boardwalk. I’m dying for water ice.” With her accent, “ice” sounds like “oyce.” When we were kids, and Josie wasn’t around, I’d imitate her and tell people I was Australian. “I can’t get it at home, you know?”
I hugged her back. “Get outta here. I’m sure they have water ice somewhere—it’s a big country.”
“Oh, it’s not the same,” Josie said, and trailed behind me as she wheeled my suitcase into the house. “Whose shorts are those?”
I looked down at my cutoffs. “They’re mine. You like them?”
She poked at the skin that was just at the frayed hemline of my shorts. “They are definitely… cheeky!”
“It’s supposed to be that way.” I’d worn these shorts a hundred times and never felt self-conscious before, but now I wondered if my butt really did show too much.
Dad met us in the living room. “Stella! Where have you been? We’ve been waiting and waiting.” He smooshed my face into his chest. I saw Dad pretty much every other weekend, except when I had activities in the city that I didn’t want to miss, but he always acted like it’d been forever.
“Mom stopped to pee like ten times.”
He grabbed Josie, too, and squeezed the three of us together. “My girls!” He let us go so that he could study us. “So grown-up, but you still look like you could be twins.” It was an old joke, because we don’t look anything alike; we’re both clones of our mothers: Josie is blond and blue eyed, and I’m brown hair and eyes and always tan.
I punched his chest. “You’re still working out. Did you show Josie?”
He flexed his arms. “Check out these puppies.” His arms weren’t quite “puppies.” “I’m no-carbing this summer, gonna get ripped.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” I looked at the tackle box by the front door. “Gonna get ripped while you’re fishing?”
“I work out in the morning and fish in the afternoon. At night, I’m gonna try the dating thing. My friend Jay—he’s the one that’s the detective—is setting it up.”
Josie slapped her hands over her ears. “Ugh. I’m not listening to you talk about dating, Dad.”
I actually thought it was a good idea. “Looking for Mrs. Higley number three?”
“Only if she’s looking for me.” He winked and glanced at his watch. “I wish you’d gotten here earlier, Stell. Sorry, but I gotta run. Jay’s waiting at the dock for me. He’s taking me out on his boat, and I’m holding him up.”
“That’s okay. We can hang out later,” I said.
“Not just later. A lot. I have big plans for us to do tons of stuff together.” He picked up his tackle box and opened the door. “I’ll make us dinner—prepare yourself for my famous steamed broccoli.”
I caught a look from Josie, and I knew she wanted me to say something. “We might get pizza.”
“Yeah,” Josie agreed. “I’ve been looking