Any Other Girl Read Free Page A

the city and my life there, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t anxious to get away.
    â€œYou did arrange for Mrs. Adamson to feed the fish this weekend, right?” Dad asked Pop, whose expression immediately shifted into that wide-eyed uh-oh look he used whenever he got sidetracked and forgot something crucial. Dad sighed again with an added fingers-pressed-into-forehead You give me a headache gesture. “Bryce. Seriously.”
    Pop started making excuses, something about having to resolve an unexpected plot hole in his latest novel before we left tomorrow. I took that as my cue to retreat. Hearing my parents bicker made me feel slightly panicked, like a tiny pinprick had appeared in the safe, reliable bubble around the three of us, threatening to let in the tainted air. I knew it was normal, knew they were normal, but this once-a-year squabble-fest never failed to cast a pall over the beginning of summer. Luckily, they were always fine and back to their happily married selves once we got to the cottage and settled in.
    In my room, I settled on the edge of the bed and carefully texted my cousin Harper, using the very tips of my fingers so as not to smudge my flawless manicure.
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    T-minus 12 hours until Operation Best Summer!
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    Her reply arrived in less than a minute.
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    Yay! OBS is almost in effect. Can’t wait to see you.
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    Same here. We’ll be there around 10AM to clean and unpack. Goody’s for first dinner?
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    Of course. Best summers start with Goody’s.
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    I smiled. Best summers start with Goody’s. It was the slogan we’d made up months ago, in our early stages of planning for the summer. Goody’s, a kitschy, run-down diner that hadn’t been renovated since its heyday back in the fifties, was the only restaurant within miles of our little summer cottage community. Considering my undying love of everything retro, Goody’s appealed to me. It appealed to my cousin less, but she tolerated it every year because they had the best burgers in the world. And because she loved me and there was nowhere else to go.
    Operation Best Summer (OBS) first originated at the end of last summer as the two of us sat together on my dock, waxing nostalgic about how next year was our last official summer together before Harper headed off to college and her mom sold their cottage, which was just a two-minute walk through the woods from ours. Right then and there, over melting ice cream cones from Goody’s, we swore that our last summer would be the best summer, one that would surpass all the other amazing summers since our family started vacationing there when I was eleven and Harper was twelve. We sealed the deal by touching our ice cream cones together like champagne flutes during a wedding toast. Since then, we’d exchanged thousands of phone calls and texts, plotting ways to go out with a bang. One thing we conclusively agreed on was that it had to begin with a burger and song B6 on Goody’s ancient jukebox, “Yakety Yak” by The Coasters.
    Harper and I couldn’t talk long because she still hadn’t started packing (her mother, Carrie, was Pop’s older sister, and the procrastination gene ran deep with them all). Through the walls of our undersized condo, I could still hear my dads bitching at each other in the kitchen. From the sounds of things, they’d moved on from bread makers and doomed goldfish and were debating the best time to hit the road tomorrow morning.
    â€œIt takes hours to clean and air out the cottage,” Dad argued. “The earlier we leave, the better.”
    â€œAnd hit Friday morning rush hour?” Pop said. “We’ll get there quicker if we leave after eight.”
    I sat there staring at the poster above my bed, a black and white shot of Lauren Bacall, circa the nineteen-forties, my favorite era. Dad had introduced me to old movies when I was about ten, but Dark Passage was the one I remembered