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topic to topic like a frog hopping from one rock to the next. Her thoughts were as tangled and disorderly as the new growth after a forest fire.
    Within weeks of her starting at the store, foot traffic doubled. Tourists came back over and over because she had a way of calming cranky babies and coaxing surly preteens to smile. Lifeguards drifted in for suntan lotion and bottled water and often left with neither, but with a lot of stuff they hadn’t meant to buy and definitely didn’t need. The island’s ancient bachelors,retired and aimless for years, came in to escape their loneliness and left feeling a little less lost. And the waiters and bartenders of Captain Toby’s Seafood Palace made themselves late again and again for the night shift because they lost track of time trying to figure out the possible meanings of the Anywhere Girl’s half dozen or so tattoos.
    Was that a dragon on her left arm, or a flying horse?
    How much had the turtle on her wrist hurt?
    Could anyone read the words around her ankle?
    Is that Greek or Arabic or neither or both?
    By September, girls at the middle school were begging their parents to let them dye their hair Popsicle-colored shades. Clean feet were out. Bare feet were in. When a story twisted through town that the Anywhere Girl climbed out of her sailboat each night to skinny-dip in the moonlit sea, high schoolers, boys and girls alike, started sneaking out of windows and creeping down back staircases in order to gather in whispering circles along the dark ocean shore. They yawned their way through classes and never saw so much as a naked elbow.
    After it became obvious that the Anywhere Girl was expecting a baby, so much speculation hummed in the air that the island’s dogs howled for days. But the Anywhere Girl seemed oblivious to the gossip.
    If asked directly about the baby’s dad, the Anywhere Girl’s answer was different every time: He was an astronaut on his way to settle Mars. A convict serving twenty to life. A formersoap opera star who now spent all his time making weight-loss infomercials.
    So what if her stories went in all directions at once? So what if her smile caused ice cream vendors to crash their carts and fishing boat captains to steer starboard when they meant to go port? So what if her enigmatic warmth pulled you in while at the same time something deep in her eyes kept you out? The Anywhere Girl didn’t mean to hurt anyone. She didn’t mean to cause any broken hearts. Like many a survivor of that particular anguish, the Anywhere Girl didn’t want to inflict it on another, not if she could help it.
    So she stayed friendly but unreachable. She laughed and became a part of each and every place she lived. But the Anywhere Girl always kept a few bags packed and postcards of towns with inviting names pinned to the wall by her bed, because imagining the possibilities of new places helped her fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

THE NIGHT OF FIERY DESTRUCTION AND THE MORNING OF LIFE-CHANGING DECISIONS
    THAT NIGHT, WHEN THE DOORBELL rang, Homer’s first thought was to be surprised that he had fallen asleep at all. He’d been certain that his whirling brain wouldn’t let him rest, not when it had the day’s worries stuck on repeat.
    Was Mia acting strange this afternoon? Sad?
    Does she know she should stay on the island? With us? With me?
    Why do I keep putting off college applications? Every day I do means it’ll suck even more to do them later.
    His second thought was that doorbells ringing late at night seldom equaled good news.
    Homer crept out of his room past Einstein’s closed door and down the stairs.
    From the squeaky second step, Homer could see D.B. and Christian side by side in the entryway: one pale, tall, and slight; the other dark-skinned and broad shouldered. Both of them standing so straight and still, they looked every inch like theprofessional dancers they once were. Mr. Harvey was standing on