possible heâs hit on her before, at the Goose or somewhere, not knowing sheâs a minor. In that case, best to let it drop.
When she still doesnât respond, he shrugs. âMy mistake.â
Tali ducks her head over her phone, both so that Tow Boy canât see her blush and so she doesnât have to deal with pretending to be nice to a random townie. Fortunately, Tow Boy gets the hint, and they spend the rest of the ride in silence.
The garage is closed, which means the car will have to wait there overnight. Of course. Just her luck. âDonât worry about me,â she says to Tow Boy. âIâll get a ride from here.â
âWhatever you say.â He shrugs and heads back toward his truck. She whips out her phone and calls Kingston Cars, where she has an account. Her parents set it up so sheâd never have to drink and drive.
âIâm sorry.â The receptionist has a nasally voice and sounds bored. âThe Webber account? It has been temporarily suspended. There was a problem with nonpayment.â
âImpossible.â Taliâs hand begins to sweat. Sheâs stranded a fifteen-minute drive from Camp OK and, more important, fromBlake. With her free hand, she fishes out her AmEx and rattles off the number.
Thereâs a long pause. âIâm sorry, miss. The card is declined.â
What. The. Hell.
âRun it again,â Tali says desperately.
But after another short pause, the receptionist just sighs. âDeclined,â she repeats.
Tow Boyâs truck door slams and his engine starts.
âIt must be a mistake,â she hisses into the phone before hanging up. Then she waves an arm at Tow Boy. âHey, wait!â
He rolls down his window. âWhatâs up?â
âActually . . . if you donât mind, I could use a ride.â
The guy raises his eyebrow. âGoing somewhere special?â
Tali hesitates. She is not about to roll up to the reunion in a crappy tow truck. What if Blake sees? But sheâs not giving up on this night, either. No way.
She wipes her palms on her white jeans and squints out at the dark mountains, looming calm and definitive, like an enormous blanket tucked up to the neck of the navy-blue night.
Luciana lives nearby and is almost definitely goingâafter all, the camp director, Bernadette Cruz, is her
mom
. Even if Luce werenât forced to attend, she wouldnât want to miss an opportunity to show off all of her awards and prizes. Valedictorian of her high school! Nationally ranked debater! Princeton-bound!
But Tali is no closer to Luce these days than she is to Zoe or Joy. Luce has a billion and one extracurriculars at Brewster
and
a perfect boyfriend. And sheâs made it clear in a thousand ways, bigand small, that her old friends have no place in her annoyingly structured life.
Then again, anything is better than destroying Taliâs last chance with Blake. So she takes a deep breath and climbs back
into the grungy cab of the tow truck.
âIâll tell you how to get there,â she says to Tow Boy, then sits back and stares out the window, watching the road curve beneath them like a black snake, winding its way into the mountains, and into her past.
3
Luciana lights the last of the standing oil lamps in the Cruzesâ big, sloping backyard. Itâs cooler now that the mountains have devoured the daylight alreadyâa harbinger of fall.
Harangue, harbinger, haughtiness. Angry lecture, indicator, arrogance.
The SATs are long over, but after hours of tutoring the juniors this spring, the mantras have stuck.
She canât believe itâs one of the last Fridays of the summer, before her life completely changes.
She carefully picks up a pile of rose petals that have clumped together on the iron garden bench and scatters them to look more natural. She lights the citronella candle in the glass hurricane lantern and centers it on the round, iron table. She