Attached to her message was a video, which was frozen because reception really was bad in the woods, but as we walked, it jerked into life. There was a group of people lit up by a bonfire, with a great swath of darkness behind them. Tasha must have shot it at a beach party. They all screamed in unison: “Hiiii, Ariaaaa!”

I recognized Haley and her sisters, and Tasha’s little brother, and over on the right was a guy who looked vaguely familiar to me. Tasha’s next text message cleared it up.

Look at Nathan!!

She sent a separate photo that was kind of grainy because of the low light, but it was unmistakable. There was Nathan, quirking an eyebrow at the camera, and I had to admit he did look cute. He had his arm around Haley, who had kind of a pained smile on her face.

I showed Joan the video of everyone saying hi to me, but I didn’t show her the photo of Nathan and Haley.

Chapter 13

Nathan was the first boy I kissed. I was fifteen. It happened the summer after freshman year, when I went to Martha’s Vineyard for two weeks and stayed with Haley’s family outside Edgartown. Tasha was at her family’s cottage in Oak Bluffs, and we planned to meet up almost every day. Nathan’s parents had rented the house next to Haley’s, which shared the same private beach.

Haley, Tasha, and I had bought bikinis at the Chestnut Hill mall in preparation for the Vineyard. Mine was turquoise with white palm fronds printed all over. Tasha’s was red-and-white striped, like a candy cane. Haley’s was navy blue with white stars. I remember squeezing with them into a dressing room at Bloomingdale’s, examining one another in the mirror and giggling. It felt like my whole body was exposed, breast and belly and thigh, but I also saw what I looked like, and I thought I looked good—finally. Haley and Tasha looked good, too, but I was the late bloomer in our trio, relieved to have caught up at last.

I remember Tasha asking, “You’re sure I don’t look too slutty?”

She was taller than Haley or me, and her long brown legs were already muscled like a marathoner’s, since she did cross-country. Her breasts were bigger than ours, but her butt was almost flat—something Haley would later tease her about. That summer Tasha had her hair in long thin braids that she wore loose or wound up in a big twist at the nape of her neck. With her lush lips and high cheekbones, I thought she looked like a model, not a slut.

“You look sexy,” I assured her.