If I’d ever been up here before, I would have known why Carey Logan had been hired, over all the famous artists that Eliot&Sprain represented, to design the interior of Charles Eliot’s famous retreat: because Pine City was located across the water. She was talented—naturally—but she also knew the land. Eliot House wasn’t visible from Pine City, but I was now certain that Charles and Max owned the other half of the shoreline.

I hoisted my butt into the middle of the tube and paddled with my free hand, spinning like a leaf, then committed to the undignified labor of emptying the bottle. I drank, lay back on the tube, and the lake shuttled me around its vast surface area as I tried to catch glimpses of what was now Max’s house.

She’d been living up here for three years, I realized. We hadn’t seen each other since my last opening. Max was someone who made me so viciously insecure that I went out of my way to avoid her—an impulsive, competitive reflex that I’d had since we were teenagers—even though I genuinely liked her. And of course, she could have provided an introduction to Pine City at any point, but she was the last person on earth that I would ever, ever ask for help.

Our friendship was an accident. When I was eleven years old, my parents sent me to see my grandmother on the cheapest flight available, one that had a five-hour layover in Atlanta. The airline was supposed to keep track of me. Not to worry, the travel agent told my mother. There was an entire lounge for unaccompanied minors with Super Nintendo and free gummy bears.

I’d been sitting in that lounge by myself for an hour when a stewardess walked in with the tidiest-looking kid I’d ever seen. She wore a crisp, starchy white collared shirt tucked into blue jeans, polished penny loafers, and a dark plaid blazer. Her glossy hair was pulled into a neat ponytail, and she spoke to the airline employees with precision and poise. By contrast I had jelly stains on my childish purple t-shirt, a large scab on my knee, visible knots in my hair, and no manners whatsoever.

“How do you do,” she said to me politely. The stewardess smiled at us both and left.

“What’s up, motherfucker!” she yelled as soon as we were alone. I laughed in shock at the worst word I had ever heard. “I’m Maxwell,” she said. “My friends call me Max.”

“Hi.” We shook hands like adults. “Wanna play Mario Kart?” I asked.

“What’s that?”