And if I were to be accepted... When I imagined it, I felt something like a wave breaking in my chest, a crash of joy and fear. For so many years I’d known that out there beyond the bay, people were living busy, complicated lives. One of those busy lives was supposed to be mine, and I wanted to go—wanted off this island. It was one of my earliest memories, longing to leave, dreaming I’d burst past the edges of this little sandbox, leave it all behind.

Footsteps outside. I hid the college applications in the pantry and slipped into the yard to greet Lucas. But it was the Grendles next door, opening and closing their garage. They were ancient and grouchy, and had been my neighbors since I was born.

“Lydia!” I heard Mrs. Grendle call. “What are you doing out here? Spying on us?”

“I heard clanging and wanted to see what was going on.”

“Not a goddamn thing,” she said, “except we needed the wheelbarrow.”

I made spaghetti and ate it alone. I slipped onto the screened-in back porch overlooking Bhone Bay. Growing up, Lucas and I preferred the porch to any other room in the house. Our bedrooms felt lonely and far away. The living room was the realm of adults: books with no pictures, dark paintings of lighthouses and cliffs. The porch was where we set up forts, devoured books, napped, ate our meals. I always had the impression that our parents resented us for not making better use of the rest of the house. They had bought it to be filled with kids and traces of us—not for us to be separate, unto ourselves.

I looked out at the sailboats, bare masts swaying, at the houseboat that had been in Bhone Bay for as long as Lucas and I could remember: tiny, red, rocking like a cradle all night long. We used to pretend it was ours.

At nine it was dark, the house too quiet. Fuck, I thought. Where was Lucas? I didn’t want to worry, but I had to worry. That’s how it was with my brother. I grabbed a sweater off a chair in the kitchen and left, letting the door slam and echo over Bhone Bay.

On the shore, the air smelled of beach roses, and the bushes were covered with the plump shadows of rose hips. I saw shapes in the water and started, but they were only seals. On Clara Day Street, a few lingering weekend tourists walked up and down with ice-cream cones and baby carriages. A group of teenagers was skateboarding in the street and a car honked at them. The old wooden door to Jack’s was propped open, and Ed Frank was lounging on his bouncer stool outside.

“You came after all,” he said. “Guess what I heard. Kevin Bacon’s on the island tonight. Supposedly.”

“So?”

“So...it’s Kevin Bacon. Footloose?”

“I never saw it.”