That night, I looked over everything on my desk, hoping I’d find some clue that would help me put the pieces back together. I had to go back tomorrow; Phoebe had asked for my help with the yeti costume, and I couldn’t leave her in the lurch. I’d left everything out: my summer reading, a fresh pack of highlighters, the pens I preferred for making notes in the margins. I always took notes. It wasn’t just a matter of wanting to learn; I also wondered if it was a matter of wanting to be like Tabitha—wanting to be superior, the sort of person who was prepared for every eventuality. Not that any of this had helped me. Below my summer reading was the packing list I’d been working on right before leaving—overalls x 3, bandannas x 4, bug spray, beading kits. But even that list belonged to a different Celia, a younger Celia, a Celia who thought everything could be reduced to a task: Write it down, cross it off.

Fix window, I wrote down. Then: Fix Triumvirate.

I looked at it for a while, and then I lay on the ground with the dogs and pet them for a long, long time. They were twelve years old—old for dogs, exhausted from their walk. Buckets had developed a cyst above his eye—an old-man lump, my dad called it, nothing to worry about, according to the vet. Tabitha’s muzzle was gray; at the end of the walk, she’d walked into a bush and emerged totally covered in little spiky burs, which looked sort of pretty actually, like jewelry. Buckets had fallen asleep holding an old stuffed bear of mine in his mouth. They smelled like the creek. They wouldn’t be around forever. They were such good animals, such good friends.

The Story of Ros, Part VI

“I’m done with her,” I say to Jess as we’re closing up at the Hidden Fern. She’s balancing the cash register; I’m sweeping, feeling furious about Celia, still furious two days after the dinner party. She’s been my best friend for years, but I’m done with her—done with her chore wheel, done with her hovering, done with her nervous energy, erratic as the flight path of a moth.

“Because of Piegate?” Jess says. “To be honest, I thought it was kind of funny.”

“It wasn’t just the pie,” I say, and I readjust my grip on the broom. “It’s been a whole summer of things. Of not being supportive of you and me. Of ditching us on the Fourth of July.”

“But it must have been a shock to her to hear you want to stay here,” says Jess. “Have you thought of talking to her? Telling her why?”