Mom made a huffy sound. “That’s not—”

“That sounds splendid.” Mrs. Marshall clasped her hands together. “I was just going to suggest that the girls need some time and space apart. Let’s pledge right here and now that you’re going to make this the best summer ever. And come September, we don’t expect you to be friends, but to treat each other with respect—from a distance, if need be . . .”

Julie tuned out the blah-blah-blah lecture. She just wanted the meeting to be over. And finally, mercifully, it was.

Julie knew her mom was majorly ticked off at her for bringing up France, but she wasn’t sorry she’d spoken up. “See you at home,” she said brightly, and jumped on her bike before anyone could stop her. When she came up over the rise of the dunes, she saw her mom’s car parked at the house. Great. Let the lectures begin.

Then she spotted her mother walking to the rack of mailboxes at the end of the road. She might not ever admit it, but she really hated disappointing her mom. Sometimes when she watched her, walking all alone the way she was now, Julie was swept by sadness. She knew her mom was lonely, that she wanted to have a husband and a family like everybody else. But nothing good ever happened with the guys she dated.

There had been a glimmer of new hope when Mom had met that guy—Finn. He’d lit something up in her, something Julie had never seen before. But then Finn went away, and Mom was alone again. It made Julie feel rotten, because Mom was awesome. She was really pretty, and it wasn’t just Julie who thought that. Lots of people said so.

Sometimes they said it to her with surprise—“Your mom is such a beautiful woman”—and underneath the surprise was the part they were too polite to say. “Your mom is so beautiful—but what happened to you?”

Braces, she thought. Glasses. They might be cute on other girls, but not on Julie. On her, they just looked even more dorky. Mom said she could switch to a nighttime-only retainer this summer, and get contacts, too. Julie couldn’t wait.

When Mom came back with the mail, she looked furious. She held a stack of envelopes, and brandished a big thick one covered in official stamps and seals that said U.S. State Department. She dropped it on the kitchen counter.

“What the hell is this?”

“Oh, good,” said Billy Church, lounging on the patio at Henry’s house. “You got your passport renewed.”

Camille was still steaming about that. “I didn’t get anything,” she retorted, glaring at her best friend, her father, and her daughter. “You did this behind my back.”

Julie kicked at the ground, keeping her eyes averted.

“Guilty as charged,” said Papa with his trademark Gallic shrug.

“You did this without my permission. It’s criminal. You sent in my paperwork and my picture without my knowledge. You forged my signature.”