Smart is the thing Willa does best, but the lump in her throat is too big to say so. Instead, she waves until the car reaches the gate. The right taillight fails to illuminate when her mom steps on the brakes—one more repair for the list—and tension tightens around Willa’s spine. She sends up a silent prayer that her mom won’t get ticketed by the police on her way to work. And that she’ll hold down this job until Willa returns.

The car is out of sight when she gathers up her bedding and heads down the dock. The wood creaks beneath her tennis shoes, calling back memories—the crackle of sails, the scent of sunscreen, and the wet footprints their bare feet would make on the sun-warmed dock boards. Willa glances back, half expecting Finley to come running, her hair streaming behind her like a brown ribbon.

“Let’s go!” she would shout if she were here. “The world is waiting for us!”

Willa would give anything, everything, to hear her best friend’s voice again. Just a couple of days ago, she was riding her bike down Meigs Street when she passed a teenage guy with a monster Afro pulling a little red wagon down the sidewalk. In the wagon was a birdcage with a brown-and-white rabbit inside. The whole scene was so sweet and absurd that she automatically hit Finley’s speed dial to tell her about it. The recorded voice—this number is no longer in service—reminded her again that Finley was gone. The pain is lodged like a pebble in her shoe, and no matter how much she tries to shake it out, it won’t go away.

She reaches the boat and stops in her tracks when she sees the name stretched out across the transom in a half-cursive handwriting font.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

It took them forever to settle on a name. Taylor argued that it was bad luck to change a boat’s name, but she was overruled by Finley and Willa, who agreed the original name—Honeybee—didn’t suit them at all. It was Finley who came up with the idea of using the nautical alphabet code words that correspond with their first initials. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Willa Taylor Finley. WTF? Every interpretation just worked.

Willa researched renaming ceremonies online, and after they’d removed every trace of the old name, wearing dresses and heels—well, except Taylor, who mistakenly believed she was too tall for heels—they christened the boat. Taylor found a mini bottle of champagne from her cousin’s wedding, which they splashed on the bow of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, saving just enough for each of them to have a celebratory sip.