A girl came up to them, whom Maggie introduced as her friend Riley. Riley had honey-colored hair wound around her head in a complicated braid. She had wide hazel eyes. She was wearing micro-shorts and flip-flops and a strappy tank top; she clearly held an advanced degree in attention-getting. Maggie, meanwhile, was wearing a shirt that said Fluent in Sarcasm.

“Does your mom know you’re here again?” Riley asked Maggie.

“No,” said Maggie. Was that a touch of defiance in her voice?

“Oooooh-kay,” said Riley. Lu could tell by the way she drew the word out that there was something about the situation Lu wasn’t understanding.

“Why wouldn’t your mom want you to be here?” Lu asked.

Maggie rolled her eyes. “My mom thinks the truck is taking her business.”

Lu glanced behind her—the line had filled in, and was snaking around the parking lot. “Oh!” she said. “Oh. I should have thought of that. I don’t blame her. Should we leave?”

“No!” said Chase and Sebastian at the same time. They had their eyes, Lu knew, on the fries.

“No,” said Riley, giving Maggie a meaningful look that Lu couldn’t interpret. “No, you shouldn’t leave.”

Maggie set her pretty lips in a straight line. “No,” she said. “Definitely not.”

As they drew closer to the truck, and after Riley had left to join whoever it was she’d come with, Lu sensed something change in Maggie—a shift in her posture, an almost unnoticeable rise of color in her cheeks that could have been attributed to the summer sun and Maggie’s lack of a hat.

Then Lu saw the boy in the truck, taking orders. “Oh,” she murmured. She understood. This boy wouldn’t have been young Lu’s type—she’d always gone for the brawnier boys, the football and rugby players—but his hair was adorably floppy, and when he said, “Can I take your order?” his accent was just accent-y enough. He was older than Maggie, and he was French, so therefore he was exotic, and clearly he was bored. For all of these reasons Lu could see the appeal.

“I like your shirt,” he said to Maggie, when they finally reached the front of the line.

“Thank you.” She broke into a wide grin that made her look at once six years old and twenty-one.

Well, if you were a thirteen-year-old island-reared girl, well, then, yes. This boy. Of course.

“I’ll have two orders of pommes frites,” said Lu. “And a croque madame. And whatever Maggie here is having.”

What Maggie seemed to be having was a small anxiety attack. She ordered a Coke and three macarons, and she fumbled in the pocket of her denim shorts.

“Oh, no,” said Lu. “My treat.”

Maggie shook her head, apparently rendered mute. It was almost funny, except that it was also painful. Lu wanted to cry, Be careful with your heart! But she wasn’t Maggie’s mother. She wasn’t exactly her friend. All she could really do was pay for her Coke and her fancy French cookies.