Registering for a wedding sounds like something official you would do at city hall, but really it’s going to a nice store and making a list of presents you hope people will give you. (Then you have to tell everyone about your list so they know exactly what you want and don’t get you the wrong presents by accident.)

Dad said he didn’t want to register for presents, but Jesse did, and I said I did, too, so Jesse decided we might as well do it while Dad was in Minnesota.

But first we had to drag a giant bag of oyster shells to Brooklyn.

It was a long subway ride. Jesse loves the subway. He loves it when the train comes up out of the ground, and that made me kind of love it, too, even though I had never really thought about it before. We walked to the oyster shed, Jesse dragging the bag on the ground when his arms got tired. The bag was tied at the top, but I still thought I could smell what was inside. I held my nose and walked behind him.

“You’re just smelling the ocean,” Jesse told me.

I made a face and pointed at the bag.

Jesse pointed back at me. “You didn’t mind eating some of those oysters, though, did you?”

I do love oysters. I decided to carry the bottom of the bag so that Jesse didn’t have to drag it. It was better, walking together like that. As soon as I picked it up, I felt like something was picked up inside me.

—

On the train back to Manhattan, Jesse surprised me.

“So what time should I be at your school on Thursday?”

“Thursday?”

“For the colonial breakfast! Isn’t it this Thursday?”

“Yes, but—really? Don’t you have to work?” With Dad away, Jesse was at the restaurant almost every minute.

“Don’t I deserve a little time off? And who’s going to open oysters for the hungry colonists?”

I hugged him. His jacket smelled like oyster shells.

—

At the department store, they gave us these laser pointers so that we wouldn’t even have to write down the names of the presents we wanted. All we had to do was point the laser at the price tag.