“For sure.” Francine leaped at the chance to defuse the situation and took Sean’s phone to get a better look.

What was happening? Who were these people?

“Oh,” Francine cooed in her Terry Johnson voice. “Look at that sweet baby….God, I love a nice round marmot.”

I slunk down in my plastic cafeteria chair, limp with relief, then tense with anxiety about the relief.

Giving a shit about friendships was exhausting. And it was only September.

—

“I really am sorry I blew your cover,” Francine said for the third time that night at the dinner table. Six o’clock, every night.

“I don’t know why I lied to Kira.” I passed a few peas to Terry Johnson under the table.

“I do,” she sighed. “Kids can be assholes.”

I choked on water, and she whacked me on my back until I could breathe enough to laugh. “Are you allowed to say that?”

“Am I wrong?”

“No. But I know Kira wouldn’t have been mean.”

“You didn’t know that. Maybe you lied because you could tell she’s worth keeping.”

I lined up green beans on my plate.

“Sean’s a good kid, too. You meet at school?”

“Salishwood.”

“Oh, of course,” she said. “You know his mother’s a forest ranger.”

“I heard. Dad, too?”

“He was. Awful when he died.”

I nodded, resisted asking more.

“I would have introduced you to Kira—maybe Sean, too—but I stopped trying to set my kids up with nice island kids years ago.”

“Why?”

“Backfired every time. They resented my interfering, which I get. But then they purposely wouldn’t be friends with the ones I knew, and missed out on the only kids who would have been good to them. I knew you and Kira would find each other.”

I side-eyed her. “Oh, really?”

“Sure. She’s smart, like you. And needing a friend.”

“I don’t need a friend.”

She got up and went to the freezer, put an ice cream sandwich in my hand, and unwrapped one for herself. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

She looked at me. “How was it today?”

I shrugged.

“Did you call Joellen?”

“Yep.”

“Think you’ll make it?” she asked.

I shrugged.

“You will,” she said. We ate the bars and did the dishes together, and I sat at the table to do some already-assigned history reading. The landline wall phone rang.

“Could you get that?” Francine called from the living room. “I got a DOL situation in here.”

“A what?”

“Dog on lap! Terry Johnson can’t be disturbed!”

I picked up the receiver. “Francine’s house.”

“Muiriel?”

Sean.

“Who is it?” Francine called out.

“It’s Sean.”

“Oh, good!” she trilled, blatantly delighted.

Oh brother.

“Muiriel,” Sean said.

“Yeah. Yes. Hi.”

“ ‘The mountains are calling and I must go, and I will work while I can, studying incessantly.’ ”

I closed my eyes and smiled.

“Muiriel. You still there?”

“You called to say the mountains are calling?”

“Maybe.”