“Afton has good ones, too,” Abby observes. “It’s too bad she doesn’t know how to hula.”

This surprises me. Afton is a dancer, after all. She’s done ballet since she was Abby’s age, practicing her plies while she’s washing dishes at the kitchen sink, jeté-ing across our yard. I’ve been to countless performances of Afton playing Clara in The Nutcracker, and Odile in Swan Lake, and so many other things. She’s a swan, my sister. A scarlet swan in a wicked dress who’ll slap you silly with her powerful wings if you tick her off. And she’ll be graceful doing it.

“Afton wasn’t good at hula?” I ask Abby, but then we’re all clapping again, because the hula is over.

My phone chimes with an alarm I set.

Eight o’clock.

From a few tables behind me, I see Nick stand up. He leans and says something to his father, who claps him on the back. Then he looks over at me, a question in his eyes.

I give him a nervous smile.

He nods and starts walking toward the Ocean Tower, his strides quick. Then he’s gone.

My heart thunders. This is it. Time to make my move.

I wait about ten minutes before I follow Nick. As is the plan. But then I can’t just leave Abby for like an hour with no explanation, and I can’t locate Afton, so first I go looking for her.

I find her in the restroom.

She’s standing in front of the mirror, pressing some powder to the space under eyes. Her smeared mascara and swollen eyelids tell me that she’s been crying—my fierce and tough older sister, crying, and over a stupid boy, no less.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She blows her nose on a paper towel. “I’m fine.”

“I’ll help you beat him up.”

Her red-rimmed blue eyes meet mine in the mirror, startled. “No, it’s fine. It’s not his fault. Or maybe it is a little, but . . . I screwed up.”

“That’s okay. You’ll fix it.”

“Maybe I can’t.”

“Well, look on the bright side. Whatever you did wrong, it can’t be as bad as Mom’s situation.”

She sucks in a breath. “Ada, I need to talk to you. About what you saw that day—”

“What about what you saw?” I remind her.

“What I saw?”

“My sketchbook?”

“Oh.” Her eyes lower to the floor. “I shouldn’t have looked at that. I’m sorry. I was losing my mind a little.”

“And what did you . . . learn, by reading what is essentially my diary?” I say.

“You’re really talented. I don’t know how you capture people like you do.”

“Afton, be serious.”

“I am. That was the biggest thing I learned.”

“And?”