MARY

THE MORNING FOG HAS PAINTED EVERYTHING WHITE. It’s exactly like one of my rabbit-hole dreams, where I get trapped, suspended in a cloud, and I can’t seem to wake myself up.

Then the foghorn blares, the mist breaks into lace, and I see Jar Island, spread out along the horizon just like in one of Aunt Bette’s paintings.

That’s when I know for sure that I’ve done it. I’ve actually come back.

One of the workers ties the ferry to the dock with a thick rope. Another lowers the bridge. The captain’s voice comes over the loudspeaker. “Good morning, passengers. Welcome to Jar Island. Please make sure to collect all your belongings.”

I’d almost forgotten how beautiful it is here. The sun has lifted above the water, and it lights everything up yellowy and bright. A hint of my reflection in the window stares back at me—pale eyes, lips parted, windblown blond hair. I’m not the same person I was when I left here, in seventh grade. I’m older, obviously, but it’s not just that. I’ve changed. When I see myself now, I see someone strong. Maybe even pretty.

Will he recognize me, I wonder? Part of me hopes he doesn’t. But the other part, the part that left my family to come back, hopes he does. He has to. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I hear the rumble of cars parked on the freight deck as they get ready to drive off. There’s a bunch more on shore, in a long line that reaches the entrance to the parking lot, waiting to pull aboard for the return trip back to the mainland. One more week of summer vacation left. I step away from the window, smooth my seersucker sundress, and go back to my seat to get my things. The seat next to mine is empty. I stick my hand underneath, feeling around for what I know is there. His initials. RT. I remember the day he carved them with his Swiss Army knife, just because he felt like it.

I wonder if things have changed on the island. Does Milky Morning still have the best blueberry muffins? Will the Main Street movie theater have the same lumpy green velvet seats? How big has the lilac bush in our yard grown?

It’s strange to feel like a tourist, because the Zanes have lived on Jar Island practically forever. My great-great-great-grandfather designed and built the library. One of my mom’s aunts was the very first woman to be elected alderman of Middlebury. Our family plot is right in the center of the cemetery in the middle of the island, and some of the headstones are so old and moss covered, you can’t even see who’s buried there.

Jar Island is made up of four small towns. Thomastown, Middlebury, which is where I’m from, White Haven, and Canobie Bluffs. Each town has its own middle school, and they all feed into Jar Island High. During the summer the population swells to several thousand vacationers. But only about a thousand or so people live here year round.

My mom always says Jar Island never changes. It’s its own little universe. There’s something about Jar Island that lets people pretend the world has stopped spinning. I think that’s part of the charm, why people want to spend summers here. Or why the diehards put up with the hassles that come with living here year round, the way my family used to.

People appreciate that there isn’t a single chain store, shopping mall, or fast-food restaurant on Jar Island. Dad says there’s something like two hundred separate laws and ordinances that make building them illegal. Instead people buy their groceries at local markets, get prescriptions filled at soda-shop pharmacies, pick out beach reads at independent bookstores.

Another thing that makes Jar Island special is that it’s a true island. There are no bridges or tunnels connecting it to the mainland. Aside from the one-strip airfield that only rich people with private planes use, everyone and everything comes in and goes out on this ferry.

I pick up my suitcases and follow the rest of the passengers off. The dock runs straight into the welcome center. An old 1940s school bus painted with the words “JAR ISLAND TOURS” is parked in front and getting washed. A block behind that is Main Street—a quaint strip of souvenir shops and lunch counters. Above it rises Middlebury’s big hill. It takes a second for me to find it, and I have to shade my eyes from the sun, but I pick out the pitched red roof of my old house at the tippy top.

My mom grew up in that house, along with Aunt Bette. My bedroom used to be Aunt Bette’s bedroom, and it looks out at the sea. I wonder if that’s where Aunt Bette sleeps, now that she lives there again.

I’m Aunt Bette’s only niece; she doesn’t have any children of her own. She never knew how to act around kids, so she treated me like an adult. I liked it, getting to feel grown-up. When she’d ask me questions about her paintings, what I felt about them, she actually listened to what I had to say. But she was never the kind of aunt who’d get on the floor and help me do a puzzle, or who’d want to bake cookies together. I didn’t need her to be. I already had a mom and dad who’d do those things.

I think it’ll be great, living with Aunt Bette now that I’m older. My parents both baby me. Perfect example—my curfew is still ten o’clock, even though I’m seventeen. I guess after everything that happened, it makes sense that they’re extra protective.

The walk home takes longer than I remember, maybe because my suitcases are slowing me down. A few times I stick out my thumb to the cars chugging up the hill. Some of the locals hitchhike on Jar Island. It’s an accepted thing, a way to help out your neighbors. I was never allowed to, but for the first time I don’t have my mom or dad looking over my shoulder. No one picks me up, which is a bummer, but there’s always tomorrow or the next day. I have all the time in the world to hitchhike or do whatever I want.

I walk right past my driveway without realizing it and have to double back. The bushes have grown big and bristly, and they hide the house from the road. I’m not surprised. Gardening was Mom’s thing, not Aunt Bette’s.

I drag my bags the last few feet and stare at the house. It’s a three-story colonial covered in gray cedar shingles, white shutters bolted to each of the windows, with a cobblestone wall edging the yard. Aunt Bette’s old tan Volvo is parked in the driveway, and it’s covered in a blanket of tiny purple flowers.

The lilac bush. It’s grown taller than I thought possible. And even though plenty of flowers have fallen, the branches still sag with the weight of millions more. I take as deep a breath as I can.

It’s good to be home.

LILLIA

IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN, THE END OF AUGUST, only one more week till school starts. The beach is crowded, but not July Fourth–crowded. I’m lying on a big blanket with Rennie and Alex. Reeve and PJ are throwing a Frisbee around, and Ashlin and Derek are swimming in the ocean. This is our crew. It’s been this way this since the ninth grade. It’s hard to believe we’re finally seniors.

The sun is so bright, I can feel my tan getting even more golden. I wriggle my body deeper into the sand. I love the sun. Next to me Alex is putting more sunscreen on his shoulders.

“God, Alex,” Rennie says, looking up from her magazine. “You need to bring your own sunscreen. You used up half my bottle. Next time, I’m just going to let you get cancer.”

“Are you kidding me?” Alex says. “You stole this out of my cabana. Back me up, Lil.”

I push myself up on to my elbows and sit up. “You missed a spot on your shoulder. Here, turn around.”

I squat behind him and rub a dollop of sunscreen onto his shoulder. Alex turns around and asks, “Lillia, what kind of perfume do you wear?”

I laugh. “Why? Do you want to borrow it?” I love to tease Alex Lind. He’s so easy.

He laughs too. “No. I’m just curious.”

“It’s a secret,” I say, patting him on the back.

It’s so important for a girl to have a signature scent. A scent everyone knows you by, so that when you walk down the hallway at school, people turn and look, like a Pavlovian response or something. Every time they smell that perfume, they’ll think of you. Burnt sugar and bluebell, that’s the Lillia scent.

I lie back down on the blanket and flip onto my stomach. “I’m thirsty,” I announce. “Will you pass me my Coke, Lindy?”

Alex leans over and rummages through the cooler. “All that’s left is water and beer.”

I frown, and look over at Reeve. He’s got a Frisbee in one hand, my Coke in the other. “Ree-ve!” I yell out. “That was mine!”

“Sorry,” he calls back, not sounding sorry at all. He throws the Frisbee in a perfect arc, and it lands over by some cute girls sitting in beach chairs. Exactly where he wanted it to land, I’m sure.

I look over at Rennie, whose eyes are narrow.

Alex stands up and brushes sand off his shorts. “I’ll get you another soda.”

“You don’t have to,” I say. But of course I don’t mean it. I really am thirsty.

“You’re going to miss me when I’m not here to get your drinks,” he says, grinning at me. Alex, Reeve, and PJ are going on a deep-sea fishing trip tomorrow. They’ll be gone for a whole week. The boys are always around; we see them nearly every day. It will be strange to finish out the summer without them.

I stick my tongue out at him. “I won’t miss you one bit!”

Alex jogs over to Reeve, and then they head off to the hot dog stand down the beach.

“Thanks, Lindy!” I call out. He is so good to me.

I look back over at Rennie, who’s smirking. “That boy would do anything for you, Lil.”

“Stop it.”

“Yes or no. Do you think Lindy’s cute? Be honest.”

I don’t even have to think about it. “Yeah, he’s obviously cute. Just not to me.” Rennie has gotten it into her head that Alex and I should become a couple, and then she and Reeve can become a couple, and we can go on double dates and weekend trips together. As if my parents would ever let me go away with guys! Rennie can go ahead and get an S.T.D. from Reeve if she wants, but Alex and I are not happening. I don’t see him that way, and he doesn’t see me that way. We’re friends. That’s it. Rennie gives me a look, but thankfully she doesn’t push it any further. Holding up her magazine, she asks, “What do you think about me doing my hair like this for homecoming?” It’s a picture of a girl in a sparkly silver dress, her blond hair flowing behind her like a cape.

Laughing, I say, “Ren, homecoming is in October!”

“Exactly! Only a month and a half away.” She waves the magazine at me. “So what do you think?”

I guess she’s right. We probably should start thinking about dresses. There’s no way I’m buying mine from one of the boutiques on the island, not when there’s a 90% chance some other girl will show up wearing it too. I take a closer look at the picture. “It’s cute! But I doubt there’ll be a wind machine.”

Rennie snaps her fingers. “Yes! A wind machine. Amazing idea, Lil.”

I laugh. If that’s what she wants, that’s what she’ll get. Nobody ever says no to Rennie Holtz.

We’re discussing possible homecoming looks when two guys come over by our blanket. One is tall with a crew cut and the other is stockier, with thick biceps. They’re both cute, although the shorter one is cuter. They’re definitely older than us, definitely not in high school.

Suddenly I’m glad I’m wearing my new black bikini and not my pink and white polka-dot one.

“Do you girls have a bottle opener?” the tall one asks.

I shake my head. “You can probably borrow one from the concessions stand, though.”

“How old are you girls?” the built one asks me.

I can tell Rennie is into him, the way she tosses her hair over to one side and says, “Why do you want to know?”

“I want to make sure it’s okay to talk to you,” he says, grinning. He’s looking at her now. “Legally.”

She giggles, but in a way that makes her sound older, not like a kid. “We’re legal. Barely. How old are you guys?”

“Twenty-one,” the taller one says, looking down at me. “We’re seniors at UMass, here for the week.”

I adjust my bikini top so it doesn’t show so much. Rennie just turned eighteen, but I’m still seventeen.

“We’re renting a house down Shore Road in Canobie Bluffs. You should come over some time.” The built one sits down next to Rennie. “Give me your number.”

“Ask nicely,” Rennie says, all sugar and spice. “And then maybe I’ll think about it.”

The tall guy sits down next to me, at the edge of the blanket. “I’m Mike.”

“Lillia,” I say. Over his shoulder I see the boys coming back. Alex has a Coke in his hand for me. They’re looking at us, probably wondering who these guys are. Our guy friends can be super-protective when it comes to non-islanders.

Alex frowns and says something to Reeve. Rennie sees them too; she starts giggling extra-loud and tossing her hair around again.

The tall guy, Mike, asks me, “Are those guys your boyfriends?”

“No,” I say. He’s looking at me so intently, I blush.

“Good,” he says, and smiles at me.

He has really nice teeth.

KAT

IT’S THE BEGINNING OF A PERFECT SUMMER NIGHT, THE KIND where all the stars are out and you don’t need a sweatshirt, even down by the water. Which is a good thing, because I left mine at home. I passed out after I got home from work, slept right though dinner. When I woke up, I had, like, five seconds to catch the next ferry to the mainland, so I threw whatever clothes were on my floor into my bag, high-fived my dad good-bye, and ran the whole way from T-Town to the Middlebury harbor. I know I forgot something, but Kim will let me pick through her closet, so whatever.