CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN AMELIA LIFTS HER HEAD, warm against her pillow, she knows she’s been asleep for a long time. Hours. She feels it in her body, the heaviness, and her room is shadowy. Rolling onto her back, she finds her phone and glances through the texts she’s received from the other girls at the stand. It’s a blur of sad emojis, virtual hugs that she can almost feel.
She changes out of her polo and into a big T-shirt—the one from Project Graduation night—and a pair of leggings, undoes her fishtail braids, and combs her fingers through the waves they’ve left behind.
Downstairs, she finds her mom and dad sitting together at their kitchen table, their plates pushed off to the side. Dad has his school papers spread out in front of him—he teaches math at the high school, and summer school starts next week—and Mom is scrolling on her phone. A baseball game is on the radio. Someone gets a hit and they look up at each other and smile.
“Hi.”
They glance over at her, startled, and then guiltily at the remnants of dinner. Her dad explains, “We thought you were out with Cate.”
“It’s okay.”
Her mom winces and quickly clears their things from Amelia’s normal spot at the table. “Would you believe we even told each other tonight is a chance to train ourselves for how lonely it’s going to be around here in September?”
“Please don’t make me more depressed.” Amelia falls into her seat.
Amelia’s dad offers a gentle smile. “How are you holding up?”
“It’s hard to believe. This wasn’t how I was expecting today to go, you know?”
“No, I suppose not.” He reaches across the table and ruffles her hair. “You sure you don’t want some steak? It’ll only take me a couple of minutes to get the grill going.”
“I’m sure.”
Amelia’s mom gives her shoulder a tender squeeze. “It’s not easy to do what you did today. We’re proud of you.”
“I didn’t actually do anything. I just walked in and found her.” Amelia slouches in her chair and picks a tomato from the salad bowl. She appreciates their trying to cheer her up, but really, it was the bare minimum.
“You took charge,” her dad insists. “You acted like a manager!”
“Head Girl,” her mom corrects.
“Yes, right. Head Girl.”
“And thank goodness you did, Amelia! Could you imagine if this happened in winter? Poor Molly would have been lying there dead for months and no one would have known.”
“Mom!”
Her mother’s eyes go wide. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”
“Very wrong,” her dad adds.
Amelia’s phone rings. “It’s Cate. Do you mind?”
They nod, maybe even a bit gratefully, excusing her.
“Hey, Cate.” Amelia leaves the kitchen and sits on the stairs.
Cate tsks. “I was hoping you’d sound better but you don’t sound better.”
“Well, my parents just tried to cheer me up by saying I prevented Molly’s corpse from mummifying.”
“That’s . . . an interesting strategy.”
“It was. It really was.”
“How about I take a shot? What do you say? Up for it?”
“Sure.”
“Cool. So I’m going to need you to walk out your front door right now.”
Amelia flinches. “Huh?”
“Walk out your front door,” Cate repeats, a playful teasing in her voice, and then hangs up.
Amelia rises to her feet and does as she was told, a smile already lifting the corners of her mouth. Shielding herself with the curtain, she peeks out the window of her front door. Cate’s standing in her driveway along with the six other returning Meade Creamery girls—juniors Sophie and Bernadette, sophomores Mansi and Liz, and last summer’s newbies, Jen and Britnee.
At least, that’s who Amelia assumes they are. She can’t be sure because each girl is wearing a dark-colored sweatshirt with a hood pulled up to hide her hair. They stand in a whispering huddle, which breaks apart at the creaking sound of Amelia opening the door. But their buzzing energy is palpable, the way it always is at the start of the summer, when the returning girls reconnect and catch up after the school year, like bunkmates at a sleepaway camp.
“What’s everyone doing here?” Amelia asks with a laugh.
Cate lunges forward, takes Amelia’s hand, and pulls her away from the house. “Shhhhhh! You’re going to blow our cover!”
“Cover for what?”
Jen tosses Cate a sweatshirt, which Cate then hands to Amelia. “Put this on.” It’s a navy one from Truman University, turned inside out. “I’ve been thinking about what you said today. How there’s all that ice cream left in the stand. I can’t come up with one good reason why we, the last-ever Meade Creamery girls, shouldn’t be the ones to eat it.”
“Seriously?” Amelia lifts up on her toes. “But what if someone sees us?”
“What could they say? We’re still legally employees.” Cate looks at the rest of the girls, almost daring them to disagree with her, which of course no one does. “Plus, you still have your key, so it’s not like we’d be breaking—”
Amelia smacks her forehead with her hand.
“What?”
“I pushed it under the door before we left today.”
Cate laughs good-naturedly, like this was to be expected somehow from Amelia. “No big. We’ll figure it out.”
To the other girls, Amelia says, “You all sure you want to do this?” They nod back at her, excited, burdened by none of the sadness Amelia carries. Though, when Amelia thinks about it, that sadness is mostly gone now, replaced by the feeling that her heart is about to burst in the best way.
* * *
Amelia and Cate ride together, with Cate’s truck in the lead. The rest of the girls squeeze into two other cars belonging to Sophie and Bernadette. Amelia opens the passenger-side window and sticks her head out to watch the cars turn onto Route 68. With their headlights on, and the random celebratory beeps of their horns, they resemble something between Sand Lake’s Homecoming Parade and a funeral procession.
Cate pats Amelia’s leg. “You’re not going to cry again, are you?”
“No!” Amelia says, turning to face front. “I’m really excited!”
“Me too!” Cate’s cheeks are flushed and she speaks quickly. “So here’s what I’m thinking. I’ll get one or two of the girls to stand lookout, and the rest of us will go in and grab some ice cream. Then I thought we could drive down to the lake and eat it there. It’ll be like our end-of-summer party. A chance for us to say a proper goodbye.”
“Thank you for doing this. I can’t believe—” Amelia cuts herself off because she can believe it. That Cate would organize this whole expedition for her. This is Cate. This is exactly why she would have made a terrific Head Girl. It’s a shame Molly never noticed.