36

This girl in a hot-pink bikini top and cut-off jean shorts—totally filling out both—ran up to me from outside the snack bar the minute I walked onto North Beach later that afternoon. At that end of the beach, which was about three football fields long, the place smelled like hot grease.

“Hi,” she said, and tipped a paper tray of fries toward me. “Want some?”

“No, thanks,” I said. She looked familiar, but at the same time I knew I had never met her. Either I looked familiar to her too, or she was just the single friendliest girl on Earth.

I kept walking down toward the volleyball courts, and she walked with me. Two of the four courts were empty. Bare poles. No nets. You rented those from the snack bar. Ben and his friends were stringing one. On the nearest court, six people about my parents’ age played beanbag toss with red and lime-green beanbags. When someone scored points, they all cheered.

“You’re sure you don’t want some fries?” she asked, and held the fries closer to me. “They’re really good. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”

“Yeah, I’m sure, but thanks.”

“What’s this?” she asked, and pressed her finger against a spot of blue paint on my arm.

“Misty Harbor Blue,” I said. “I was painting all day.”

“Oh my God, it matches your eyes. I’m Maddy, by the way.”

“Maddy,” I said back to her. “I’m Briggs.”

“I knew it!” She hopped a couple times, spilled some fries, said, “Oh, snap. Oh, well.” She popped one of the remaining fries in her mouth and chewed as she talked. “Ben said he had met this cute guy named Briggs and that you might be coming here today.” She chewed and talked really fast. “Well, no, he didn’t say you’re cute. I mean, that would be weird, right? Only ’cause he’s not gay.” She shrugged and lost a few more fries. “I just figured with a name like Briggs you had to be cute, and you are, so I’m right.”

“Uh. Thanks.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“My name? Family name.”

She told me the family history of her name and its various spellings and how she wished she had been named Victoria because of all the cool nicknames you can make from it. She listed them. I had to admit, I had no idea the list was that long. My mother, the Queen of Lists, would have approved.

Maddy had just finished her list and her fries when we came upon Ben and friends, and one of them looked a lot like Mute Button from yesterday. Tall, kind of skinny, longish black hair hanging in his eyes. Maddy introduced me by saying, “This is Briggs. I knew it was him, and I was right. Yay me.”

“Yay you,” I said, and shot her a quick smile.

“Oh, man, you’re the Phone Douche,” the guy with hair in his face said, and, yep, that was him.

“Brandon,” Maddy said like she was scolding him, but the guy just laughed. Couple guys did.

“Seriously, you assed up on that one,” he said to me.

“Yep,” I said, and scratched at the back of my neck.

So that was Brandon. The others were Mike, Josh, Lauren, Nicole, Zach, and Danny. All of them tanned but for Nicole, who barely looked up to say hello from her seriously intense application of sunscreen. I found out she and Maddy just graduated high school. Abigail’s class. The rest graduated a year ago.

“Brandon worked for Vesna last summer,” Ben said.

“Everybody has the B names,” I said, in my own fake Serbian accent, which was greeted with silence. “It’s something Mrs. B.—never mind.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Maddy said, and hopped in place and waved both hands at me. “My middle name is Brittany. Brittany. With a B.”

And she was so excited, she hugged me.

“I don’t think I could do your job,” Nicole said, blinking up at me against the sun. “I mean, it would be like moving in with my grandmother, and there’s just no way that’s happening.”

“He’s great with old ladies. They love him,” Ben said in a way that entertained everyone but me.

“No, I’ve just—I volunteered at an assisted-living center this year. Place called Bluestone Court.”

“Why?” Nicole asked.

“I’ve got a lot of experience with that generation, I guess.”

“So you’re like Mr. Geriatric?” Brandon asked. He jerked his head to the side to move his hair out of his eyes. “Can we call you Geri?”

“Briggs.”

“Between Geri and Phone Douche, I’d pick Geri,” Brandon said. “Come on. Let’s play.”

I ended up on his team. He called himself captain and played like a pro, taking out some serious aggression on the ball.

“Nice!” I said after he won our third game in a row with a spike, and I went in for the high five, but he waved me off.

I played across from Maddy and completely missed the ball the first time she smiled at me. She had a huge mouth, and she stuck her tongue between her teeth in a way that should have been a lot sexier than it was.

“Trade!” Brandon called when I lost the point.

We’d been playing about forty minutes, and it was my turn to serve again when I saw Abigail Howe walking her bike toward us down the sidewalk, which ran the length of the beach, separating it from the parking lot.

“Hey, Abigail!” Maddy shouted, waving both hands as if she were signaling for help. “You wanna play?”

“The funeral,” I said, nodding at Maddy. She was the girl who called to Abigail in the parking lot. “I knew you looked familiar.”

“Aww,” Maddy said. “Mrs. Ostrander was our fifth-grade teacher. She was so sweet.”

“Come on. Let’s play,” Ben said as Abigail called to Maddy, “Not today, thanks.”

“Tomorrow then,” Maddy shouted back. “Or next week. Come next week.”

“Maybe,” Abigail said. She stopped walking and looked right at me and asked, “You gonna serve?”

“You gonna watch?” I asked.

“Probably not,” she said, like she was happy to say it.

“You’re missing all the fun,” I said, flashing her my best smile one more time.

“Yet somehow I survive,” she said, and started walking away.

I served the ball and stole a quick look to see if she was looking back. She wasn’t. Guess I stole too long a look, since I completely missed the ball heading back my way, and we lost the point.

“Trade!”