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you knew of anyone who used the stilt house for anything.”
    Diana shrugged. Her toast popped up. The coffee began to dribble down, sending the aroma through the room. “No one’s used it for anything in two years, at least. Not since the last renter moved out.”
    “Huh.”
    “Why?”
    Summer sighed heavily and again looked evasive. “I don’t know. I think I just had this dream that some guy was there. But when I got up, there was this burned candle and one of the Pepsis was gone. I guess I could have been walking in my sleep.”
    “You walk in your sleep?” Diana wondered.
    “No. Never before, anyway. I dream a lot, though, and in my dreams I walk around.”
    “I try not to dream,” Diana said.
    Silence fell between them. The coffee machine dripped and then began its final sputtering.
    “He was cute, though,” Summer said.
    “Who? The dream guy?” Diana poured two cups of coffee and carried them with her toast to the table.
    “Yeah, he was way cute. Beyond cute.”
    “Then it must have been a dream,” Diana pronounced. “A figment of your imagination.”
    “I guess so,” Summer agreed. “Do you ever have dreams like that?”
    “Me?” The question took Diana by surprise. “No, at least not that I remember.”
    “Do you have a boyfriend?”
    Diana squirmed a little in the chair. “Not right at the moment.”
    “I’ve never had one,” Summer admitted. “Not a real one.”
    Diana made a face. “Yeah, right.”
    “It’s true. Why would I make up something like that?”
    The confession, made so simply and straightforwardly, took Diana aback. There was nothing wrong with not having a boyfriend—in fact, in Diana’s experience it was probably better that way—but Summer was just so out front about it. Most girls would have tried to act cooler about it. Like, hey, the guys are after me, but they’re all too immature.
    “I guess you’ve probably had lots of boyfriends,” Summer said.
    “One or two,” Diana admitted. This was the wrong topic. The absolutely wrong topic. It was as if Summer had some instinct guiding her to the last thing on earth that Diana wanted to talk about.
    “There was a guy back home that I really liked, only he didn’t know I existed.” Summer made a wry, self-deprecating face. “I have much better luck in my dreams.”
    Diana laughed and then quickly took a sip of her coffee. She’d have to watch herself. For a moment there she’d found herself kind of liking her cousin. “So, what are you going to do today?”
    “I’m going to look around and maybe get a job,” Summer said. “Would you come with me? I mean, unless you have something planned?”
    “Why would you want me to come with you?” What was it with this girl? Why was she so nice? She wasn’t an idiot; she must know Diana was trying to blow her off.
    “I thought it might be fun,” Summer said. “Besides, I’m new here, so if I go around with you everyone will think ‘oh, okay, she must not be a total nobody if she’s with Diana.’”
    Diana finished her coffee and stared darkly at the bottom of her cup. Yes, she was definitely going to have to work at disliking her cousin.

    In the end Diana decided not to come with her into town, and Summer was actually relieved. It was a wonderful feeling to be walking along the road, free, on her own, almost undisturbed by traffic, feeling the sun on her shoulders and arms. She turned her face to the sun, already most of the way up the sky though it wasn’t yet ten in the morning.
    A huge, brilliantly white bird, almost chest tall, stepped on stilt legs out onto the road before her. It tilted its serpentine neck to turn a quizzical eye on Summer.
    “Hi,” Summer said, standing still so as not to frighten it. But the egret wasn’t frightened in the least. It tiptoed gracefully across the road.
    “Reminds me of Diana,” Summer said. Diana had that same grace, that same elegance.
    That same disdain.
    Too bad, Summer thought. She’d felt as if she