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settle down, that there were plenty of herring in the sea.
    Sophie had headed out to get us drinks as I was fi nishing up,
    and as I walked to the register to pay, I couldn’t help taking little
    glances at my new self in the mirror. Maybe Sophie was on to
    something after all. I certainly felt better than I had since the
    Target trip.
    “Love it!” Sophie shrieked as I stepped out of the salon. “Turn
    around.” Rolling my eyes, I obliged, and she bounced up and down
    in her fl ip- fl ops, grinning at me. “Didn’t I tell you?”
    “You told me,” I said, picking up one of my new red locks and
    staring at it. “You were right.”
    Sophie smiled wide at that; it was one of her favorite phrases
    to hear. “For you,” she said, handing me a plastic cup from Stubbs,
    the local coffee chain. I saw she’d gotten me an iced soy vanilla
    latte, extra vanilla, my summer standby. Sophie was scrawled across
    the cup in huge letters. On her own plastic cup— lemonade with
    raspberry syrup— her name was also written, along with three
    hearts, a smiley face, and a phone number.
    “Thanks,” I said, taking my cup from her as we walked to her
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    car. “You heartbreaker, you.”
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    She glanced down at the phone number. “Oh, that.” She smiled
    as she beeped open her car. “He was pretty cute.”
    “What about Doug?” I asked, settling myself in the passenger
    seat and immediately fl ipping down the visor mirror to continue
    to look at my hair.
    “Ugh,” Sophie said as she started the car and headed away
    from the salon, toward Putnam’s main train station. The appoint-
    ment had taken so long— it seemed that turning your hair a dif-
    ferent color was a very time- consuming process— that I no longer
    had time to go home and get my bags. So Sophie was driving me
    to the station, and my mom was meeting us there with my suit-
    case. “Doug is getting on my nerves lately. He’s starting to be a
    drag.”
    I shook my head and smiled at this, already seeing Sophie’s
    summer romance playing out, Doug being ditched for this barista.
    Since I’d only ever dated Teddy, I’d had no experience with rela-
    tionship drama, and frankly preferred it that way.
    “What am I going to do all summer with you gone?” Sophie
    sighed as she turned into the station parking lot, double- parked
    illegally, and killed her engine.
    “I was going to be gone anyway, Soph,” I reminded her.
    “I know,” she sighed. “But just for a few weeks. Not the whole
    summer .”
    On impulse, I suggested, “Why don’t you come and visit?”
    She brightened at that. “Really?”
    “Sure,” I said, blithely, even though I hadn’t checked with my
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    father or Bruce. But I was sure it would be fi ne. All of Bruce’s houses
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    seemed to have more rooms than anyone ever actually used. I
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    saw my mother’s car pull into the station, and winced, as I always
    did, when I saw the FISHERMEN LIVE IN THE REEL WORLD and GO
    AGAINST THE CURRENT bumper stickers Walter had put on. “That’s my
    mom,” I said, getting out of the car.
    Sophie got out as well and met me around the back. “Call me
    tons,” she said.
    “I will,” I promised, giving her a tight hug. “Thanks for . . .” I
    gestured to my hair, but hoped she knew it included this whole
    week and the years of friendship before that. “You know.”
    “I do,” she said as she climbed back into her car and started
    the engine. “Say hi to your dad, okay? And have fun. Forget about
    what’s-his- name. Make out with someone!”
    She practically yelled this last statement, and several people
    walking to the train platform turned and looked at me. I just gave
    her a small wave as she grinned and sped out of the station park-
    ing lot.
    I walked over to where my mom