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to mention the fact that Trudy and Robert could have warned me when I asked them, repeatedly, whether they’d heard from him and whether he’d be back. I was furious with Trudy and Robert, I decided. I’d quit if I didn’t like working here so much.
    Not, I guess, that I would have planned my summer any differently if I’d known Evan was returning. I wanted to be here with my friends—and with Ben. This could be the last time it’d be so easy for us all to be here together. If I’d known Evan was coming, I wouldn’t have run off to, say, Europe or something. At least not without seriously thinking it over first and deciding it was the best possible move.
    â€œSo. When did you get here?” I asked Evan.
    â€œWell, I got in last night—but it was dicey,” he said.
    About as dicey as this is, right now? I just stared at the freezer, wishing it wasn’t as newly cleaned as it was, that it was the end of the season, not the beginning, and that I couldn’t see my distorted reflection on its side. Was my hair seriously going to look that bad on the day I saw him, after nine months of perfect hair and not seeing him? (Maybe the two things were related. He really was evil.)
    â€œDicey?” I finally said. “How?”
    â€œI was supposed to catch a ride with a friend heading up north to work at a summer camp,” he said. “But his car broke down outside Boston.” Evan laughed. “It was such a rust heap that we took out our bags, and he just sold it to a junkyard for twenty-five bucks. They towed it away and we just stood there on the side of the highway. Then it started raining. Not just raining, actually—pouring. With lightning flashing and these huge cracks of thunder. So it was impossible to hitch a ride when we were crouched down, holding our backpacks over our heads.”
    What an amusing little story, I thought. But I was dying inside, dying. I’d never had heartburn in my life, so I wasn’t sure if that nauseous churning in the pit of my stomach was heartburn or just disgust.
    Soon Evan had Sam, Erica, and the rest of the summer crew laughing at his tale of hitching a ride from a police officer to the train station, getting as far as they could with what little money they had, then camping at a New Hampshire rest area, and finally finding a ride the next day with two nuns and mistakenly swearing as they got into the car because Evan’s friend hit his head on the door.
    â€œSo, anyway, I made it, safe and sound. Someone was looking out for me, I guess,” Evan said.
    Darn that someone.
    â€œTechnically, I was supposed to be here three days ago,” he said.
    And what a loss for all of us that you weren’t, I thought. I was so (a) angry at the nuns, which is horrible, I know; (b) angry at his attitude; (c) angry at the way he was telling this long, drawn-out story that really only illustrated his stupidity and poor planning. When a random nun has to save your butt—I’m sorry, but you’re really counting on luck or divine intervention.
    Nuns. Come on! Like they’d let Evan ride with them for more than ten minutes. Didn’t they automatically recognize Satan? Weren’t they specifically trained for that sort of thing?
    Then again, maybe the nun bit wasn’t even true—Evan had a habit of embellishing things, of saying things that were obviously exaggerated. Such as: “I love you, Colleen.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you just call someone to come pick you up?” I asked.
    â€œWhat would the fun in that be?” He stepped closer to me. “Unless, of course, you were the one who came. Still got that Volvo?”
    No. I drove it into the ocean when you broke my heart. Sadly, however, I survived .
    â€œOf course,” I said.
    And there we were, the last place I expected to be, just standing in Bobb’s kitchen, looking into each other’s eyes.
    And I was thinking:
    I