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raspberry cheese Danish, then delicately licks her fingers, all without making crumbs or getting any kind of mess on herself.
    “A road trip?” I ask hopefully. I love road trips! It’s exactly what I need, too! I’ll stay away from Facebook, my phone, and all other communication devices. Like my instant messenger and my front door. (A front door is totally a communication device! What if he decides to show up? You know, to communicate.) “Where in Maine? What should I bring?” I’m standing now, and almost jumping up and down. An old man sitting in the corner is looking at me like I’m crazy.
    “Uh, no,” Ava says, looking nervous. “Not a road trip. Um, I’m going to Maine. For the summer.”
    I sit back down. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I thought you just said you were going to Maine for the summer.” That can’t be right. Ava never goes anywhere for the summer. She likes to relax and stay right here. “Wait,” I say. “Is your family going on vacation?” If so, maybe I can go with them! Ava’s mom loves me. Like, for real. Whenever Ava and I would get into fights in middle school (or, let’s face it, high school), she would always email me and be like, “You and Ava should be friends again.”
    “No,” Ava says. “I’m getting a summer job there. I’m, uh, going to be a camp counselor.”
    “You’re what ?” I ask, looking at her incredulously. “But you and I decided we weren’t going to get summer jobs!”It’s true. Ava and I decided we’d rather spend the summer hanging out by the pool, so we didn’t look for summer jobs. Ava’s philosophy was that we’d have to get jobs next summer before we went to college, and probably every summer after that, so it was our last chance at freedom. And even though I kind of sort of wanted to spend the summer working so I could get a car when school started, I figured she had a point. Although the logic did seem slightly flawed, because the freedom a car brings is totally better than the freedom of one summer. But whatever, I’m all about the instant gratification.
    “Hello, ladies,” Riker Strong says, walking over to our table. He’s in his Starbucks uniform, and holding a tray of cut up bagels. “Would you two like to try a free sample of our new cranberry vanilla bagels?”
    “Sure.” I take one off the tray and pop it into my mouth. I guess depression hasn’t affected my appetite.
    “Hannah!” Ava yells. “Don’t eat that!” She holds out a napkin. “Spit it out immediately.”
    “No,” I say, chewing and swallowing. “It’s good.”
    “Ava?” Riker asks, grinning and holding out the tray.
    “No, thank you.” Ava turns away and refuses to look at him. When he’s gone, she looks at me. “You can’t just eat things he offers, you have no idea what he’s done to them!”
    “He didn’t do anything to them,” I say. “He didn’t know what bagel I was going to take. Look, he’s over there giving them to the other customers now.” I watch as the old guy in the corner who was staring at me earlier takes three samplesoff the tray and gobbles them down. Geez, talk about greedy. Doesn’t he know it’s one per customer? “So unless he wants to poison us all . . .”
    “He probably does want to poison us all,” Ava says. “And besides, I didn’t say poison. He could have done anything, like spit on them, or . . .” She trails off, leaving me to imagine all kinds of gross bodily Riker functions that could have been released on or near those bagels.
    “Ava,” I say, “that’s disgusting.” But I kind of wish I’d spit it out now, and I take a big drink of my coffee to get the bagel taste out of my mouth. “Now can we please get back to talking about how you’ve lost your mind?”
    “I haven’t lost my mind,” she says. “My mom’s friends with the camp director, and he called her early this morning saying they were one counselor short, and asked if I’d be interested.” She shrugs, as if to say, what