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settled without having to wait forty-eight hours. “Give me the phone.”
    While I wait for Henry to come pick me up, Arabella and I share a giant concoction of our own — shaved ice, chocolate syrup, whipped cream and a large puddle of mint flavoring.
    “The fact that Mr. Randall — sorry, Trip Randall the third — owns the tow lot shouldn’t surprise me. And yet…” I shake my head. “I’m not sure about these super-funded summer people.”
    “Hey — you are one of those people,” Arabella says and sips the drink.
    “No — not really,” I say but maybe she has a point. I don’t want to be a prepster and yet I am by sheer nature of my education. I don’t want to be seen as having a guy-infested brain and yet by sheer nature of my romantic roving eye Jacob, Henry, Charlie — I could be. “Besides — summer’s the great equalizer, right?”
    “Meaning?” Arabella sucks some sugary sludge through a straw.
    “Meaning…everyone’s got the somewhat the same intentions during the summer so no matter what your financial factor, you want to have fun.”
    Arabella tilts her head to the side, and nudges me. “And just how do you spell fun?”
    “Um, f-u-n?” I ask.
    “No — try s-u-m-m-e-r f-l-i-n-b.”
    “Summer flinb?” I ask and crack up. “I’m not sure I’m familiar with that term.”
    “Oh, shut up — you know I meant fling. Not that you’d be the one to recognize such a term.”
    “I’m just as much of a…flinger as you are,” I say like it’s a competition.
    “Oh yeah? Prove, Bukowski,” Arabella says. Then she lets me sip.
    “Listen — it’s easy for you. You’re…modelesque and tan and British and no matter what happens you take off at the end of the summer. I meanwhile…” I look at my disheveled self and begin the self-critique. “I look like some Irish girl circa eighteen hundred something shoved into the clothing someone forgot at the Laundromat. Not exactly hottie material.”
    Arabella sighs. “How lame is it that no matter how amazing a woman thinks she is, self-doubt always creeps in?” I sigh back her and listen to her. “You are beautiful — quirky, non-traditional — but really pretty. And you know that. You just feel slimy. You slept outside covered in beer and have no Jacob to show for it — which, coming off of a transatlantic break-up with my brother can’t have felt good.”
    She’s so right — Asher and I were a couple — we had that thing, that fun and hand holding — but it never felt totally good. First, he was off-limits because Arabella objected. Then we got together officially and then I had to leave — and then he pretty much dumped me on my ass after hooking up with someone else.
    “All of this doesn’t exactly make me want to run out and find another potential heartache,” I start and open my mouth to speak more but she shoves the straw in to shut me up.
    “Love — I hereby pronounce you free from your past.” She taps me on my shoulder like I’m being knighted. “Look around. Pick a guy you like — you don’t have to fall head over heels for him — you just have to like him.”
    “An interesting notion,” I say and make a note to consider it.
    “It’s perfect we’re friends,” Arabella says and shovels a spoonful of the icy mint chocolate mixture into her mouth. “Who else would eat this with me?”
    I shake my head and scoop some up for myself. “No one. That’s why we can never break up.”
    Arabella raises her eyebrows. “Oh, like we’re a couple?”
    “You know what I mean — female friendships can be just as great and intense and crazy as relationships — and people do break up.”
    “Well, we won’t,” Arabella says. “We’re far too mature — or wait — maybe we’re far too insane for that.”
    “Agreed.” I lick my spoon and take another mouthful and then add, “But Mable did.”
    “Did what?” Arabella asks. Her hair starts to slip from its loose knot and a bunch of it winds up in our