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worries.” He shrugged. “Happens to the best of us.”
    He stood to the side of the soda fountain and reached back for Hazel’s cup.
    “I can do it,” she insisted, angling her cup against the ice paddle. Tiny pebbles of frost sputtered down on her wrist. Her cheeks were on fire. Already, she was a charity case.
    “This thing’s pretty temperamental,” the boy offered. Heslapped the ancient-looking machine hard on one side until it coughed up three or four perfectly formed squares of ice. He smiled, the two starry dimples burrowing deeper into his cheeks. “Sometimes it just needs a little extra love.”
    The boy slid into a booth beneath a bulletin board that was plastered with hand-drawn announcements. He gestured for her to sit, and Hazel perched tentatively at the edge of the plastic bench. Sitting seemed easier than coming up with a reason not to. She stared at a trail of crumbs on the tabletop, gripping the cup between her hands.
    “That’s a nice dress,” the boy said, and Hazel immediately regretted her decision to join him. The only thing worse than being pitied was being mocked. She glanced sideways at the boy’s face, prepared to snap back and walk away.
    But something wouldn’t let her. He was staring right at her, but there wasn’t anything intimidating in his deep brown eyes. No pity, no making fun. He looked like he’d meant what he said. Like conversation was something he enjoyed.
    “Is this your first time on the island?” he went on, leaning back comfortably into the sticky red leather. “You kind of have that deer-in-the-headlights, I-still-can’t-believe-I’m-on-vacation sort of look.”
    Hazel smiled in spite of herself. If he only knew.
    “Not that it’s a bad thing,” he backtracked. “I just see it every summer. You get a kind of radar after a while. You know?”
    “Sure.” She nodded and hoped it was convincing.
    “So?” he asked. “Where are you from? I’m Luke, by the way.”
    Hazel took a long sip of sticky-sweet iced tea and gulpedit down. “Hazel,” she introduced herself. “Hazel Snow. I’m from—”
    Hazel was just settling into the comfortable rhythm of her own voice, and momentarily forgetting to be freaked out, when something caught her eye from behind Luke’s shoulder. It was a glossy, color ad on the bulletin board, and in the mess of hand-scrawled notes from babysitters in search of babies and renters looking for rooms, it stuck out like a sore, professionally printed thumb. Hazel’s eyes had quickly scanned the printed text and jumped to a name, indented at the bottom:
    CONTACT: ROSANNA SCOTT.
    Hazel lurched across the table, barely registering how close her shoulder came to bumping against Luke’s. She grabbed for one of the perforated rectangles, which displayed Rosanna’s name again, this time next to a phone number.
    She was still stretched long over the booth, staring numbly at the paper in her hands, when she heard Luke laugh.
    “If I’d known you needed a job that bad, I would’ve bought you some ice cream, too.” He smiled and slouched toward the window.
    Hazel slid back to her side of the booth, the tiny piece of paper already dampening between the tips of her fingers. “What?” she asked, not fully registering what he’d said. She looked back at the poster on the board and this time saw the bold lettering at the top.
    LOOKING FOR HOUSEHOLD HELP! the sign announced. It seemed to be an ad for a caretaking job.
    “Oh, no, I just—” Hazel started to explain but stopped. What else could she possibly say?
    “I mean, yes. I need a job,” she said firmly, suddenly.“Why? Do you know this place?” Hazel flattened the square of paper on the table, Rosanna’s name staring back up at them. Luke glanced down at it, the star-shaped dimples springing back into place.
    “Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “You could say that.”
    Hazel looked back at the paper, the little printed words swimming in her vision. Her heart was a buoy,