“Bye!” Emma called out. She looked at me. “She’s in eighth grade. My family has known her family a long time.” She gently poked my leg with her pen. “Okay, let’s start writing.”
I wanted to see what she wrote, but I knew it wasn’t really any of my business. If she wanted to share, she would.
The phone in my pocket buzzed again. I decided to ignore it since I didn’t want to have to explain everything going on between my parents.
I started on my message.
Dear Stranger,
Hi. I’m J.J. I’m an artist. I draw and paint all the time. My favorite artist is Vincent van Gogh. I love his painting “The Starry Night.” And the sunflower one. The seascape one, too. I can’t remember the names of those two.
I’ll tell you a secret. Sometimes I wish I could live in Vincent’s painting of the starry sky. It looks magical. Like every star is different but brilliant and bursting with life and that’s exactly how it should be because all together, those stars make up something special.
I wish I could be brilliant and a part of something special.
My email address is
[email protected].
Write to me, okay? Unless you’re some creepy person, then don’t. #nocreepersallowed
Sincerely yours,
J.J.
I read back over my note and wondered if it sounded weird. Maybe. But I decided I didn’t care that much. The chances of someone finding it, reading it, and writing me back were probably really small. As long as I made Emma happy, that’s what mattered.
She was still working on hers, so I drew a moon surrounded by a bunch of stars at the bottom of my message. When Emma finished writing, she reached into her bag again and pulled out two short pieces of thin, blue ribbon.
“Now roll your letter up, like this,” she said as she rolled the piece of paper tightly. “I’ll hold it while you tie the ribbon, then we’ll switch.”
Once we tied the ribbons, we stuck the letters into the bottles. With a black Sharpie we wrote on the outside of the bottles: PLEASE READ THE LETTER INSIDE. Then we swung the attached bottle stoppers into place and sealed them both tightly. Emma stood up and I followed her across the sand. As we passed the girl making the sand castle, she turned and said, “Hi, Emma.”
“Hi, Carmen. Nice castle you got there.”
“Thanks. My brother loves building them.”
We walked away and Emma leaned in and whispered, “That girl is so shy. She hardly ever says a word. I have a couple of classes with her and I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say a whole sentence.”
I corrected her. “Until now.”
“Right. Until now.” She picked up her pace. “Come on. We’ll throw them in over here. And then you want to get some ice cream?”
“I didn’t bring any money.”
“Well, lucky for you, you don’t need any.”
I gave her a funny look. “How come?”
“My family owns the Frozen Spoon. Free ice cream every day if I want it!”
“But they don’t even know me,” I said. “Are you sure they won’t mind?”
She scoffed. “Trust me, they won’t mind. So what do you say?”
“Emma, there’s one thing you should know about me,” I told her.
“What’s that?”
“I love to eat. I will probably never say no to food if you offer it to me. Unless it’s something gross like onion-and-broccoli pizza.”
She wiggled her eyebrows. “What about onion-and broccoli ice cream?”
I laughed. “Well, who doesn’t love onion-and-broccoli ice cream? Pretty sure it’s the best ever.”
“Yeah, the best worst ever,” she said as she laughed along with me.
And just like that, I was feeling a whole lot better about moving to Mission Beach.
Cookie dough, because it’s the one time you can eat cookie dough and no one will yell at you, “Don’t do that, you might die of salmonella!”
Mint chocolate chip, because mint combined with chocolate is a magical combination.
Strawberry, because it’s sweet and pink and perfect.
Rainbow sherbet, because who doesn’t love rainbows?
Vanilla, because sometimes you need a little plain and simple in your life.
“What’d you do that for?” asked a boy when we turned around to leave the beach. He wore shorts and a T-shirt and a blue Dodgers baseball cap. He and his two friends seemed to be about our age. I guessed they must know Emma.
“Hi, Henry,” Emma said in a slightly annoyed tone. “Don’t you want to meet my friend Juliet? She just moved here. Juliet, this is Henry, José, and Marcus.”
“Hi,” I said, my cheeks on fire because I’m not very good at talking to one boy, let alone three. Yikes.
They all kind of mumbled hi or hello and then Henry said, “So? Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Throw those bottles into the ocean?”
Emma looked at me. I didn’t know what to say, so I just shrugged. She turned back to them. “Secret messages. You know, for the mermaids.”
“Riiight,” Marcus said. “No such thing as mermaids.”
“Come on,” Henry said. “Be serious. I want to know.”
“It doesn’t involve sports, so I promise, you wouldn’t be interested,” Emma said.
“I like things other than sports,” Henry said.
“Like what?” Emma said.
“Like video games. And hamburgers. And …”
His voice trailed off. I could tell Emma was trying not to laugh.
“Okay, well, we really have to go,” she said. “See ya later.”
She hurried until she reached the boardwalk, with me following close behind. When we stopped, I turned around to see if they’d followed us, but they were heading toward the ocean.
“Not all the kids at our school are that rude,” Emma said. “I promise. I have Henry in P.E. and let’s just say he’s not the nicest boy in town.”
Those two words—our school—made me feel like I might throw up. I thought back to P.E. with Inca. When we had the folk dance unit, we had to count off for partners. It didn’t matter if you got a boy or a girl, just as long as you had a partner. Inca and I were disappointed when we didn’t get to pick each other, but what made it even worse was that I got paired with Maverick, this obnoxious boy who thinks he’s the world’s greatest athlete. Every time he made a basket during the basketball unit, he’d put his finger high in the air as he ran down the court, like “I’m number one.” Every. Single. Time.
Luckily, Inca rescued me from Maverick. She quietly went to our teacher, Mrs. Bennett, and told her Maverick and I had a history of not getting along and would it be all right if she and I were partners instead. It took some convincing on Inca’s part, but Mrs. Bennett liked us and so she eventually said okay.
I hoped I wouldn’t get stuck with Henry as a dance partner. There’s no way I could have that much bad luck in one year, right?
Emma and I both brushed the sand off our feet as best we could before we slipped them into our flip-flops.
“You’re probably nervous about starting at a new school, huh?” she said, like she could read my mind.
“Um,” I said. “A little.” My voice shook as I said it. I laughed. “Okay, a lot.”
“Well, don’t be. It’s a good school, and we’re going to have so much fun.” She pulled her phone out of her shorts pocket. “Hold on. Just gonna tell Mom we’re coming.”
I couldn’t believe she was talking to me like she’d known me forever. I wondered if she was this way with everyone? Or had she noticed I was alone and felt bad for me? It was a little bit strange and beautiful, all mixed together.
“Do you need to let your mom know, too?” she asked.
“Yeah, I probably should.” I texted my sister really quickly and said I’d met a girl my age from my new school and we were going to hang out for a while at her family’s ice cream shop.
Miranda replied: Mom says cool! Be home by six, plea
se.
“Okay. This way,” Emma said when we’d both finished. We turned right. A family riding bikes zipped around us. “It’s just a few blocks.”
“Have you lived here your whole life?” I asked.
“Since I was four,” she said. “I don’t really remember anything else but this place.”
“Do both your parents run the shop, or … ?”
“My dad is a software consultant and works from home. Well, he travels sometimes, but mostly he works from home. We bought the shop a few years ago, and Mom manages it, but he does some work for it, too. Plus, all of us kids help out in different ways.”
“Wow,” I said. “So you don’t all get sick of each other?”
She laughed again. I loved that she laughed so easily. “I didn’t say that. But we’re never there all at the same time. It’s too small—only a couple of people can work there at a time.”
An old man wearing a dingy blue-and-white striped cap, the kind a train conductor might wear, sat on a patio facing the boardwalk. “Hi, Emma,” he called as we walked by.
She stopped. “Hi, Mr. Dooney.”
“Did you get your message in a bottle sent off?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. This is my friend Juliet. She did one, too.”
“I can’t wait to hear what happens.”
“How long do you think it’ll be ’til we hear back?” she asked him.
He took his hat off and rubbed his shiny bald head. “Could be weeks. Could be months. Could be years. Hard to say.”
“I hope it’s not years,” I said. “I’m not that patient.”
“Me neither,” Emma said. “See you later, Mr. Dooney. We’re off to get some ice cream.”
“Mmm. Good plan. Enjoy yourselves.”
“Bye,” we both called.
“He’s one of the old-timers in the neighborhood,” Emma explained. “He knows just about everybody who lives here. Don’t be surprised if he comes to your cottage to welcome you guys to town. What’s your family like, anyway?”
Perfect. The question I’d been dreading. I considered giving her some silly answer like “You don’t want to know. I live with a bunch of clowns.” But it seemed dishonest, in a way. Like I was trying to hide the truth. And even though I’d only known Emma for approximately fifty-three minutes, I liked her. Plus, she’d told me all about her family, so it seemed only fair to be honest and get it all out there.
My friends in Bakersfield had been so understanding when I’d told them what was happening with my parents. I even cried in Inca’s room once, when it all got to be too much. Now it was time to start talking about it in a different way, and it was kind of weird. My parents’ separation wasn’t about to happen, or in the middle of happening. It was basically done. They’d split up, and we’d moved away.
“My mom and dad are separated,” I told her. “Probably going to get a divorce. So it’s me, my mom, and my fifteen-year-old sister, Miranda.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “About your parents, I mean.”
“Me, too.”
When we got to the little lemon-yellow shop with the words THE FROZEN SPOON painted on a sign in bright blue letters, I smiled. A bell jingled above the door as we walked inside. The place smelled like waffle cones mixed with fresh sea air. Delicious. A mom with two little boys sat at a table, eating ice cream, but there wasn’t anyone in line at the counter.
A tall, thin woman with short brown hair, wearing a red-and-yellow apron and a big friendly smile, said, “Hi, girls.”
Emma said, “Mom, this is my friend Juliet. She just moved here with her mom and sister.”
When she called me her friend, I couldn’t have been happier if she’d handed me an empty canvas and a paintbrush.
“That’s so great,” Emma’s mom said as she came around from behind the counter. “Nice to meet you, Juliet. I’m Joanne. May I ask where you moved from?”
“Bakersfield.”
“Ah, not too far, then. Have you been to Mission Beach before?”
“Just once, a long time ago. The cottage we’re staying in is a rental that belongs to my grandparents. They live up in Carlsbad. Except they’re in Europe for a month.”
“What does your mom do?”
Like mother, like daughter, I thought. Again I wondered if they did this with everyone they met, or was it just me? I wasn’t even sure I knew which one I wanted it to be—that they were super friendly and curious about everyone, or only me? Maybe there just weren’t that many new people moving here—like, people who weren’t tourists.
“She’s a veterinarian,” I said. “She starts her new job tomorrow.”
“Wonderful,” Joanne said. Her eyes turned from me to the customers who were getting up from the table. They threw their garbage in the trash can and walked toward the door. “Have a nice day,” Joanne called out.
The woman turned and waved. “Thanks. You, too.”
Joanne wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and let out a long breath. “Whew. First time it’s been empty since we opened this morning.”
Just then, a lanky teen boy came from the back room. “Mom, I think we might be out of hot fudge. Unless it’s hiding somewhere. Or Emma ate all of it.”
“Oh, stop,” Emma said. She turned to me. “That’s my brother Thomas. He’s the second oldest.” She looked at him. “Be nice, Thomas. I have a new friend here.”
“Of course I’ll be nice,” he said. “What else would I be?”
“Annoying?” Emma said. “Like you usually are?”
“Only when you deserve it,” he said.
“Can I get you girls a cone?” Joanne asked. “And then I’ll help you find the hot fudge, Thomas. I don’t see how we can possibly be out.”
“Juliet, you go first. Be our guest, be our guest,” Emma sang to me, sounding like a star straight out of Beauty and the Beast. It made me laugh. “Get a double scoop if you want, right, Mom?”
Joanne walked around to the other side of the freezers and picked up an ice cream scoop. “Absolutely.”
“Come on,” Emma said, gently pulling on my wrist. “Check out the flavors. This one called lemon pie? It’s ah-mazing!”
“Okay,” I said. “That sounds good. I’ll have that with a scoop of strawberry.”
Emma smiled. “Same for me, please! Oh, and, Mom, I’m going to take Emma to our house after this.” She looked at me. “If you want to, that is.”
“Sure,” I said. Because as curious as Emma seemed to be about me, I was just as curious about her. I’d never had a friendship happen this fast before. All of my friends back home I’d met on our cul-de-sac from the time I could ride a tricycle, basically. This was a first for me, and the excitement I felt at already having a new friend? It was shooting-star excitement. Like … wow!
Visit the bookmobile that Grandma said is nearby.
Build a unique creation out of sand (I’m thinking a sea turtle).
Fly a kite on a windy day.
Buy saltwater taffy and eat it while walking on the beach.
Watch the sun set.
Roast marshmallows over a bonfire.
Ride my bike the entire length of the boardwalk.
Maybe find someone to hang out with so I don’t have to do these things alone.
“This is it,” Emma said as we approached a door on the second floor. “My room.”
It was painted mint green and had a bunk bed, a dresser, and a bookcase filled with books. Lots of books. There were clothes scattered on the floor, and she quickly went to work picking them up. I glanced around at her walls. A few shiny gold trophies sat on a single shelf, and she had posters of cute animals—hedgehogs and foxes mostly.
“What are the trophies for?” I asked.
“I play soccer,” she said. “What about you?”
“I did gymnastics for a while,” I said. “Didn’t last long, though.”
Back then, Dad would take me to the gym every Saturday morning. Afterward, we’d stop at a café where I’d get a
hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll and he’d get a coffee and a muffin. I liked that part a lot more than I liked the time at the gym.
“How come?” she asked.
“How come what?”
“How come it didn’t last long?”
“I didn’t feel like I was good enough. I wish I’d been able to do it without looking around and comparing myself to everyone else. Mom told me I should do it because it’s fun. And I wanted to. But it’s not that easy, you know?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I get that. Gymnastics seems really hard, too. I love watching it during the Olympics.”
“Same.”
She reached for a tin of mints on the nightstand by her bed. “I have a thing about fresh breath.”
“Hey, me, too! But my favorites are Tic Tacs. I’ve loved them forever. They’re my dad’s favorite, too.”
She popped a mint into her mouth and passed them to me. After I took one, I placed the tin back in its place and went over to her bookcase. There were a bunch of books I’d never heard of.
“Have you been to the bookmobile yet?” she asked.
“No. My grandma told me about it, though. I want to go.”
“We should go together,” she said. “You’ll love it. If you love books, that is.”
“I totally do.” I turned around. “Is it open now?”
“No, not on Sundays. Tomorrow, I have to help out in the shop for a little while in the morning. And then I have plans with my friend Shelby after that. But Tuesday I could go with you, if you want?”
For some reason, when she mentioned Shelby, I felt an icy-cold prickle shoot through my body. It was ridiculous. What did I expect—that Emma, who had lived here most of her life, wouldn’t have any friends? Of course she had friends. She was sweet and fun and, okay, very curious, and I shouldn’t be surprised if she had fifty friends. She seemed to know just about everyone in the neighborhood; I’d seen that myself. But I didn’t have anyone else here, and so it hurt, thinking of her off having fun while I’d be sitting at home, alone.
All of a sudden, I felt so homesick for Bakersfield, my stomach hurt. “I should probably get home,” I told Emma.
“Already? But we just got here.”