Page 22 of The Summer List

She huffs a laugh, and sweat breaks out on the back of my neck as I wonder if that was meant to be a sarcastic jab at me telling her dad she’s here. Before I can stammer an apology, she heads off in the direction of the nearest staircase.

“So get up to any mischief you want,” she calls over her shoulder, “as long as you invite me.”

Despite my major social malfunctioning, something about that sentence and her borderline flirty tone still makes goose bumps rise on my thighs.

She’s that powerful.

“Wait a minute,” Shal says into the silence of the room once Andrea’s gone. I watch as her expression shifts from pensive to diabolical.

“Shal…” Priya warns.

Shal dashes after Andrea before either of us can tell her to stop.

“Hey, wait!” I hear her calling. “Andrea!”

There’s a pause, and then Andrea’s voice calls back, “Yeah?”

“Two questions: how old are you, and do you smoke weed?”

CHAPTER 6

Andrea

“Wow,” Priya says in a low whisper from up in the passenger seat. “I’m touching marijuana.”

She’s holding the plastic bag featuring the dispensary’s logo with just the tips of her fingers, like it’s an ancient relic from an Indiana Jones movie—awe-inspiring, but possibly about to shoot out poison darts at anyone who tries to touch it.

I press my lips together to keep from laughing and look over at Naomi in the seat beside me. Her shoulders are shaking like she’s trying not to laugh too. I lean forward, trying to catch her eye, and when she notices me, I grin and tilt my chin toward Priya.

The corners of her mouth twitch up into the hint of a smile, but then her gaze drops to the floor of the minivan. I notice her fingers are clamped around the edge of her seat, squeezing hard.

Like I make her nervous.

I can’t tell if I want to reassure her enough to make her grip loosen, or if I want to lean in even closer and see exactly what happens when Naomi Waters runs out of places to hide.

Something clenches low in my stomach, and I turn to look out the window instead. Whatever I want to do probably shouldn’t happen in the backseat of a van with her two best friends sitting up front.

Whatever I want to do probably shouldn’t happen at all. I shouldn’t even be in this van. I should be working on sorting my life out, but it’s hard to say no when the universe delivers an infinitely more fun opportunity.

I rest my temple against the cool glass of the window and watch the tourist-packed streets of downtown Ottawa go by. We’re close enough to the ByWard Market that every sidewalk is lined with tour buses and frazzled staff with clipboards running around to organize their groups. The sight brings back a few fragmented memories of a first grade field trip when they took us downtown to see the Parliament buildings. That was way back before the divorce, when Mom and I still lived in Ottawa with Dad.

I push the memories away before they can start to sting, and then I tune into what Priya and Shal are saying up front.

“It’s easy to get way too high on edibles,” Shal tells her sister. “Trust me. I’ve seen it happen. It’s better that we actually smoke.”

She steers the van onto the winding parkway that runs along the Ottawa River and over to Dad’s mansion-laden neighborhood, dark sunglasses covering her eyes. She speaks like someone who’s seen it all, but I’ve spotted a few cracks in her confidence during the couple hours I’ve known her. She almost reminds me of my mom.

Everything about Shal is calculated, carved from hours of effort to look like it takes no effort at all. She sucks in her surroundings and spits them back out as whatever the people she’s looking to impress expect.

Experience with my mom tells me that on the rare occasion she can’t meet those expectations, she crumbles, all the versions of herself she’s worked so hard to construct crashing down around her in a heap.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Priya says, still grasping the bag I handed her like she’s considering chucking it out the window. “This is so illegal. This is the most illegal thing I’ve ever done.”

This time, I can’t help laughing out loud.

Shal’s head tilts up to look at me in the rearview mirror. “What’s the most illegal thing you’ve ever done, Andrea?”

There’s a hint of a challenge in her voice. I feel a smirk taking over my face before I can stop it.

---