Page 2 of Sawyer

Poison Ivy.

I reach up and rub my eyes like they do in the movies, and when I open them again, there’s no one in sight. The door to the store is closed, and no one’s coming or going.

“I’m seeing things,” I mutter to myself, shoving Gran’s list in my pocket and pulling my keys from the ignition. “Thatwasn’ther.”

How do I know it wasn’ther? Becauseshedoesn’t come to Skagway in the off-season. Never has. Never will. At least not as far back as I can remember, and that’s pretty much forever. The summer season—with its mega-wealthy tourists and their generous, omnipresent dollars—is far more her style.

I slam the truck door behind me, loping across the street to the store, but now, all I can think about is Ivy Caswell.

Beautiful, rich and smart, she’s my dream girl and my nemesis all in one, and has been ever since I can remember.

I first met Ivy about twelve years ago when our dad enrolled Parker and me at a weeklong summer Bible camp at the Presbyterian church. I knew all seven of the kids who showed up that morning, except for her. With her blazing red hair pulled back in two tidy braids and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks, I would’ve remembered her if we’d met before. She was the cutest girl I’d ever seen. Only nine years old, and I was instantly smitten.

Ms. Clearwater, who’d been my third-grade teacher the year before, had instructed me to pair up with Ivy for a craft activity.

“Sawyer Stewart,” she’d said, “this here is Ivy Caswell. Ivy’s visiting her aunt and uncle from Fairbanks. Let’s show her a real Skagway welcome, huh?”

I had no idea what a “real Skagway welcome” was, but I’d seen Bruce’s show at the Parsnip more than once. Taking off theFly Fish Alaska!baseball hat on my head, I’d engaged in what I thought was a deep and elegant bow and announced in a booming voice, “Welcome to Skagway, little lady!”

Ms. Clearwater had rolled her eyes.

The rest of the kids at Bible camp, Parker included, had snickered.

But Ivy Caswell had grinned a gap-toothed smile at me and curtsied, just like the waitresses who played bawdy ladies in Bruce’s show.

“Thank you, kind sir!” she’d answered with a little giggle.

The whole world had melted away in that instant. There was me, in hand-me-down jeans, a T-shirt, and flip-flops, doing a dumb bow, and Ivy, in a blue and pink plaid sundress and white sandals, curtsying back to me.

I was pretty sure life couldn’t ever get any better than that.

“Afternoon, Sawyer!” calls Neena Antonov as I enter the store. I heard she got promoted to Assistant Manager recently, and sure enough, the shiny gold name badge on her red smock says as much.

“Hey, Neena. Congrats on the new job. Everything good?”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, giving me the usual lusty once-over with her dark eyes. “You’relooking good, lil’ Sawyer.”

I wink at her. “Not nearly good enough for you!”

“Flirt!” she crows, cackling with glee. Neena is Harper’s age—a decade older than me—which means I’ve known her forever. “I’m too old for you.”

“How’s the little one?” I ask. Neena had a baby last fall. “She’s real good. Stays with Sandra Clearwater while I’m at work.”

“Glad to hear it.”

I grab a shopping cart and pull Gran’s list from my pocket.

“Shopping for the fam?” she asks.

“Yup.”

“Need any help?”

“Neena,” I say, “I’ve been coming to this store since I was in diapers. What do you think?”

“Sassy,” she says. “I like it.”

She turns back to the manager’s desk by the checkout counter, and I head into the dairy and produce area. The former is well-stocked. The latter is starting to thin out. There are still potatoes, onions, carrots, and apples, but fresh greens are getting sparse now. It’s impossible to grow them locally and expensive to ship them up. Luckily, back at home, we have a small portion of our barn that my father recently converted to an indoor greenhouse. We’ll have greens all winter long.

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