Page 4 of Songs of Summer

Maggie held up the next record. “James Bond 007: 13 Original Themes?”

“Ah. My dad will love that!” Jason declared.

Maggie’s face lit up. Jason stood and pulled her off the counter for a hug.

“Mags. You know my family loves you more than theylove me, right? No need to impress them—plus, this is our celebration, not theirs.”

“Well, you know I like giving more than receiving. And they’ve all been so good to me.”

It was true. Ever since they were kids, Jason’s family had welcomed Maggie as if she were their own flesh and blood, and Maggie, as the only child of two older parents, ate up the daily chaos of the Miller house, even if she loved jumping the back fence and going home afterward even more. She relished the quiet familiarity of her own home: Joni Mitchell singing “Big Yellow Taxi” on the turntable, her mom preparing dinner in the kitchen, three plates set at the table, four eyes staring at their greatest gift, asking about her day or her dreams or even just how she liked the turkey tetrazzini.

Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?

It had been four years since she’d lost her parents, and it still felt very fresh to her; you could see it in her eyes. Birthdays and holidays were brutal.

“Where did you go?” Jason waved a hand in front of her face.

She smiled.

“C’mon. You can quiz me on the rest in the car. We’re already late, and you know what that means.”

She did. The only seats left at the table would be between his great-aunt Lauren and great-uncle Mike. Lauren was a close talker and Mike did this thing where he grasped your hand when making a point, leaving you unable to lift your fork to your mouth. He made a lot of points. Jason had sat next to him last year and barely got three bites in. He ate two bowls of cereal when he got home. Maggie hurried, packing up the gifts.

Track 2

Birthday

Maggie and Jason

If every birthdayhad been painful for Maggie since her parents had passed, this milestone felt particularly crippling. Not wanting to cause a scene or dampen Jason’s thirtieth, she kept her sorrow to herself. Or so she thought.

“What’s wrong?” Jason asked her while she was making herself busy in his parents’ kitchen for the fifth time that day. She avoided his eyes, but he knew what was wrong anyway. He had always been in tune with her every emotion. Her mother used to say that if Maggie was cut, Jason would bleed. He didn’t wait for an answer.

“I miss them too. I’m so sorry, Mags.” He wrapped his arms around her, but she quickly broke away.

“It’s not only that.”

He knew again.

“I’m your family, Maggie. And my family is your family. That’s not going to change.”

Jason was that friend who let you talk about the same thing seven thousand million times. This was the seven thousand millionth and one.

“For now, we are family. But one day you will meet someone and fall crazy in love, and I will be that girl that used to live behind you. I will lose a whole other family.”

“That will never happen.”

“It will. You’re a good catch. No woman will stand for this”—she motioned to the space between them—“even after we stop sleeping together.”

“Well, what if I already fell for that girl twenty years ago?”

“Stop.” She smiled, gently shoving him away.

“I’m serious. You’re my family, Maggie, and you’re my girl.”

“For the time being.” She dramatically sighed, teasing him now. She hated being vulnerable, always had. Being adopted didn’t help, and her parents’ deaths compounded her fear of walking without a map. She did everything she could to protect what was left of her resilience, which for her meant keeping everything as it was.

“How long till your sister mentions fixing you up with that woman from her office again, or till Jennifer Alexander asks you to sing karaoke again? Next time it will be ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi.’ ” She laughed, quoting the ’70s Patti LaBelle hit that they used to sing all the time as kids until they learned what it meant.

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