I nodded in agreement, eager to not talk about AP tests anymore. “Do you think he looked happy, though?”
Caro glanced back at the TV, even though the story was over. “I guess,” she said. “I don’t really know what Oliver’s happy face looks like. Maybe he’s just one of those people who looks perpetually underwhelmed.”
“He doesn’t always look underwhelmed!” I protested. “When we went surfing, he—”
“When you what the what?” Caroline all but chucked the bottle of Crimson Cabaret over her shoulder. “You went surfing with Oliver?”
“I didn’t tell you? My parents made me, they practically shoved me out the door.” I avoided Caro’s eyes as I turned back to my nails.
“And you didn’t tell me? Where’s my phone?”
“Why do you need your phone? Are you going to tweet Colleen Whitcomb and give her the scoop?”
“No, I’m texting Drew. I don’t care if he’s out with Kevin right now, he needs to know about this.”
“Wait, who’s Kevin?” I ran through my mental Rolodex of the guys that Drew liked. “I don’t know a Kevin.”
“He’s the homeschooled one. They played soccer last week and Drew’s team beat his and then I guess they did that whole ‘line up and shake hands’ thing afterward and love blossomed.” Caro fluttered her eyelashes dramatically. “You haven’t met him yet.”
“Why didn’t Drew tell me?”
Caro was typing like her fingers were on fire, wet nail polish be damned. “Drew already knew about you and Oliver?” she cried, reading off her phone screen.
“There’s no me and Oliver!” I said. “And of course he knew! Where do you think we got Oliver’s board and wet suit from?”
“You’re both dead to me,” Caro muttered, still texting.
“Wait, though. Is Kevin cute?”
“He’s cute in that tall, chiseled, soccer-playing way,” Caro said. “So yeah, pretty much. Although, let’s be honest, water polo is where it’s at.” She paused to read the screen. “Drew says he needs a ride to school on Monday because his van’s getting detailed.”
“Tell him I’ll pick him up at seven.”
“She’ll . . . pick . . . you . . . up . . . at . . . seven.” Caro narrated her text as she typed.
“Does Kevin look like David Beckham?”
Caro just raised an eyebrow. “How many high school seniors do you know that look like David Beckham?”
“Zero?”
“Exactly. And I don’t even care about Kevin anymore. I care about you and Oliver surfing together.” She sat on her knees next to me, like an eager puppy who had been promised a treat.
“What?” I laughed and turned back to my nails. “We surfed, we had dinner—”
“Oh my God, you went on a date with him.”
“It was not a date!” I protested.
“If you eat food with a guy, it’s a date. Proven fact. Don’t argue with me, I don’t make the rules. This is just how it is.” Caro flapped her hands at me. “So? What else?”
“I don’t know, I just taught him how to surf—”
“Was he good?”
“No, he was terrible. Almost as bad as you.” I waited for Caro to respond, but she just nodded in agreement. “And then we went to the Stand and had food and then we came home.”
“Do your parents know you guys went surfing?”
I bopped her on the head with one of the couch throw pillows. “No, are you crazy? I can’t tell them that!”
“But they know you went out? What happened to giving him space?”
“Well, apparently, now we’re easing back into suburban life.”
Caro shook her head. “Sometimes you’ve got to cannonball into the pool,” she said. “Just get it over with.”
“Yeah, well, that works for pools, Caro.” I waved my hands to dry my nails faster. “Not always actual real-life experiences.”
Caro just looked thoughtful. “So you went with Oliver to the beach, ate dinner—”
“I paid, though.”
“—I like your style, Emmy, very modern—and then lied about it to your parents. Sounds like a date to me.”
“You know nothing,” I told her. “I babysit for his sisters, he lives next door, we were friends a long time ago. We’re just picking up where we left off.”
Caro took the pillow from me and hugged it to her. “You can’t pick up where you left off,” she said, her voice softer, “because he’s not the same person he was back then. You’re on an entirely different road now.”
This time, I didn’t have an answer.
“Oh God,” Caro finally said, and sat back on her heels. “You are in so much trouble.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I drove home from Caro’s later that night, after texting my parents to reassure them that I was on my way home. It was a five-minute drive, three if I made all the lights, and I rolled down the window as I drove, letting the eucalyptus-soaked air blow my hair back. It was cold, but after the conversation I had had with Caro, it felt good, normal, a steady constant of the past ten years when things now felt like Dorothy’s Kansas farmhouse, picked up and dropped aimlessly into a land that I couldn’t recognize anymore, a light so bright it made me squint and wish for familiar black-and-white dimness instead.